'One of the most indelible images of Trump's second term was when Elon Musk joined a press briefing at the Oval Office because Musk wasn't traveling alone. He was joined by his four-year-old son, who was doing, you know, honestly, what preschoolers do: picking his nose and whispering while his dad was talking.

'This is good. This is X, and he's a great guy. High IQ. He's a high-IQ individual.

'So little X -- yes, that is his name -- he's part of the kind of growing progeny of Elon Musk. It's part of a broader worldview that Musk has embraced that falling birth rates are an existential threat to civilization.

For most countries, they view the birth rate as as the single biggest problem. So, I mean, if you don't make you, you humans, there's no humanity. And all the policies in the world don't matter.

I know you've been doing your part to maintain the birth rate in the US.

Yes, I am. I mean, you know, it's. You've got to walk the talk. So I do have a lot of kids, and I encourage others to have lots of kids.

'The push to have bigger families and more babies is part of a movement called pro natalism. And it's drawn a mix of those in the tech right, the new right and old-fashioned pro-marriage conservatives. Basically, they are freaking out about declining global fertility rates. And that is real. It's a phenomenon called "birth dirth." In 2023, the U.S. saw its lowest fertility rates ever. But now we're seeing this issue play out in real life in the policies out of the Trump administration. So, for example, Sean Duffy, the new transportation secretary, sent out a memo saying that the department should prioritize spending grant money on projects for communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average. So today, we're asking what's behind this push to start a new baby boom? Who are the voices pushing for a more pro-family America? And what exactly does that mean? I'm Audie Cornish, and this is The Assignment. I was today-years-old when I learned about NatalCon.

By the end of this century, every country on earth will have a shrinking population. Negative economic growth wiped out trillions of dollars in investment.

This is from a promotional video produced by the organizers.

And for every working age American family, there will be four adult dependents. The burden on our grandchildren will be crushing.

Basically, it's a gathering for people who are concerned about, quote, collapsing fertility, the economic challenges of having children, and the increasing difficulty of dating for men and women.

The first talk was was like a video and it was about unplanned childlessness. And I thought, okay, yeah, that makes sense. But over the course of the day, the talks got like a little more strange.

That's Gaby Del Valle. She's a reporter for The Verge. She covers issues of privacy, surveillance, Silicon Valley and the New Right. She actually went to the first ever Natal conference in Austin, Texas. This was back in 2023.

'The way that I have come to see the pro-natalist movement is that there are two camps, basically. There's the "tech camp," and there's the "trad camp," but the trad camp -- and this is like in big quotes -- are, you know, religious conservatives. There were some Catholics there, some evangelical Christians. There are people who believe in having large families as like both like this kind of religious mandate and like part of their culture, just part of like what they have been called to do. And then there are the tech pro-natalists, who see having large families as like a solution to a problem, the problem being low birth rates. The issue you got into is at the tech camp and the trade camp are just kind of like morally opposed on these things. Like a lot of these reproductive technologies facilitate the destruction of fetuses. And to the the religious camp that is like the destruction of human life. The question that I don't have an answer to, but I'm very curious about, is, are these differences irreconcilable, or are they just kind of like, well, we both want higher birth rates, so we're just going to collaborate on this for now.

'There's also a third subgroup of pro-natalists trying to bridge this divide. People who believe that having children and a family is just the surest route to happiness.

I'm concerned at a more human level that people are just kind of missing out on the opportunity to, you know, have kids to raise families and to experience, you know, the joy of, of living with and for, you know, others.

Brad Wilcox is a professor of sociology at the University of Virginia. He's also the author of a book called "Get Married: Why Americans Should Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization."

My kind of primary identity is someone who really articulates and believes in the importance of marriage and family for, you know, for ordinary Americans, and certainly I think, as.

Opposed to who?

'Well, I think, you know, in our culture, Audie, we're seeing both voices on the left for a long time, to be honest. And then now new voices on the right who are really kind of anti, you know, anti-marriage, anti-having-kids. And I'm trying to kind of get people to understand and appreciate that. For most of us, having a spouse and having children is a path to financial security and more importantly, to meaning and and happiness most of the time.

'So when I hear you talk, it feels very familiar. It feels like the Republican conservative argument of old, which is like the family, right? Being pro-family. And where I start to get lost is this new Venn diagram of people you're talking about who are concerned about global, and U.S., and -- a lot of times they say this word -- Western population decline. The idea that, like the fertility rates in so many countries are lower than it used to be, and that this is not just a sort of interesting issue. It's a crisis. And where does that world of people intersect with you?

'Yeah. So there's a good number of us in my institute, the Institute of Family Studies, that I helped to found has just kind of hired a new director. We're calling it our pro-natalism initiative, who's who's also kind of --

Oh, so it's even new for you.

So it's new for us, too, to kind of like, tackle this issue, but I think there's kind of a growing recognition on the part of, you know, many scholars and many public intellectuals who are kind of paying attention and certainly policymakers as well, that fertility, Audie, is dropping across most of the globe that a majority of countries across the world have below replacement rates of fertility. That's 2.1. babies per on average. And kind of given current demographic, you know, trends, a lot of places, a lot of countries, including the US, are going to be facing some, you know, major demographic challenges.

'What will that mean? You're seeing major demographic challenges, but I, I see words like collapse, right. Like the language gets pretty dire --

'Sure, well, it is pretty --

'-- from people explaining about what this could mean.

Yeah, so in some countries we're looking at collapse. Right. So South Korea unfortunately is leading out here.

Famous example.

They've got a fertility rate of about 0.7 babies per on average. And that means that they are going to see their population probably more than halve in this century, which is going to have just.

And we should be clear, the replacement rate, I believe, which is the amount of children people need to have in order for a population to at least maintain, is 2.1.

On average. Right, yup.

Um, yeah. Exactly. Right. And even countries like I think I was reading Nigeria had a rate at one point of seven and now it's down to like three. So even places that we consider still having a big fertility rate, this is a kind of a global thing.

Yes.

It cuts across demographics.

Right.

And to my mind there is not actually an official answer. There are many ideas that contribute to people's sense of why this is.

'Yeah. No, that's certainly I think all that's accurate. It's also important to I think just put some surprising, you know, statistics on people's radar screen. And that is one I think surprising that most Americans I think, would be surprised to learn is that our fertility rate now in the U.S. Is higher than Mexico's, and that a clear majority of Latin American countries have below replacement fertility rates. So this is kind of this is not just, you know, an American thing or a European thing. And I think it's just cause for concern, in part because it's going to put big pressures on our economy. Generally speaking, you know, having more kids, having more prime-aged adults then later obviously is linked to growth. As more workers kind of enter the economy, it's going to put even more pressures on our government because obviously more taxpayers help pay the burdens associated with things like, you know, Medicare and Social Security and I think even more fundamentally, kids, families, you know, bring our, I think, a lot of meaning to our lives, generally speaking, some real happiness as well. And so I'm concerned at a more human level that people are just kind of missing out on the opportunity to, you know, have kids to raise families and to experience, you know, the joy of, of living with and for others in a profoundly human way in the context of family life.

'So some of the actual policies then that get suggested that go along with this. Tell me if I'm listing them correctly. So I hear about limiting access to contraceptives. I hear about banning no-fault divorce. I also hear about ending policies that subscribe to kind of single motherhood, which I have to admit, I actually don't know what that means. But what are some of the real policies given what we've just said? Sure. Global issue, many factors, different countries trying different things that natalists in the U.S. think are going to make the difference.

'Yeah. Well, I mean, those policies are not ones that we've been articulating on. And obviously I think, you know --

But you hear them, right?

'Sure, no, I think they're certainly part of the, you know, part of the larger kind of, you know, family conversation that's particularly taking place on, on, on the right, you know, but I think when it comes to certainly, you know, there's there's been a push on the, on the part of the New Right to kind of challenge the sort of reigning Republican orthodoxy, which is that the solution to most of our problems is fewer regulations and less taxes. Right. That's kind of been the sort of classic Republican orthodoxy. And so there are --

Yeah, you're really in the minority if you're not for that right now.

'And for, you know, I think some figures, you know, in, in the New Right and the Republican Party as well, including Vice President Vance, I think that there is a recognition, as he said, that the task of our government is to make it easier for young moms and dads to afford to have kids, and that he wants to think about our success as a country, not in terms of GDP, but quite in terms of whether people feel that they can raise thriving and healthy families in our country. So I think from that perspective, at least, where we're at, you know, at my institute is about really more constructive policies when it comes to economics, looking at things like can we --

What's less constructive? What to you feels, like, not helping the cause that you've been behind for a long time?

'Right. I mean I think trying to go into the business of maybe shaming single mothers, for instance, is not constructive. I think it's more about trying to paint a positive vision of marriage, a family life that's appealing and attractive to younger adults and adolescents, to kind of get them to understand that, you know, at the end of our days or even in the middle of our days, I'm 54. I mean, you know, there's nothing that's more important than, you know, our spouses, our kids oftentimes and that things that oftentimes --

'But what I think like what we heard during the election time, let's say from J.D. Vance, was the thing about childless cat ladies. And what we hear is a conversation that says the elites, that there's a portion of the country--.

Sure.

'-- especially those who live in cities who by cultural design have made it have stigmatized having children have made it difficult for people to have that experience for whatever reason, but also made it just less appealing and that that is the default setting in the country. And that feels weird given what you just said: higher fertility rate than a lot of other places. And you know, as someone who has had kids, it felt like all around me people were having kids. Like, I didn't feel like I was living in this bohemian elite that was just like, I'd rather be in Cabo. But like, that's what it feels like we're being told.

'Sure. Well, I think that there audio there is. There's some truth to when I you know what you've been kind of hearing in the discourse. Right. Which is that and again, I wish we lived in a country where kind of marriage and family were not coded, you know, along partisan and ideological lines. But unfortunately, they are when you look at kind of the share of, you know, Americans who think that marriage is important for kids, what you see is that the group of Americans who are most likely to kind of affirm that notion are college-educated Republicans. The group is the least likely to affirm that idea today, Audie, are college-educated Democrats and--

'But isn't it college-educated across the board that maintains higher marriage rates?

'Right. And so what I talk about in my book --

Like, those are Democrats, too.

'Of course. And when I talk about in my book is that there are plenty of, I think, you know, well-meaning liberals and Democrats who are college educated, who are getting married, staying married. And what I say, they're often kind of talking left in their public capacities as journalists and school superintendents and policy makers or, you know, whatnot. But then in their private lives, I would say they're often leaving very marriage-minded lives. And so what I'm asking, you know, people like yourself, for instance, is just to be kind of more articulate and public about kind of like the benefits of marriage and family and your capacities as journalists and as school superintendents and as sense policymakers.

So this is interesting. No, I'm glad you're posing this to me, because I'll let you know, for instance, of course, I have been pitched stories about being childless by choice, right, in that movement online, or the 4B movement in South Korea.

Sure.

Also, and I'm a person who sometimes like gets nervous talk because I don't want to be the person who talks about my kids too much. You know what I mean? So to your point, that kind of cultural, sometimes it doesn't always feel welcome. So I do feel what you're saying in that way. Do you know what I mean? Like, I personally don't read essays like in The Cut or New York Times and think like, oh man, this lady's mad because she can't go to brunch with people in her kids. I remember that was an actual thing. It was like, will our friendships survive your children?

Right.

I'm like, okay, you know, that's a problem for someone out there. But most of my friends like, we just want to get breakfast on the table for said children.

Of course.

We're living a different life.

Right.

'I, I think what I'm unclear about is where pro natal is start to talk about policy. It sounds like really fundamental shifts that they're asking for that are not just sort of like supporting people with kids, right? Or being like, here's some tax breaks. It's like no-fault divorce.

'Right? So I think that's certainly part and parcel of some elements. And there's certainly, you know, you can find conservative state legislators, you know, in places like Oklahoma City, Audie, who would be, you know, I think making that argument. And they are right now in the Oklahoma State legislature. But I'm sort of saying that there are also plenty of folks. And there was a recent article in The Atlantic kind of on our crew. And what The Atlantic reports is that were kind of in part about trying to get economic measures related to like an expanded child tax credit, but also to kind of doing things like, you know, making single family housing more affordable by a range of different ideas, policy ideas, because we understand and appreciate this is what kind of marks us as the Newer Right, in part, that the challenges facing American families are not simply cultural or legal. They're also economic. And it's there's just no doubt to when you look at marriage trends that college-educated Americans are doing way better on the marriage front than then working-class Americans are. And so given that kind of, class-based reality, we do think that there are economic things that can and should be done to strengthen families. And that does kind of mark us as different than, I would say, kind of the kind of classic Republican model from the 1980s and 90s and early 2000s, so.

'There's also an aspect of this, which is the tech right, which I think of as Elon Musk. And his argument is like, literally, I'm doing my part to address this decline, of course, by having more children. And you have people like Congressman Matt Gaetz, you know, talking about how Musk has incredible genetics --

Exactly.

'-- And like getting into literally just-- It gets into territory that for someone like me who I would say is pro-natal- curious--.

Sure.

'-- starts to make me nervous because that the it's becomes about the the genetics and having the kids. It's actually not about families.

'No. And I do you know, I think that we are not on board with the kind of more eugenic, you know, pro-natalist voices. And there are a number of them.

'And you said "eugenic" -- not me -- just so we're clear. So you know what I'm talking about.

'No. And totally it's about kind of, you know, altering genes and, you know, kind of oftentimes celebrating certain kinds of of kids and, you know, discounting other kinds of kids. We're trying to be as clear as we can that we think it's about kind of, you know, welcoming children, creating family contexts, both policy-wise and culturally, that are, you know, family-friendly--

'But it's you up against the internet, right? I feel like there's such there's a tsu-- tsunami of content and influencers and like, you know, you're in your office.

'Sure. Yeah, I mean but I think there's also public voices. I mean, you know, I'm here in Ohio today and met with the governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, this morning to talk about trying to make Ohio a more family-friendly state. And we've got both economic ideas about what that means, but also cultural ideas as well. Talking about what's called the "success sequence" with Ohio children. So I think there are ways to kind of, you know, influence the fabric of American family life that are, you know, different than just kind of building up an account on Twitter or on YouTube. And we're trying to kind of advance the policy ball, both the state and the federal levels to, again, make both our country and our states more family friendly, to do so in a way that's not racist and not eugenic.

'Brad Wilcox is my guest. We'll have more after the break. So let me speculate, because I want to think about myself as either an avatar or messenger for people in the public space. Number one, there is a way sometimes that nationalism also sounds like judgment. There's something wrong with you out there. And the way you live that you don't understand family is important. There's some judgment there. And I do come from a position of I don't actually judge people -- their decisions -- about how they build their family or do not. And as a result, I think you're right. Maybe I don't speak probably-- It's not a particular cause of mine and nor am I hiding it. I talk about it all the time because, like I come from an immigrant background, right? I come from a religious background. There's parts of your Venn diagram that I am in just by virtue of some of those things.

Correct.

But I don't look askance at other people who are not doing it. So that's number one. Number two, one of the things I've noticed is, again, what I hear from progressives sometimes is there's so much focus in that movement about women's bodies, not just about abortion, but just like, should you work, how you work, how many kids you have that decision, somehow all these very personal decisions become the province of men without there being a bunch of corollary policies about men, you know what I mean? Like, so, I don't know, there's a collapsing sperm count. Go figure that out. You know what I mean? Like, maybe there are other things that could be focused on. And what I hear progressive advocates say is, gee, a lot of this seems to be about women's fertility in their control over it. Do you think there's more conversation to be had about men?

Yeah, I think we do see, as you mentioned earlier, that our fertility rate is about 1.6, which isn't, in my view, great, but it's way better than South Korea.

Better than a lot of places.

In Taiwan, etc.. Right. So East Asia is in just in demographic freefall for all of our, you know, faults as men and our challenges here as men in the US, we are a lot more engaged with our, you know, with our families and our children. And we've seen across the generations here in the United States, dramatic increases in men's involvement on the family front. And again, it's still the case. We all know that women do more than men on the household front. But if you look at this from more global perspective, what you see is that American husbands and fathers are a lot more engaged. And and I would also say, too, that marriages where men are engaged practically and emotionally are happier ones, both for, you know, the wives and for the husband. So. So yeah, I think we need to kind of continue to encourage men to embrace the opportunities and challenges family life.

Because like you, I hear the Andrew Tates of the world, I hear the Manosphere. And it's a lot of like, the women don't want this. The women are working too much. The women don't think they need us, that there's just this like big narrative that like these problems that we have are because you women are getting in your own way and, therefore, hurting civilization, right, by not getting on board. Whereas I look at someplace like South Korea and I think, well, wait a second, they had a postwar government policy to reduce the number of mouths to feed because they were starving in the streets. You have generations of people who were told don't have as many children. So is it really a shock, right, that like, they can't turn it around when you've now built whereas the US. I don't feel that I truly, in my heart of hearts, don't feel like I have been told generationally not to have kids. I feel the opposite.

'Well, but I do think again, there are plenty of voices, both kind of in the media, but also kind of implicitly, I think articulating kind of a kind of a delay and maybe a forego strategy when it comes to getting married and having kids. I think obviously, like the classic, you know, TV show that comes to mind here is "FRIENDS" kind of led the way in some ways. But if you're kind of turn on, you know, the TV nowadays, you're just kind of plenty of shows that are kind of spotlighting 20-something and even 30-something folks who are kind of living their supposedly best lives, as you know, as doctors or detectives or -- you know the shows -- and what's I think interesting is you kind of look at their family lives, in these television shows, they're typically single and, you know, they're not kind of married with kids. So I think that there are plenty of more, I would say anti-nuptial, anti-natalist messages that are kind of built into the culture. I think the challenge today is, and one of the things that talk about in the book "Getting Married" is that we're estimating now that a third of young adults, Audie, will never marry. This will be a record, you know, demographic trend for our country. And so I think my concern as I talk to young adults in my classrooms at UVA, for instance, is just I think people assume that they can kind of, you know, get educated, get that perfect job started and then, you know, hit 28, 29 or 30 and kind of turn around and find like the ideal spouse and get started on a family in their 30s. And I think that, certainly, was true for many of their parents in terms of how they approach things. But I think in a in a new world where a lot of young men are floundering when it comes to education and work, and in a new world of, I think, where people are, you know, more likely to have difficulty when it comes to socializing and dating, I would encourage younger adults, including my students, if they are to just be open, you know, to a serious relationship. And if that, you know, flourishes and flowers, think about marriage, you know, in your early 20s, in your mid 20s.

What do they say to you when you make this argument?

'You know, some are skeptical. They've heard from their parents. They shouldn't be thinking at all about marriage, you know, at this point in their lives. But I do think there's a very clear--.

What else? What else do they say? Because especially you're on a public university campus, and there's a lot of young liberal women there who might say, I don't know, the last, you know, couple decades' description of marriage is not enticing me.

'Yeah, I know there are concerns about marriage. And I think another concern that's really true is I feel like there aren't enough good guys out there who would be worthy of dating and marry, and it's certainly a recurring concern across both--

You actually hear that?

Oh, totally. A lot. No, that's partly why I wrote my book.

Yeah.

'I mean, I've been all about marriage and kids for, you know, a long, long time. But this book is really about marriage and adults. And I heard over and over again from young women in my classes that they were just concerned about their dating prospects, and they were not sure that marriage was acceptable to them or attractive to them. But at the same time, you know, I think that there are plenty of young adults who, you know, would make, you know, great spouses and they're just not being intentional enough about, in my view, prioritizing kind of dating and marriage in their 20s. And so I talked to one of my students, for instance, two years ago, who was, you know, Catholic conservative young guy. And I asked him about his kind of professional plans. He had a very kind of detailed plan about he's going to go back to grad school at this point, is going to work here, you know, all this kind of stuff. I said, well, would you like to get married? Oh, yeah, of course. I said, what are you doing to kind of kind of make progress on that agenda? Are you dating anybody? He said no. So again, I'm saying even for people who are kind of marriage-inclined or marriage-friendly, I don't think we do enough as a culture to kind of encourage them to be more kind of intentional and concrete about making progress on that agenda as well as on their more professional agenda.

So, Brad, what would be success to you? You know, all of a sudden we have this president who is talking about these issues in a way that might feel familiar to you, right? And people have been part of this movement. Certainly the vice president, JD Vance, Elon Musk talking about it in public. To you, what would success look like?

'So I think success would be really threefold. I think first, developing a new cultural appreciation for, you know, the value of, of marriage and parenthood. You know, and you could see, you know, in that in that scenario kind of shifts in attitudes and Gallup trends, you know, for instance, is one manifestation that. I think the second thing I would well, and actually, this is actually there is there is good news in all this. The share of kids really since about 2010, Audie, who are being raised in married parent families is actually climbing upwards for the first time in a very long time. The share of kids who are being raised in stable married families is now above 50 percent -- 53 percent we would estimate. So we've actually seen an uptick in the share of African-American kids being raised in married parent families in recent years. So I actually think we need to understand and appreciate that in in complex ways, the folks who are having kids, I think are kind of either explicitly or implicitly understanding that marriage matters, you know, and some important number. And that's good. But just to do more of that. But I think most fundamentally kind of seeing the the marriage rate just potentially bottomed out, you know, tick upwards. And I think that's going to be a challenge for both economic and policy reasons, but also fundamentally technological reasons. And that, of course, is just that. I think these devices, and for your listeners, I'm holding up my my iPhone. Gaming, pornography. We've now seen AI girlfriends and AI boyfriends come online. I think the technology is really kind of in different ways -- screens, you know, these new platforms -- are kind of degrading our capacity to socialize with one another, and our capacity to kind of have that important eye-to-eye contact that's so needed for, you know, boyfriends and girlfriends and for spouses and friends. And so I would say one of my biggest concerns we haven't talked a lot about is just the way in which technology, I think, does pose a major threat to--

Another threat.

'--to the opening of the American heart.

Yeah. Yeah. So you've talked about the cultural shift. You'd like to see a cultural embrace of married life. You talked about it just, again, the increase in kids raised in married, stable families, how you'd like that to spread to other classes, so to speak, economic classes. And then this issue of technology, right. This other potential threat, how can we bake in ways that that doesn't further deter people from socializing with each other? What would you like for this movement? I mean, I started with some skepticism, right? I'm like telling you, I'm like the populous, the white nationalists, the this. It's a real potpourri.

Correct.

And some of those flowers don't smell great. So tell me, what would you like for the movement? How would you like it to evolve in a way that would even just draw more people in it, that would make it less of a hard sell for your students even?

'Sure. Well, certainly, my colleague Lyman Stone is basically this idea. We want kind of Americans to have the kids that they would like to have, recognizing that right now people are not having, you know, the number of kids that they would like to have. But again, to kind of just help people understand and appreciate that in important ways. We live our best lives when we're living with and for our families. And so kind of that's the cultural, I think piece. And then at the same time, to recognize that there are economic barriers, too many guys are not working full-time. Too many young couples find, you know, affordable housing out of reach. And there are real kind of opportunity costs that parents incur from raising young children, which could be addressed with things like the child tax credit. So we do hope and are working towards a world where both Republicans and Democrats can maybe find some common ground when it comes to family-friendly policies.

That's Brad Wilcox. He's a sociology professor at the University of Virginia. His book is called "Get Married: Why Americans Should Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization." The Assignment is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Grace Walker, Sofia Sanchez, Madeleine Thompson, and special thanks to Dan Bloom. Our senior producer is Matt Martinez. The executive producer of CNN Audio is Steve Lickteig. Dan Dzula is our technical director. We also had support from Haley Thomas, Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers, Jon Dianora, Leni Steinhardt, Jamus Andrest, Nichole Pesaru, and Lisa Namerow. And as always, thank you for listening.