The widespread use of abortion and birth control has led to a decline in fertility rates all around the world. In 2020, the United States saw a record low of 56 births per 1,000 women. In 2023, the fertility rates were 1.7 births per woman in the U.S., 1.5 in the European Union, 1.3 in Japan, 0.8 in Korea, 1.8 in Mexico, and 2.0 in India — all below the number of births needed for population replacement.

Some say the solution is to address economic concerns by increasing governmental policy interventions. However, Dr. Catherine Ruth Pakaluk of The Catholic University of America found that, in countries where governments offer such “baby bonus” programs, couples already intending to have children rush to “re-time” their babies to grab the incentives — but there’s no nationwide increase in lifetime births.

Pakaluk set out to find whether the answer to solving the anti-natalism crisis might lie in the stories of those defying the low birth trend, and she documented her findings in her new book, Hannah’s Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth. She conducted 55 interviews with American, college-educated women who had five or more children with their spouses, and she specifically chose those who described having children as “purposeful.”

In attempting to define exactly what, in each case, this “purpose” was, Pakaluk found that people are motivated not by incentives, but by the value they assign to the choices in front of them. These women value what is becoming increasingly lost in our culture — the great worth of marriage, the viewing of children as gifts, and the belief in a true purpose in life.

Lesson #1. Marriage Is Better Than Individualism

In order to address declining fertility rates, the decline of marriage must first be examined. Pakaluk reported that today, fewer than 50% of children live with their own two married parents — the loving and stable situation in which children thrive best. This decline in marriage can largely be blamed on an increased focus on individualism.

Sociologist Andrew Cherlin has noted that, in the 20th century, an individualism arose that sought satisfaction outside of the family and set family life against personal well-being. The threat toward marriage was no longer from outside forces, but from within.

The women in this study fought against this selfish form of individualism and formed deeper bonds within their marriages through childbearing. One interviewee, Shaylee, who has seven children, told Pakaluk that while she and her husband don’t spend as much time one-on-one together anymore, they’re “doing this incredibly important and rewarding thing together,” without which they “wouldn’t know each other as well or be as close of trusting of each other.”

Terry, who has 10 children, said that being open to life has certainly contributed to intimacy with her husband. She said that her husband’s being open to the possibility of the creation of a new life has shown her how much he loves and respects her, and the love and respect he shows her after childbirth makes it easier for them to grow in service to each other.

Eileen, who has six children, stated that there’s nothing more romantic than watching her husband transform to meet the level of heroic virtue needed to fulfill the difficult needs of her family. “It’s really buoying for your love,” she told Pakaluk. “It creates and carves out a depth and height that you didn’t know you could carve.”

Hannah, who has seven children,  noted that in Aramaic, the word for “love” shares the same root as the word for “giving.” She went  on to explain that nothing in her life — no career or accomplishment — compares to the inner  peace she has discovered in family life,  where she has found her deepest sense of meaning.

Lesson #2. The Gift of Children Far Outweighs the Cost

The women in this study valued having children more than they valued sleep, comfort, career and status. They assessed their gains and losses of fitting in with their peers, keeping their old identities intact, focusing on professional work, and determined that children were incentive enough to tip the scales in favor of the self-denial required in child raising.

Pakaluk noted that governmental pro-natal policies fail to take into account the “entire bundle” of what it costs to have a child, such as what else a woman might want to do with her time and talent, and this is precisely why solely addressing economic concerns doesn’t drive up the birth rate.

The resources needed for increasing childbearing can’t come from the state, but rather from a mother “placing herself at the service of a new life.” The women who choose this path of dying to self rightly view children as gifts, are open to these gifts, and trust God that these blessings will bring “their own source of divine flow of sustenance, and benefit to the family and to the world.”

Lesson #3. The Joy of Motherhood Can’t Be Measured in Advance

These mothers testified that having children isn’t something you can really know until you experience it — the costs and benefits can’t be assessed in advance of being experienced.

If it is continually enforced to women growing up that their sole focus must be their studies and careers, then the value determination that having a child means missing out on all of these opportunities is amplified. The value of what these women have come to know outweighs the value of a child that they don’t know.

As Pakaluk reported, “For them, children weren’t like a consumption good with diminishing satisfaction,” and these women reported feeling even more joy with their subsequent babies than their first and second children.

Lesson #4. Motherhood Points to Eternity

These women have embraced the self-sacrificial Christ-like act of becoming more of who they truly are by finding themselves through their children. Many claim that motherhood has saved them from immaturity, selfishness and uselessness while fostering self-denial, empathy, generosity and solidarity. Shaylee said that, while motherhood is the hardest thing she’s ever done, it’s also “the most rewarding thing [she] can imagine doing,” as her children were helping her become who she needed to be.

Terry told Pakaluk that motherhood made her “more selfless than [she] ever thought possible,” and while her desire to have children was certainly motivated by her being religious, having children had always been obvious to her, and she described the motivation as “pre-religious” and “underneath religion.” It was more a desire that had always been set in her heart — a fulfillment of something placed in her.

Hannah discussed how having children links her to a “chain of infinity,” connecting her to the past and future and honoring her ancestral line, while giving her structure and allowing her to grow and feel connected to something higher than herself.

Shaylee and Terry felt similarly. Shaylee said that family is sacred and eternal, and that familial relationships live on after death, and Terry said that childbearing was about bringing souls into the world that would last forever, and that her sufferings, worries and inabilities were minuscule compared to eternity. Danielle, who has seven kids, observed that children contribute to a “tapestry of family” and the handing down of wisdom through generations, and that “they really are a gift and it’s a privilege to have them and to raise them and to know them.”

As these women help us to see, the secret to “defying the birth dearth” lies in rewiring the mindset of society to view children and family as one of the greatest gifts God has given to help us reach Christ-likeness.