The Rise of the Pathological Mother

Why my generation raises kids who act as contraceptives for the next

The Birth Drop We Don’t Want to Talk About

50% of women in their 30s are childless—and we are desperate to find out why.

How can we expect people to imagine their own children will be any different from children they are modelled? After witnessing their nephew hold his parents hostage at Christmas with nothing but a glare and a gluten allergy, any reasonable person would go home thinking—perhaps we’ll travel and enjoy ourselves just one more year.

The reason is that my generation fell for gentle parenting in some form or another—many won’t even realize that’s what they’re doing. This isn’t just about those who explicitly subscribe to it, which is why I’ll use the term millennial parenting for my purposes here. The style has permeated the culture, thanks to the dominance of maternal influence, a sentimentalized view of childhood, and the slow displacement of men from the family structure.