Hannah's Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth by Catherine Pakaluk

(New York: Simon and Schuster, 2024), 344

Families with many children are a rich soil for the soul. (314)

I'm the richest man in the world because I have all of you. (106)

I read this shortly after our fifth child was born, which felt appropriate given that this book builds an economic thesis of childbearing based on interviews with women who have five or more children. Reading this book make you want to have more children and appreciate your children more.

The thesis runs something like this: Over the last century or so, the direct economic benefit of having children has eroded thanks to changes such as production outside the home, compulsory schooling, and entitlement programs. Meanwhile, the costs of having children have increased—not so much the direct costs of raising a child, but the opportunity costs of foregoing a career outside the home after spending 20+ years on expensive education and career development. Whereas the economic interests of the family and the nation were formerly aligned, now the raw economic interests of the family (or mother) are for fewer kids.

Add to this misalignment of economic interests the widespread availability of contraception to separate the marital act from one of its two natural ends, and the result is unsurprising: a collapse in fertility rates, with the US being generally been below replacement since 1971 and consistently been below replacement since 2008 (28). Pro-natalist policies such as tax credits and subsidies are not enough to make up for the now-larger opportunity costs of having a large family.

What is the solution to this problem? Given the size of the opportunity costs, policy makers cannot directly influence childbearing. But Pakaluk's work shows how almost all women in the US with big families are religious (66), and argues that the state can "foster childbearing indirectly by cultivating the conditions in which incentives that are weighty enough to inspire women to have more children arise. The policy lesson is simple: the flourishing of traditional religious institutions breaks the low-marriage-low-fertility cycle" (340). Religious liberty and support for religious institutions in public life takes on a pragmatic weight when viewed against this economic reality.

On a personal level, this is a heartwarming book to hear the stories of these mothers and take encouragement from them. They help to show what is possible and they articulate many of the struggles and joys of having lots of children.

This book is a good counterpoint to In Necessity and Sorrow, recommended by Ruth Pakaluk in The Appalling Strangeness of the Mercy of God.

Notes


Contents


Part One: "The Meaning of Everything"—Introducing Hannah's Children

Chapter 1: "He Still Wants You"—Stranger on a Train

Summary: Introduction to the question of "why have more children" and the stories to form part of an answer.

  • Why have lots of children? "I suppose it boils down to some sort of deeply held thing, possibly from childhood—a platinum conviction-that the capacity to conceive children, to receive them into my arms, to take them home, to dwell with them in love, to sacrifice for them as they grow, and to delight in them as the Lord delights in us, that that thing, call it motherhood, call it childbearing, that that thing is the most worthwhile thing in the world-the most perfect thing I am capable of doing." (6)
  • "There is no more economically significant question than where people come from, and nothing more deeply informs the way we order our lives together than the first society we experience: the family." (7)
  • This work: stories are not data points, but anecdotes that suggest potential revision of economic theories. (8)

Chapter 2: Reasons of the Heart—Hannah's Children

Summary: Children come from the heart.

  • "A little bit more super-rational thinking has to infiltrate the masses to know that things are possible, possibilities of expansion in your life." (12)
  • "Children are the key to infinity." (13)
  • Two ways of life: the mothers in this book made a "deliberate rejection of an autonomous, customized, self-regarding lifestyle in favor of a way of life intentionally limited by the demands of motherhood. In general, they were motivated by a deeply religious worldview characterized by trust in God and hope in his providence. Faith enabled and dignified costly personal sacrifices." (14)
  • In having children we find ourselves, our personalities and capacities are expanded, opening us to receive gifts of love and sacrifice. (14)
  • "The family works against individualism by asserting a communitarian reality...With strong, stable families, democracy in America might have a chance of fostering the private and public virtue that Tocqueville worried about." (15-16, cf. Democracy in America)

Chapter 3: "Red-Diaper Babies"—Political Fault Lines

Summary: Different political ideologies lead to different child-bearing outcomes.

  • "Birth rates and marriage behavior correlate powerfully with voting." (20)
  • "Today, fewer than 50% of children live with their own two married parents in their first marriage." (21)
  • Contrast between the individualism of the family ("self-sufficient and independent, or mostly so, from the larger community and certainly from the state") that Tocqueville had in mind vs. the expressive individualism ("the self in contradistinction from the family") in the mid-20th century (22)

Chapter 4: The Future of Humanity—Economic Demography

Summary: The economics of fertility.

  • A total fertility rate of 2.1 lifetime births per woman is required for a population to replace itself. The U.S. has generally been below replacement since 1971 and has consistently been below replacement since 2008 (28). "Convergence to low birth rates is an iron fact of modern demography." (30)
  • "Tax-and-transfer pension programs make the economic benefits of childbearing public and push them into the future, while the costs of childbearing remain private and immediate—setting up a free rider problem." (31)
    • → The fix is to either reduce or dismantle these programs, or increase payouts for women in proportion to how many children they have and not only wages earned. The fatal flaw of current programs is that they "assume that the propensity to have children does not respond to incentives." (31)
  • Malthus (An Essay on the Principle of Population) is pervasive and wrong:
    • Pervasive: single biggest inspiration for On the Origin of Species, and an enormous inspiration of Keynes including The General Theory of Employment Interest and Money
    • Wrong: "At the root of the Malthusian paradigm is the idea that people are a problem to be solved" (32). "In the short run, resources are limited just as Malthus assumed, but in the long run, not so. Resource pressures that arise from population growth lead to substitution, discovery, and innovation through human ingenuity" (33, cf. Julian Simon in The Ultimate Resource 2)
  • "A birth rate closer to women's desired family size would solve the most pressing physical problem of the modern state. Having so few babies isn't something that women seem to want, and it isn't something that nations can afford." (39)

Chapter 5: The 5 Percent—What We Did

Summary: Motivations of the study.

  • "Average has had a lot of variation in the lives of actual women, some of whom are doing something very different. I undertook this research convinced that the study of high birth rates could shed light on the problem of low ones" (42). Inspired by Promises I Can Keep (47)
  • 5% of women have 5+ children, 1% have 7+ (42)
  • Education raises the opportunity cost of foregoing the labor market to have children. (43)

Chapter 6: Different in Kind—The Biblical Hannah

Summary: "The salvation of the world is in the birth of a child."

  • "Our subjects had more children because they valued them more." (50)
  • Falling birth rates are not a cost problem in the sense of direct costs, but opportunity costs. (53-54)
  • "If you want to find a policy angle to improve the birth rate, expanding the scope for religion in people's lives is the most viable path...Religion is the best family policy." (55)
  • "Hannah's Children" because the salvation of the world is in the birth of a child (57)

Part Two: How it Started—Motives

Chapter 7: "It's Just a Wonderful Life"—Kim, Twelve Kids

  • Almost all women in the US with big families are religious. "Let God be in charge of the amount of kids." (66-67)
  • Mothers often share that the benefits of having children turned out to be more substantial than expected. (67)
  • Being needed protects children from depression. (69)

Chapter 8: "You Believe It's Good"—Miki, Five Kids

  • "A mere 13 percent of weekly attending Catholics believe that contraception is morally wrong." (75)
  • Brideshead Revisited: conversion as a process (76)
  • There is higher mortality among children and babies in communities where there is more fertility: the direct experience of loss of life could lead to greater appreciation for the possibility of new life. (82)

Chapter 9: "Family Is...Eternal"—Shalyee, Seven Kids

  • "My greatest joys growing up happened in my family and my greatest joys in my adult life have happened in this family that we've created: it's just good." (93)
  • "Motherhood is the hardest thing I've ever done but the most rewarding thing I can imagine doing." (94)
  • "If God wants to give you the gift of a child, he will give you the desire for the gift in his time. But he will wait for your free collaboration." (97)
  • "The things they're experiencing in a large family are going to help them grow and flourish." (100)

Chapter 10: "Strength and Conditioning"—Terry, Ten Kids ★

  • Fatherhood: "I'm the richest man in the world because I have all of you." (106)
  • "Remember that your vocation is more important than your career." (107)
  • "The Church believes that children are a great blessing and that fleshed out a great language for what was already obvious to me." (111)
  • "Being open to life: it's a gift, and you wouldn't say no to a gift...THey really just need a boob and and outfit...We're so rich compared to most of the world, so that objection is written off the table..." (115-116)
  • "Kids are the meaning of a marriage, the fruit of your love." (120)
  • "Being open to a gift means that you're trusting God and trusting that this gift is going to come with more than you can imagine." (120-121)

Chapter 11: "He Wants Nine"—Lauren, Five Kids

  • "I could care less if my kids are happy. That's their job. You figure that out." (130)
  • "Everybody has to help. It's always all hands on deck, and they'll help with the baby." (130)
  • Benefits of having lots of siblings: learn how to take responsibility from a younger age, get along with others who are different, share space, material things, time. (131)

Chapter 12: The Road Not Taken—Cost and Choice

  • "Costs are equal to the value attached to the satisfaction which one must forego in order to attain the end aimed at." (139, cf. Human Action)
  • The role of cost and choice in childbearing (147ff)
    • The real costs relevant to choosing a child are subjective opportunity costs.
    • The uninterrupted sequence of educational and pre-professional years leading to a job or career creates larger opportunity costs.
    • The women having lots of children are doing so not necessarily because the costs are lower, but because their reasons for doing so outweigh the costs.
    • Marginal costs are lower at some point: once you've given up what it takes to have lots of kids you don't have to keep giving it up for more kids.
    • At the same time, there are higher marginal benefits with more children.
    • This exposes the faulty logic of pro-natalist policies (baby bonuses and subsidies don't tip the scale on large opportunity-cost sacrifices needed for many children). "The real reasons to have a child never can come from the state."

Part Three: How It's Going—Meaning

Chapter 13: "The Planner of All Plans"—Hannah, Seven Kids, and Esther, Nine Kids

_Summary: _

  • "God's not out to trick us and to send us trouble. He really wants to send us blessings." (157)
  • "With kids, your heart grows." (161)
  • "And it occurred to me that from now on I'm not going to have a day where I'm not going to worry." (162)
  • "Having more children and providing for them takes on the character of an active relationship with a living God who owns the world and knows what's good for us." (167)
  • "Women are so strong; I wish that women knew how strong we can be." (170)

Chapter 14: "Me Doing Something Else"—Danielle, Seven Kids

  • "Motherhood has been sort of undersold." (180)
  • "When mom can't do everything for everyone anymore, that gives rise to a type of freedom for children, where they can recreate without the strictures of parent-planned "fun." It also gives rise to an opportunity for kids to feel needed and valuable. Older kids ultimately become part of the nexus of caregiving and enjoyment that constitutes the heart of the family." (185)
  • "Mothering isn't just a state of being-it's also a practice, with definite skills, habits, and expertise. Mothers who dedicate themselves to mothering can grow as mothers, in the virtues of motherhood." (188)

Chapter 15: "May I Ask Why?"—Steph, Six Kids

  • "They don't have a lot of means and they're making it work. Love it what it takes." (209)

Chapter 16: "Plans to Prosper You"—Jenn, Six Kids

  • "When things have been scary and difficult and I prayed about it, the Lord just took care of it." (217)
  • "My children are mostly His gift to me, but I know it's not for me to hold. It's for me to give back." (219)
  • "The blessing is to be able to give to them like nobody else can." (220)

Chapter 17: "People Matter"—Angela, Five Kids

  • "Autonomy is not my primary value. People are my primary value, and I have a home rich with people." (231)
  • The connection between a culture of hospitality and children (239-241)
  • Thomas Sowell: "There are no solutions, only trade-offs. Decide what you're willing to give up." (249)

Chapter 18: "Goodness and Light"—Leah, Five Kids

  • "The future is about good people being in the world." (263)
  • "Threads of your old self are woven into the type of mom you become—what you bring to your children uniquely from the way that you see the world." (265)

Chapter 19: "The Lord Repays"—Self and Sacrifice

  • "None of them had wanted kids in order to find fulfillment. But they got it anyway." (278)
  • "Having children helps you figure out who you are...The more we love the more we discover who we really are." (282)

Part Four: The Character of the Nation—Conclusion

Chapter 20: "He Didn't Know He Needed It"—Saving Our Lives

Summary: Babies are part of the cure for our tsunami of depression, anxiety, and deaths of dispair.

  • "There's just something about babies that brings you joy" (297), "we heard stories about babies who had fixed a family problem, cured a health issue, or comforted a suffering person" (300).
  • "I don't really feel like I teach them as much as they teach each other." (307)

Chapter 21: "He Carries the Baby"—Saving Our Souls

Summary: Children grow our souls.

  • Virtue has become freedom's victim. Virtue is is most deeply fashioned by the way we live at home, as children and adults. (313-314, cf. Why Liberalism Failed and Nicomachean Ethics)
  • "Families with many children are a rich soil for the soul." (314)
  • Many children helps virtue to grow over the long term: "The beneficent changes in character, they insisted, were at least somewhat passively acquired. Virtues were gained without working at them directly-indeed, without even intending them. It went something like this: If you get up twice a night to feed a baby, your intention is to feed that baby. You don't feed the baby to become a better person. But in fact for those months, you did put another's good ahead of your own. Do this for a year and at the end you may slide back into being your old self, thinking, "Gosh, I'm glad that's over." But do this for eight, ten, or twenty years on end, and you may become a person who repeatedly puts the other's good ahead of your own-whatever kind of mess you were at the start." (320)
  • "You don't really mean much when you have a big family, because you have each other, and that overfills the cup." (322)
  • Fatherhood: "The way a man has to transform in order to meet the challenging demands of his family requires a level of heroic virtue. A failure to meet that is a failure for your family. It's a call." (323)
  • "Your character changes when you have children. What you love changes." (324)
  • "Children help purge the proverbial garbage of our souls." (326)
  • Having more kids: "You're already doing it. So, you can do it for one more person." (331)

Chapter 22: Hannah's Children—The Future of the Nation

Summary: Cultivating religious communities is the way to stop the decline in fertility.

  • Thesis: "The secret to solving the puzzle of low birth rates, and reversing it, lies in the stories of those who are noticeably immune from the dominant trend. These are people of faith who take God's first commandment in the Bible—"Be fruitful and multiply"—to be a living rule and a true blessing." (335)
  • Two current assumptions that need to be challenged (335)
    • First, that religious families do not have reasons that can be understood, generalized ,or made relevant for policy.
    • Second, that we can incentivize anything we want.
  • Today's reality (338):
    • "Together, production outside the home, compulsory schooling, and New Deal-style programs worked in concert to nearly zero out the economic value of children to the household."
    • "In the horse race between family and career enabled by the Pill, the family—unless valued very highly—loses to the alternative."
  • Policy makers cannot directly incentivize childbearing, but it may be possible to foster childbearing indirectly by cultivating the conditions in which incentives that are weighty enough to inspire women to have more children arise. The policy lesson is simple: the flourishing of traditional religious institutions breaks the low marriage fertility cycle. "Religion is the cardinal family policy." (339-340)
  • "Religious liberty is family policy—in fact, it's the only family policy that has a chance to halt and reverse the cratering of the birth rate." (342)
  • "'Free' public education is a government cartel designed to compete against religious schools and represents a drastic violation of religious liberty." (342)
  • "Just as muscles atrophy with underuse and bones lose their density, religion boxed into a tiny corner of private worship, stripped of all its other traditional functions, is no true religion. Nations that crowd out the sacred functions of the Church will continue to reap a sterile harvest of disappointment." (343)

Topic: having a large family

Source

Created: 2025-05-23-Fri
Updated: 2025-12-30-Tue