Generation Baby Buster (2012) - full transcript

Once upon a time,
in a place like many others,

a young woman was drowning
in a sea full of mothers.

The weddings had long
since come and gone,

and all of a sudden,
everywhere, spawn.

And what, she thought,
will become of me?

Frowning and whining
and a growing income disparity?

Having children,
am I supposed to be next?

Tired and ragged,
a God-awful mess?

Goodbye, margaritas.
Farewell, tonic and gin.

Adiós, travel, and adventure,
and forever sleeping in.

Perhaps, then,
I could be child-free.



That sounds like
lots of fun to me.

But why is it that
I feel this way?

Is it because of the parenting
culture today?

Are mothers too sad,
too stressed, too tired,

terrified that after baby,
they'll be fired?

Men, too lazy.
Women have to do it all.

The market's so hungry,
we're slaves to them all.

Or could it be there's
some other way to be a mom?

One that is perhaps,
who knows, even fun!

A journey, I think,
for me has begun.

I will face down my dragons
and head for the sun.

And in the end,
I might just find my own way,

after listening to what
the prophets have to say.

Will I then leap blindly
into the unknown?



Have me a child?
Make me a home?

Or will I discover that what was never lost need not be found,

and say, screw it.

Bartender? Another round.

Do you think lives are...

would be better
without children?

Yes, probably, yes.

And then you can play
as long as you like.

I understand
that biologically,

that is what we're
supposed to do,

but, you know,
I do understand that,

you know, some women
may not, you know,

want to do it.

Yay, a child!

Oh, please,
how many of us know women

who never should've
had children?

If you don't feel
comfortable around children,

or if you dislike children,

or if just the idea
of being around children

makes you squirm, I'm not
sure I need to convince you

that you need to be a parent.

There's a certain
percentage you like,

there's a certain
percentage that you're like,

kind of getting through it

and then there's
a certain percentage

that you just
fuckin' can't fuckin' have!

I just held two
children that aren't mine

for two hours, and I want
to bathe in Purell immediately.

Don't be sad!
Don't be sad!

That's me. Babies scare me.

I'm just not so sure
that I'm up to the task

of creating and raising
a whole other human.

I have a great family,
but I like being the kid.

And now I've gotten
quite used to my own

little family of three.

Having a baby means
a lifestyle overhaul.

The view from the
fence is just fine.

But I envy those on both sides
who've made up their mind.

All you fence-sitters
out there,

you know
what I'm talking about.

We put it off,
we make excuses,

but most of all,
we love our lives.

My biggest worry?
What to do on the weekend.

No diapers, no chauffeuring,

no having a talk with a teenager who stole your marijuana.

It's neat, it's nice.

Why elect chaos?

Corrine Maier understands
what's at stake.

The French author wrote,

"No Kids: 40 Good Reasons
Not to Have Children."

And she's a mother.

Not surprisingly, her book
ruffled some feathers.

But Corrine holds nothing
back in her account

of the volcanic destruction
that children can

erupt all over your life.

The more parents take
care of their children,

the more they are ugly, in fact.

I don't know if you
have noticed it,

there are a lot of children
that are ugly, so ugly.

You think you have to be
a kind of example for them,

so, of course, you try
to be, I wouldn't say perfect,

but you try to be normal.

So you avoid,
for example, drinking too much

with friends at home,
smoking pot, for example.

Mama?

So, in fact,
there are a lot of things

that you don't do,
and sometimes it's very boring

to try to be normal
in front of your children.

Small children
are some kind of savages,

and they break
everything they touch.

They put a mess
everything they go,

they say things that they're
not, they shouldn't say,

they show you
an image of yourself

that can be a disaster,
because to them,

you, the mother,
is a monster.

You try to do the best,
you try to be perfect,

you expect your children
to be perfect.

Just be patient
and you'll have a turn after...

It's a 20 years
contract, at least.

So, what a nightmare.

If you
could go back to the point

where you made the decision
to have children,

today, in a time machine,
would you not?

I sometimes regret
to have had children...

when they are
too mischievous or...

a couple of months ago
when I had to go

to the police station
to fetch my teenage boy,

and there are moments
when you really regret,

in fact, and you think,
"Oh, I've made a huge mistake."

But there are also moments
when everything is fine,

and when they are nice.

I think,
as Sigmund Freud said it,

whatever you do
for your child,

you are doomed
to fail anyway.

So, I think
we are doomed to fail,

and our parents failed, too.

We have to think twice
before we have children.

Failure, forgotten dreams,

ugly children.

No wonder I'm
afraid to have kids.

Bringing up baby is not
all rainbows and sunshine.

The sleep deprivation

is definitely
a shock to the system.

It was like, holy cow.
How do you function?

You know, like,
you expect not to sleep,

but what it's like to actually
not sleep for five months?

You know, you have
the sleepless nights,

and you're up at 4:00
in the morning,

and the baby's screaming,
and you haven't slept in months,

and it doesn't quite
fit the same picture

of what you imagined when
you were pregnant and glowing.

There's a never-ending
list of things to do,

like feeding her,
or bath time, or changing her.

Like, I was surprised,
really surprised

at how much work it was,
even though people warn you.

It's more.

It's like,
even more than that.

The truth is,
more and more women everywhere

are just saying no
to procreation.

Madelyn Cain calls
it a revolution...

"The Childless Revolution."

She wrote about the surge of
women who are not having kids,

whether it be by choice,
chance, or happenstance.

I expected
a lot of women to be

unhappy that they
were childless.

And they weren't.

I mean, there were
certainly some

who were
tragically childless,

but there were
a lot of women who...

had thought that they
were gonna have kids

when they were younger.

When they were younger,
they thought,

"Well, someday I'll marry,
and I'll have children."

And they were women
who evolved into childlessness.

I don't wanna have kids
until much, much later in life.

I mean, I'm 24, so
I'm thinking at least

10 more years, at least.

I have their names figured out,

but I don't exactly
have the timeline.

I mean, maybe if you
had asked me, like,

when I was 18, when I thought
I was gonna have kids,

it would probably
be, like, right now.

So, no, it just keeps
getting pushed back,

five more years, or five more
years, or five more years.

Why do you think they're

putting off the decision?

It's a tough decision.

It's a huge decision,
it's a life-altering decision.

It's a decision that you
are leaping into the unknown.

You don't know if your
child's gonna be healthy,

you don't know if you're gonna
get along with your child,

you don't know what
the future holds.

And generally,
a woman who's 35 or so

has finally
established herself,

and is enjoying
her life, and things are

kinda going pretty good.

That's a napkin trick.

And so you start
to say, "Well, I, you know,

I don't wanna make these huge
life-altering decisions now."

So they started
to evolve into being

women who said,
"You know what, I think I'm fine.

I think I can pass on this.

I don't have to do everything."

We don't have to be
an example for anyone.

My mother's generation,
they all had babies

when they were
20, 22, 23, and they were

kind of ignorant
about what was gonna happen.

And they were also
allowed, by the way,

to not like
being mothers.

And we don't
allow that anymore.

Now, you have to be
just happy, happy, happy.

And nobody wants
to talk about the fact

that motherhood
is sacrifice,

it really... if you're
gonna be a good mother,

it means that you
come second, or even third.

In the olden days,
it was family-centered,

you know,
your folks lived upstairs,

and you lived downstairs,
and your aunt and uncle

lived here,
you know, and that helped

raise the children, too,
by the way.

Women were home,
they were not working,

and you had a support
system to raise children.

Now, we all have moved
to different places,

so that if you have a child,
there's no aunt or uncle,

there's no grandma
and grandpa nearby to help you.

So, it's put a terrible
strain on young families.

Childlessness,
when you think about it,

is really a move
towards wanted children.

If we can finally
give women approval

for choosing
not to have children,

that means that the people
who really want children,

who should be having
children, have them.

And then we'd have
a really balanced society.

Okay, what's nice about

not having, like, major
familial responsibilities?

What do you mean, I have
to take care of myself?

- I don't feel...
- I have a cat, occasionally.

I have a cat right now,
a new foster cat.

Personally, I've never been
around a child in my life.

Well then,
how could you ever have

the courage to have a baby?

I mean, really, that would be,

that's like me saying,

"Well, now I'm
gonna go fly a plane."

And you talk
about a big leap,

your leap would be
over a cliff.

How old are you?

Terrified of the leap. Uh, 32.

You're, you're
right on the edge.

You're right on the edge.

Well, you're gonna
have babies that are gonna

spit up on you, your sex
life's gonna be ruined,

it's gonna be
horrible for awhile,

your career's gonna...

And, you're going to,
you're going to understand

what someone says
when they say,

I would kill
for this child.

You will, and you'll mean it.

And that's a feeling
you've never had before.

You will have
a deep sense of peace

in your sense
of protecting this child

you've never known before.

So it's like, okay.
Am I up for it?

I don't know.

It's wild, it's a wild ride.

Hmm, as in,
rollercoaster thrill ride?

Or spinning teacup barf-fest?

Ready... go!

While "Baby not on board"

is rising in the polls,
not everyone elected

to be part of the crowd.

Lives and futures
don't always go as planned.

And often a bad case
of deferral

leads to an expired
"best before" date.

I worry about this
on hot lazy afternoons.

Unfortunately, having
a baby is not something

you can choose
to do at any time.

When is it time
to get on with it,

or just get past it?

Do you think
I should have a baby?

I think you'd
make a great mom.

I don't
have any patience.

Yeah, but you'll learn.

You don't have a lot of choice,

especially if you
have a child like you.

It's terrible,

but I like to drink
beer too much.

You can still drink beer.

But now you only get
to have one, maybe two.

And that's it.

Beer helps with milk production.

The dynamics between me
and my group of friends

has changed so significantly
in the past two years,

because they're having kids,

and their priorities
are different,

and, you know,
a lounge-y dinner isn't,

doesn't happen, and if
they have to leave at 7:00,

or everyone's gone
at 9:00, you're thinking,

we used to not have
dinner until 9:00.

Okay, do I have to find
a new group of friends?

Or do I just have
a baby now so that

I can at least
hang out with them?

It started right after
we got married, actually.

"So, why aren't
you pregnant yet?"

"Where's the baby
already, you guys?"

So, yeah, it's really
kind of been a struggle,

and I don't think a lot
of people understand,

you know, our decision.

Deirdre Macken,
upon noticing that the Australian birth rate

had plummeted,
wrote a book called,

"Oh no, we forgot
to have children!"

"It's not like
we consciously decide

that we don't
want them," she says,

"it's that
we forgot about it,

and then it became impossible."

I started
to wonder, how is it that

all these little decisions,
or non-decisions,

that women have made
over the last 30 years

have added up to a society
that's not having children?

I tend
to think there's never

a good time to have children.

You can always think
of a good excuse,

or a good reason,
not to have children right now.

"Well, my partner and I
have to be really settled.

We have to have
had all the fun,

and done all the travel.

We have to have a proper house

where we can raise kids.

I have to be
settled in my career.

I have to make sure
I've got a bit of savings

and my partner and I must
be really happy together,

and then we'll think about it."

To get all those aces
lined up at the one time,

really doesn't happen
that often in life,

and if you
insist on leaving it

to when all those
things line up,

you're probably
not gonna have a kid,

or you might
not have that many.

So I think
we need to chill a bit

and, instead of being
at the end of the queue,

children should
probably be moved

a bit further up,
because you can get

that other stuff later.

You can't really have kids

outside
of the biological time set.

Having children is, perhaps,
more of an irrational decision,

rather than a rational one.

Certainly on economic
terms, it's very hard

to justify having children,

because you used to have
children to till the fields

or to look after
you in your old age.

What we've done
is we've privatized the costs

of childhood, and socialized
the costs of old age,

so it's a less rational decision

than it's ever been before.

It's outside of that
work spin cycle,

and yet,
all the messages we get

are the work spin cycle.

So it takes a real
effort for most people

to shift their priorities,
and shift their thinking

to outside of that
capitalist cycle,

and think, "Well,
what sort of friend...

friendship groups
do I wanna build?

What sort of family
do I wanna build?

How do I wanna spend
the time that is mine

outside that cycle?"

And I think
you can, so easily,

especially in your 20s and 30s,

when you're getting a lot
of feedback from your career,

get very caught
up in that cycle,

and forget that
it's actually going to be

your relationships
that will provide

the long term joy
and support in your life.

And unless you
make room for that,

the capitalist system

isn't going
to call time out for you.

They're not going
to encourage it,

because they don't make
enough money out of it.

And yet,
capitalist system

obviously lives off the labor

that we produced
in those cribs.

But you have
to take control of it,

and prioritize...
start prioritizing

where your best interests lie.

I always thought,
"Yeah, we'll have kids,

you know, eventually,
we're gonna have kids."

You always said,
"Yeah, well, yeah, eventually,

but, you know, maybe not."
And then...

And then I was like, "No,
we don't need to have kids,"

and then I'm like,
"Huh, well, I'll have to get

used to that thought
of not having kids."

You know,
it doesn't feel wrong,

and it might be interesting
to not have kids,

this is great.

What are your intentions now?

We'll have kids.

I guess we're
gonna have kids.

- I don't know when, though.
- There's...

Maybe next year...

If I say we're
not having kids,

what do you say?

Yeah, no, I think
we should have kids.

Yeah, but not, I don't know.

I've said,
"Oh, let's not have kids,"

and then it's...

Who knows.

Making the decision.
That's part one.

And we all pretty much learned
in sex ed class as teens

that if you do it
without protection,

you instantly will have
a baby nine months later.

The sad truth is,
it's not always so easy to have a baby,

and while reproductive
technology has come a long way,

it's not a magic
baby-making elixir.

We're just born with all the
eggs we're ever going to have,

and as we get older,
our eggs do too.

You can look so great,
and feel so fantastic,

but just because you
can finish a triathlon

does not mean
your eggs are up to speed.

Not to mention
all the shitty problems

that can make getting
pregnant difficult,

or even impossible.

Sexually transmitted
disease, blocked tubes,

endometriosis, infection,
regular menstrual cycles,

many little cysts,
people who are overweight,

problems that are
related to the man,

the count, the motility,
and the morphology.

So how many sperm there are,
how many are moving,

and whether they look normal.

Wow. 'Nuff said.

Apparently,
roadblocks are common

on the highway
to Huggies.

Yeah, like, it's
an interesting debate for me,

because it's not...
"Do I wanna have children

or don't I wanna have children?"

Before I was diagnosed
with breast cancer,

I didn't know anyone
with breast cancer.

I would've never thought
that would be my reality,

and then
all of a sudden it is,

and it's just a road that you thought was gonna be easy.

"I can have a kid
when I want."

All of a sudden, there's
this huge roadblock that goes...

spans six years,
and you're like,

"Wait a minute.
I can't have a kid when I want."

At 29 you kinda think,
"People are living to 90,

I'm invincible,
I'm gonna be here forever,

so I have lots of time
to work on career,

marriage, I can have
kids in my late 30s."

Like, no problem,
you don't think that

something's gonna stop you,
which is, you know,

a great thing
about being young,

is you don't see
your own mortality,

but then all of a sudden if you

have a disease,
like cancer, then you're like,

"Wait a minute,
everything's different,

the chips are all gonna
be different for me."

Professor Neil Gilbert

from the University
of California at Berkeley

is concerned
about the amount of women

foregoing
and delaying motherhood.

He blames a general
lack of kudos

for mothers in our culture.

Is it feminism, capitalism,
market and consumerism?

We had a lot to talk about.

It struck me
as startling, the proportion

of childless women
had doubled in 25 years.

In a period of time
that was not marked

by plague, pestilence,
famine, any of that stuff,

the same thing
happened with regard

to the proportion
of women with one child,

that also doubled.

And so, I was curious,
because there was no...

sort of big media
splash about this,

and no explanation.

The typical reason
you hear people say is,

"We can't afford it."

Historically, people have
never been better off.

So it's not
that you can't afford it.

What they mean is,
they can't afford their lifestyle.

There's, "I can't afford
to have two cars,

and a sailboat, and go skiing,
and take vacations in Spain...

and have two children."

So then,
the question becomes,

"Well, why are these
preferences different?"

Why are people now saying,

"No, children
aren't that important"?

Certain norms have
changed in society,

and the capitalist ethos
has captured all of us.

Everything we do, we make
cost-benefit assessments.

What are the costs,
what are the benefits?

The costs of having children
are readily apparent,

the benefits are
harder to calculate.

There's been
a feminist revolution

which has elevated
the emotional and psychological

benefits of work and career.

You stay at home
and raise a child,

it's mindless,
mind numbing kind of work,

whereas
you're out in the world,

you're enjoying
yourself, you have power,

you have independence,
you have freedom,

self-realization.

That's a lot of baloney.

However, most people
who write and talk

and think about
this issue disagree.

The reason
that they believe this

is 'cause they're
like you and like me.

They don't have real jobs.

Producers stay on until
they fall over the camera,

professors, until they drown in
their soup at the faculty club.

They don't realize that
the person serving lunch

is doing the real work.

If one of the parents stayed
home for five to seven years,

and they had two children,

until the children
were five years old

and in school all day long,

at which time the value
of household labor

declines dramatically,
and then they go to work

for the rest
of their life, they have 30,

30, 40 years,
be bored silly.

And will they rise as high?

Most people, it wouldn't
make much difference.

There are a few things
that you couldn't do.

If you started late
in life, it'd be harder

to become
a Supreme Court justice.

But the children are
raised by the family,

and they're socialized,

and the quality of life,

for everybody, I think,
is improved.

You look at Sex and the City,

all the glamour, all the fun,
all the good things

don't involve changing diapers.

You compare it
to Ozzie and Harriet...

The Adventures
of Ozzie and Harriet.

With all the kids
in the family around,

there was a sense
of great enjoyment.

Now the sense
of enjoyment is the girls out

meeting for cocktails,
and, you know,

talking about their love
lives, and what have you.

For women, particularly,
it's like having

a Porsche, a car,
a wonderful piece of machinery

that can go 130 miles an hour...

and never driving it
more than 20 miles.

You know, here, they have
the capacity to make life,

this incredible machinery,
to nurture life,

to grow life inside them,
and it's never used.

The question I ask is,
is this question.

I even ask it for you,
you don't have to answer it,

because I know
it'd be difficult.

You have a partner, yes?

Now, if you ran into a situation

where the choice
were posed to you,

look, either
we have to kill you,

or we have
to kill your partner--

one of you has to die.

You can make the decision.

Right? You can
make the decision.

Is it you or your partner?

I asked a group
of my colleagues about it,

some of our older
colleagues about it,

and there was grand silence.

No one, people looked
around, no one wanted,

no one wanted
to talk much about it.

And I did not press the issue,

and then I changed the question.

Just very slightly.

I said, now, what if the choice
were you or your child?

Oh, there's absolutely no...
there's no question.

So, what in life do you
love more than yourself?

What is transcendental,
what takes you

outside of yourself more
than children, there is none.

I think there's
something on your face.

Yeah.

Whoa,
where'd that come from?

Despite all the
lip service we pay to mothers,

motherhood continues
to be the leading cause

of poverty among women.

Ann Crittenden found that
after the birth of her child,

she lost both respect
and status in her workplace.

I wrote
"The Price of Motherhood"

really directly
out of personal experience.

I had been, at that time,
I was at "The New York Times",

I had a nice maternity leave,
and then,

six months later, I was,
had the decision to go back,

and in the meantime,
I'd rather fallen in love

with my baby, and I just
didn't see going back

to 12-hour workdays,
so I quit,

and when I quit,
I was immediately struck

one was,
this work of raising a child

was the hardest, most
challenging work I'd ever done.

Number two, I seemed to be
the only one who thought that.

Because it seemed that
I had lost tremendous status

from becoming
a mother as opposed

to a reporter
for "The New York Times".

I was at a Washington
cocktail party

where I joked that bragging
about your skills as a parent

is sort of like bragging
about your skills at group sex

at a church social
in Kansas City, or something.

But anyway, I,
you know, had a guy come

across the room
to me, and he said,

and he wasn't trying
to put me down,

he was being very nice,
actually, and he said,

"Hey, didn't you used
to be Ann Crittenden?"

Motherhood just
doesn't carry the day

in a culture that respects
money above everything else.

If it doesn't earn any money,

much less any serious money,

it just doesn't gather respect.

Open up!

Mothers
operate out of love,

they're not looking
to earn money,

they're not looking
for economic rewards,

that's not their motivation.

There we go!

So, it's very easy
to take it for granted.

In divorce, there's a rule
that another scholar called,

"He who earns it,
owns it" rule.

Divorce is not
very fair, and it doesn't

respect the contribution
made by the party

who's putting in their time
and effort to the children.

Motherhood is the single
greatest risk factor

for poverty in old age.

And possibly the single
greatest risk factor

for poverty at any age.

So, that's pretty
dramatic, I think.

And you
mentioned that the US has

one of the lowest labor force
participation rates

for college educated women.

Yeah, isn't that interesting?

You could call that
a waste of education,

I hesitate to do that,
because they're using it

in their home work
and their child rearing,

but it certainly
indicates women are not

fulfilling
the dreams they had,

if they take the time
and trouble and expense

of getting a higher
education, you assume

they had something
in mind there.

They wanted
to have a career,

or they wanted to have
an income that went with that,

and if they're not,
something is probably going

not the way they planned.

And I think we have
made it too hard.

The phrase I use
to describe the loss

of lifetime earnings
when you have a child.

And it comes about
because so many people quit

and then they go back in
working later,

some months or years later.

And the numbers show,
they never quite make up

for that time
out of the labor force.

That adds up.

In this country,
it could be as much as

a million dollars
over your lifetime,

if you have
a college degree.

There is an unacknowledged
bias against mothers,

as opposed to women.

So some of the old
stereotypes about women

are gone, but the new one
is of mothers,

and the assumption often is,

a mother is softer,
nicer, but maybe not

quite as sharp or efficient

or dedicated to the job,
as a childless one, or a man.

The newest numbers show that
young women in the job market

under 30 are making
more money than men.

Young childless women.

They're just doing great.

So it's not a situation of old-fashioned sex discrimination.

The majority
of Americans polled,

they don't think it's essential
to a happy marriage

to have children anymore,

I mean, we've gotten
a whole different attitude,

you know, too,
children are more optional.

And that's
a disadvantage

for people in families
who want more social support.

Because they're told,
"Well, it's just your choice,

it's just an option.

Nobody made you have a kid,

so why should we help
support your choice?"

And do
you think motherhood

is the most important
job in the world?

Yeah, I still think that.

Even though
my part of it's over.

Not over, it never is over.
How could I say that?

Yeah, sure it is. And fatherhood
as well, I should add.

Are you
full-time at home?

Yes.

- We all are.
- Yeah.

That was hard for me,
I've only been

stay-at-home
for just over two years.

That was...
I still have a hard time

coming to terms
with not making money.

It's a sacrifice that...

well, I guess the whole
family's kind of making

so we can do that.

And I like being
at home with my kids.

I heard
from 0 to 4 is when they get

their morals and their
values and that kind of

really important...

You wanna
be the one to...

- Foundations, yeah.
- Yeah, exactly.

You don't want someone
else bringing up your kids.

I knew I was
compromising certain things

with my career
by having a family.

And I know I don't
have to give up my career,

but it's certainly
taken a different path

than if I hadn't
had a family.

So I do find myself, you know,

I've had two children now
in a short amount of time,

I find myself
behind my colleagues

who would be around
the same age as me.

Graduate high school,
go to university,

get your degree,
work your butt off.

Modern woman has had plans
since she learned the alphabet.

How, then, do you shift gears

and end up at home
on diaper duty?

Should you really wager all
you've earned for a full house?

Sylvia Ann Hewlett wrote
a controversial handbook:

"Creating a Life:
What Every Woman Needs to Know

About Having
a Baby and a Career."

She thinks women should
be as intentional about

their personal lives
as they are

about their professional ones.

I took a kind of group
of very successful women,

ranging from,
you know, opera singers

to news anchors
to prominent academics

to talk about how they had
cleared all of those hurdles,

you know, crashed through
all of those glass ceilings.

And the huge surprise,
after I'd done these interviews,

was to realize that actually,
none of them had children.

And of the 42 percent
of women in corporate America

who ended up not
having children at age 40,

only 14 percent said

that they had planned
on lives without children.

So for, you know,
the rest of those

who ended up
not having children,

it was, as one woman
put it, "A creeping non-choice."

That, you know, the possibility
of having children

had been edged out
by the press of their careers,

by the difficulty
they'd experienced

in finding a partner,
and just by the...

you know,
the collective stress

of the lives that
they were leading.

I found it was very tempting
for high achieving women

who like to have a lot
of control in their lives

to have a sense
that a solution

to delaying childbearing,

to delaying
the personal agenda,

was essentially
medical technology,

that assisted reproduction
and all of those

fancy techniques
would bail them out.

But that isn't nearly as true
as we would like it to be.

I've done a lot
of work with employers.

We've got a couple
of big studies

on on-ramps
and off-ramps, you know.

How to avoid
some of the penalties

attached to taking time
out from your career.

Companies are trying
to create more flexibility.

It's much less expensive
for them to allow

a high-performing
woman to come back in

than to try
and recruit a lateral hire.

Big piece of advice
to younger women is, you know,

check this out, because
if you can stay on track,

maybe go
to a four-day work week,

maybe, you know,
telecommute for two days a week,

you are much more
likely, at age 40,

to be in a well-paid
job with reasonable

promotional prospects,
than if you had to take

a couple years out
because there was no way

in which you could deal
with this very rigid job.

"Creating a Life" became a very controversial book.

Many women, myself included,
were upset

by the "land a man" emphasis.

I asked Sylvia for her reaction
to all the negative press.

I guess I found that
reaction a little unexpected,

because, you know,
I've always been a career woman.

The early 2000s,
the more you earned,

the more powerful
you were as a woman,

the less likely it was
you had a partner or children.

And for men,
the reverse was true.

So it's a very
uneven playing field.

I was seeking
to redress the balance,

seeking to create
the conditions

that could
allow women to have

more of the good stuff
in life, but I was certainly

starting from the premise
that, of course,

we want to find
fulfillment in our work.

But, you know, love
and work are the two pillars

and, you know,
Freud got that piece right.

And I think
that both men and women

are entitled
to a shot at both.

So if you manage
to meet someone you like,

and get a job that allows you
to manage career and family,

what about your relationship?

How do you go from
being a couple,

both living and working
out in the world,

to reorganizing around baby?

Is sex over?
Romance dead?

Traditional
relationships reborn?

And you know
what is scary too, is like,

what if this child
in your life

ruins our relationship?

You know, we suddenly
become totally different

in our choices, like,
"No, I think the baby

should have this,"
and, you know,

and then it ruins
our relationship.

And then, you know, so many
people become single parents,

and that is also
a scary part, you know?

Like, are we seriously
gonna take this decision,

are we gonna do this together?

Professor Bonnie Fox

from the University of Toronto
spent two years

following couples as they
transitioned into parenthood.

She interviewed them
before the birth,

right after,
and a year later.

Her findings? Somewhat grim.

It's hard on a relationship.

It really is a period where
time pressures are tremendous.

Women,
for example, don't have time

to spend focusing
on their partners.

So the focus
is on the baby.

You know, the joke
in my department

when I was doing
my research was that I was

watching all these couples'
relationships get worse.

But the anxiety of feeling
like they didn't quite

know what they were doing,
or how to do it well,

at the same time,
they had the largest

responsibility
they had ever had.

So one of the things I realized

was that on the one hand,
things are not

clearly being negotiated.

So, a woman gets pregnant,

it's assumed she will be
the primary caregiver.

It's assumed that
she will stay home.

Whose needs
are taking priority,

whose needs get met?

In the first few
weeks and months

after the baby was born,
women are absolutely absorbed.

And what needs to be
negotiated is that

this is okay for me
to be 100 % absorbed

in baby care.

And that means,
for the man,

he's not getting
any attention at all.

You know, no sex, beyond that,
no time for me to say,

"How was your day?"
And for you to tell me,

and for me to care.

And some of the men
couldn't live with it,

and so some
of the women ended up

changing the way they were
caring for their babies.

Women feel more dependent
on their partners

when they become mothers.

If the men
prioritize the baby,

and they were involved
in the baby care,

that wasn't subtracting
from their relationship.

They could understand
that kind of focus.

And you're gonna grow up
and be a teenage girl someday.

If they weren't very involved
in the care of the baby,

and the baby was just taking
away from their relationship,

then they had...
then it was a problem.

What I saw in my study

was that women who were
very close to women

who had no, who did
not have children,

often were not
in relationships either.

Those friendships
somehow disappeared.

I mean,
literally, those women

didn't come to see the baby,

they didn't come to visit,
they just kind of fell off.

Overall, I would say that
the conventional relationships

were in more trouble,
and the women were having

a much harder time,
and conventional relationships

are actually the source
of problems for women,

and for men, both.

Almost 20 of
my friends had babies in 2008.

And I really feel
that they really lost

a sense of themselves.

When they started
their families,

they put their careers
on hold, and they became

totally self-absorbed
in this role as wife and mother,

which, you know,
is honorable,

because you certainly
have to prioritize.

But, at the same time,
I didn't get to see my friends

and spend as much
time with my friends,

and, you know, I was feeling
very, sort of, neglected,

and left out, and,
you know, that's when I,

you know, very honestly,
started thinking,

oh, well,
maybe I should do this.

You know, just so I can
be with my friends again

and fit into
their lives in some way,

because I think a lot
of the feedback that I'm getting

right now is that,
"Oh, well, you don't know.

Don't give me any advice,
because you don't know.

You don't have that
experience," and, you know...

Yeah, I don't think
that my point of view

is valued as much anymore,

because I don't
have that experience.

I notice personally

that a lot of my friend
that have kids just, like,

they drop off the planet.

Yeah, but, a lot
of people that don't have kids

drop off the planet.

And I'd, you know, that's
what I call gettin' the fear.

I mean, it's called
gettin' the fear,

so I'm like,
"Did he get the fear?"

You know, and the fear is,
and I don't know what it is,

the idea all of a sudden,
whether you're 30,

whether you're 29,
whether you got a girlfriend,

whether you got
a boyfriend, that, you know,

you've gotta like,
do something correctly

or, you know, you've
gotta be this, or be that,

I'm going wrong,
and they get the fear.

And they're like, they're afraid
to go have a beer anymore.

I'm not here to advocate
drugs or alcohol

or any of that sort
of shit, but they're just

afraid to be out doin'
stuff anymore, you know?

Okay, let's make a train! Nate,
you gotta give up your gun.

Why is it that
a cute little two-footer

can wreak havoc
on a friendship?

What is it about
becoming parents

that leads so many
couples to revert to this

"man is moneymaker, woman
is nurturer" kind of thing?

Mother knows best,
and women's intuition

lets dad off the hook
for everything

besides bringing
home the bacon.

And women are left
to do the double shift.

Filmmaker Dana Glazer
explores The Evolution of Dad.

He views the current
culture around

parenting and work damaging
to men, women, and children.

When I was growin'
up, my dad wasn't around...

Dads were always
working late at night...

My dad
is unlike any other dad.

My dad's
a very interesting man...

It was unique...
- When I became a father,

I felt exhilaration and panic.

And then, I became
a stay-at-home dad,

and I felt alone.

And sometimes,
like less of a man.

Fatherhood is kinda...
it's a very twisted thing

in American society,
because the main,

the main message is,
"Fatherhood is very important.

Now, back to work, dads."

So when you're asking
a dad about himself,

what's the question?

It's always,
"So, what do you do?"

That's the most
important thing.

That's how men in our
culture define themselves.

And certainly,
I don't think that

men and women
shouldn't be working.

I think that
that's really important,

but there's very little
balance in our culture,

particularly with dads.

Your value
is your paycheck.

The more time you spend
at work the better dad you are,

because you're
very committed to your work,

which means
you're making money,

which means you're bringing
stability and security

to your family.

But I think that if you ask

a lot of kids,
would you rather have your dad

make little less money
and see him a little bit more,

I think that the answer
to that is most kids would say,

"Yeah, I'd like to see dad
a little bit more, thank you."

If you have to take
your kid to the doctor's,

more dads, more often
than not, will say,

"Well, I have to go
to the doctor's."

Because it's not
as acceptable to say,

"My son needs
a doctor's appointment,

I need to take him."

That's not acceptable behavior

in our corporate culture
at this point.

I think it's
so important to have dads

as involved in...
especially those early years,

as much as the moms.

Down she goes!

Up you get!

I think that there's value.

When you hold
your baby, and you know...

what every single
little coo sound means.

She hates putting on pajamas,

and putting on her sleep set.

That's a whole world that

most dads who are
working don't get.

They hear a baby crying,
"The baby's crying!

I don't know,
maybe she's hungry.

Maybe she pooped in her pants.

I have no idea."

Uh-oh!

The United States is
the last industrialized nation

not to have paid parental
leave for anybody,

and it's a travesty.

And it's just
disturbingly awful.

The bottom line is, there is
no good time to have a family.

It's not like, "Well, now that
we have everything in order,

and I've fulfilled all
of my career achievements,

and we have all this
money in the bank,

and we can just be relaxed,

now let's have kids!"

Okay, no, it doesn't
work that way.

If there was 20 years
between the ages of 30 and 40,

we'd all be set.

And then, of course,

there's the birth
control issue.

The kid behind me
in the airplane is screaming,

why would I ever wanna
subject myself to that?

That's good birth
control for some people.

And one of the things
that I try to talk about

in the film is gender equity,

and how important
that is, and the idea that

mom and dad are
equal partners in this,

that it's not just the husband
who comes home, and,

"Where's my steak and
my slippers and my paper?"

That's a little bit
old school at this point.

Thirty years ago, if you said,
"Well, I don't change diapers,"

some other dad
would go, "Well, of course!

You're a dad!
Why would you do that?

You just go off and work."

So there definitely are
changes that are happening.

I'd like to see those
changes happen quicker.

So what do
you see for the future?

The dads
of 30 years from now

will look at the dads
of today as being,

as if we were cavemen.

This is your kid here,
who's uncomfortable, and I,

and I'm here to provide
this service for him.

You know, it's not
that I'm saying I enjoy

changing diapers,
but it would never occur to me

to say, "Oh, he needs
a diaper changing,

I'm going to ignore
it hoping someone else

comes along to do it for me."

That's just idiotic.
I'm raising my boy.

I want him to be
happy and comfortable.

So, I wipe his ass for him.

You lucky little bastard.

And you know what, some day,

you'll be wiping mine!

Gillian Ranson,

a sociology professor
at the University of Calgary,

studied couples who are
"Going against the grain."

Whether dad stays
home instead of mom,

both mom and dad
work part time,

or even in shifts,
to better care for the kids,

Gillian found
that these couples

are leading
the way into a future

that has better
work-family balance

and greater gender equality.

Life seems to be
changing a lot for mothers,

but rather less for fathers, so,

while women are in paid
employment in these

increasing numbers,
there still seems to be

this expectation,
this dominant expectation

out in the world
that mothers, whatever else

they're doing,
will be ultimately

responsible
for their families,

and fathers,
whatever else they're doing,

no matter how much they
might help in their families,

are actually
ultimately responsible

for financial provision.

And so
those dominant ideas

about what mothers
really should be doing

and what fathers
really should be doing

seem to be remarkably
persistent,

even though
the world is changing.

My perspective
is that mothering,

learning how
to look after a baby,

is something that you learn.

And because we set
the world up so that mothers

are mostly the ones
who get this experience,

we tend to think,
"Oh, well, okay,

it tends to be mothers
who are the experts here,

therefore,
it must come naturally."

But what I discovered in
talking to lots of these dads

is that they're
getting the experience,

they can do it just
as well as mothers can.

One of the things that happens
when you have two parents

sort of sharing responsibility,
not just sharing,

you know, the hard grunge
work, the doing the laundry,

the running kids
around and so on,

but sharing the,
you know, the planning,

and the thinking,
and the caring,

and the taking responsibility,

and the remembering
the doctors appointments

and all of those things--
when you have two people

doing that,
the burden on mothers

is considerably reduced,
with luck, it's halved.

You know, right there,
the other side of the coin

is that it gives
fathers opportunities

that fathers in past
generations often haven't had

to develop real emotional
connections to their children

that make a difference
in their lives, you know.

* Rub-a-dub

* Look at Ava in the sky tub

* Rub-a-dub-dub

* It's Ava in the sky tub *

It used
to be, if you kept a child

well fed and well clothed
and with warmth and shelter

and loving parents
and loving siblings,

that was really all that
parents were expected to do.

And gradually, additional
expectations have been added,

so, you know, there was
sort of the phase when

parents were required
to really attend

to the child's
emotional well-being.

So we all got into
self-esteem issues

and making sure
that our children felt,

you know, confident
and all of that.

Now, you know,
the latest trend seems to be

attending to children's
cognitive development as well,

the so-called brain
research that suggests that

if you haven't kind of done
all the right things

by the time your child's
five or six or something,

it's lost, you know.

And like I said,
it drives me crazy.

Because most
parents can't do it.

Who are we kidding,
you know?

Let's change the rules here.

I see couples like
the ones in my study

as sort of the leading edge
of this change.

You know, they're
representing this change,

they're not anomalies,
they're leaders,

you know, and I think we'll
see more and more of them.

So I'm determinedly optimistic.

Worrying about inequalities
that I know exist,

but feeling that
the best approach

is to think positive,
to look for change

where it's happening,
and to celebrate the change

that's happening
in order to encourage change,

because there's no doubt
that change is needed.

Yeah, I feel like
my relationship with Liz,

I think that we've,
we've done pretty well,

I mean, I think
we both wish we had

more time for each other,
but like, I feel like

maybe it's a little
bit different because

we adopted Natalie.
I don't know, and we knew

we had to be
in this together.

Like we, I feel like we pulled
together more than it's...

than it's pushed us apart.

And what about
seeing Liz as a mother,

I mean, you see
a whole new dimension

in your partner, right?

Has that been kind of special?

Yeah, actually,
that's been really neat,

watching her, and she
worries about it so much,

that she's not doing
enough, but I'm like,

oh, she does so much
for Natalie, and, like,

Natalie does so many
amazing things, and I think

it's because Liz
is such a great mom.

Like, she is so attentive
to all of her needs,

she's always doing
stimulating games and stuff,

and playing with her.

Keep looking over at her,
I don't want her to...

To escape
out the front door?

I'm glad that many dads
have jumped into the trenches,

but enough with all the pressure on mothers already.

Do we really need
higher expectations?

Hasn't the bar been
raised high enough?

This whole intensive
mothering thing is alive

and kicking
and pissing me off.

Elisabeth Badinter, a French
philosopher and author,

argues that the current
attitudes towards mothering

are making baby the biggest
ally of male domination.

This keeps baby
healthy and strong,

and strengthens the bond
between mother and child.

So would
you say sometimes...

moms or women are
hard on other moms?

Yeah, for sure.

Depends, I think the more,
like, high-strung moms

that are putting a lot
of pressure on themselves,

tend to judge you more,
as well.

Like, just because
that's their way of coping.

But like, the more
laid back moms, I find,

at least I don't feel
like they're judging as much.

But yeah, moms are
hard on moms, like...

anything, what you're feeding
them, what car seat you have,

what... how much
they go outside,

whether they're wearing
mittens and a hat,

all those things,
pretty much everything you do.

But it's not,
it's not all moms.

It's just people in general.

But yeah, some moms
sometimes, 'cause they want

to do everything right
all the time,

so then they're
a little bit more, like,

closed-minded
in what is right.

So many moms these days

devote every waking
moment to their kids.

This world of constant,
vigilant supervision

and stimulation looks,
honestly, like a giant drag.

Do you have to be apple pie
when you become a mother?

Or is there some
beer-and-wings wiggle room?

Christie Mellor says,
wiggle away, in her book,

"The Three-Martini Playdate."

People used to say,
"So, you wrote

'The Three-Martini Playdate'
'cause you had kids,"

and it's like, "No, I met other
peoples' children, basically."

The sort of crazy parenting
thing had started happening.

In the old days,
you would have kids

and sort of invite
them into your life

and have them
be a part of your family.

And then suddenly,
something turned around,

and people were having
kids and centering

their entire lives
around their children.

A lot of it has to do
with the marketing of this

kind of parenting
perfection, that if,

you know, to be
a really good mom,

you have got to get
that $700 stroller,

and you have to hire
a house-proofing company.

"I really care about
my child, because I wake up

and take them to violin
lessons, and then we're going

to the Children's
Museum afterwards,

and then we're gonna have
a party for all the kids."

I know people who that
is what they love doing.

And I think that's great,
because if you can just

stay on the floor and do glitter paintings with your child

for hours and hours
on end, I'm very impressed

by that kind
of patience.

And I don't possess
that kind of patience.

It's like, I'm not gonna
go to the petting zoo,

and have a circus come,
and the Batman,

and the thing, and the...

It's just, I don't see the...

my kids can go
to other peoples' parties.

And it's like, "Mom,
there was a petting zoo

in the front yard!"

It's like, yeah,
that's great.

For people who are absolutely
spooked about the idea

of having kids,
I kind of wanted to say,

you know, try to remember
when you were growing up.

It wasn't this fraught
with anxiety and pressure.

We used to be
on the street all the time,

running around
and disappearing,

and my mom had
no idea where we were.

It's like, all right,
be back around 7:00 for dinner.

And, you know, and now
parents feel that they must

constantly watch their kids,
and I think that's...

for if you're
considering having kids,

that must be
a horrifying prospect,

to think, "I am
no longer gonna have

any semblance
of the life that I love,"

and I think that's
so not true.

She's fishing and feeding Eva.

You know, it's not
about raising a child,

it's about raising the adult
that you're gonna have.

And I think you'd like
to raise the kind of adult

that you would like
to eventually hang out with.

Instead of, oh, this
picture of "I am a mother,

and I have a child, and I
can accessorize like a doll."

No, you actually are raising
someone that you want

to launch
out into the world

and be a good human being
that will contribute

and be a nice person.

And I think there's
way too much guilt

put on moms, and not
enough encouragement

and applause
for all you have to do.

It's the most thankless job...

thankless, low-paying job.

It's incredibly rewarding,

but it's also,
it's like, boy, you know,

people don't realize
how hard it is.

It's a tough job.

The idea that
you are having to care

for another human being
is a little daunting,

and it should be, and if
you aren't daunted by it,

there's probably
something wrong with you,

because you are not gonna
have control over everything.

And you just have
to let go of that.

You are not gonna maybe
have a perfectly clean house

for several years.

You may not
have a perfect body,

or perfect wardrobe,
or perfect,

you know, anything,
for a couple of years.

And, nor are you going
to have a perfect child.

So, if you can just let go
of that ahead of time,

you're gonna have a much
better life with your children.

And a much better life
in general, you know.

And as I've also heard,

which is
one of my favorite things

that people say,
"Well, Nicole, she's so cute."

I'm like, "What's so
great about having kids?"

She's like, "It's fun!"

She's like, "Everyone
talks about it's so awful."

She's like, "It's fun!

It's so fun!"

And she's like,
"And you take Christmas,

and Thanksgiving,
and traditions that you loved,

and you make them
your own, you know."

You make them yours,
and that's awesome.

I think that's pretty cool.

Just think of all
your favorite times, right?

Your favorite times
in your family,

and then think of how
you like to do it,

and like,
Mark and I joke, we're like,

we're gonna
make friends, as in,

"make" our own friends,
because they have to do

what we wanna do.

Our friends are like,
"No, we don't really do

tent camping,
we'll stay in the hotel."

If you have kids,
you're like, "No, you do tent.

Because we do tent.

And this is your tent.

And you're good.

No, there's no hot water."

"No, no, there's that
faucet-- that fountain.

Go there.

You're good."
You know?

You may have
heard of Lenore Skenazy.

Her nickname...
"America's worst mom."

She has a lot to say
about the current culture

of parenting,
and the importance

of free-ranging your kids.

About two years ago, my son,
who was nine at the time,

was asking my husband
and me if we would please

let him find his own
way home, by himself,

on the subway, from someplace
he hadn't been before.

And my husband
and I talked about it,

and we thought, you know, we're
on the subways all the time,

we know how safe they are,
we know they're bustling,

we know he knows
how to read a map,

and he knows
his way around.

Okay, we think he's ready.

And so, I took him
to Bloomingdale's,

and when you open the door,
outside is the subway.

So he took the subway
home, got home.

He was really happy
about it, so were we.

That was it, until I didn't
have any ideas for a column,

and I'm a columnist,
that's what I do.

And I asked my editor,
"I don't know,

what if I write
about Izzy's subway ride?"

And she said, "Okay, you know,
local story, whatever."

And so I wrote it
and it ran in my paper,

The New York Sun,
and two days later,

I was on Today Show,
MSNBC, Fox News,

with everybody saying,
"Why would you do that?

Why would you put your son
in such a dangerous situation?"

I'm like,
"You know what? I wouldn't.

I love my son. If I thought
that he was in real danger,

I wouldn't have done that."

I think that my city
is safer than people think,

I think my son is smarter
than people believe

nine-year-olds are,
and, not that he's smarter

than other
nine-year-olds, it's just,

nine-year-olds are more
competent than we believe.

And I let him do it
'cause I thought he was ready.

And that was it,
and it started everything.

Hip, hip, hurray!

My Junior starts
going to school today.

What I'm suggesting is

that the childhood
that most of us had,

where, you know, we walked
to school, and we came home,

we had a snack,
and we went outside and played,

and our moms were
not going, like,

"Oh, I don't know
if I should let him outside,

I could never forgive myself,"
they just let us outside...

"Come home for dinner, hon."

I'm saying,
we can still have that.

* With my new pair
of britches and fancy tie *

* I'm on my way to school

* Though I'm just
startin' kindergarten *

* I'm nobody's fool *

We can have that
exact same childhood,

because times
are not less safe

than when we were kids, which
is something nobody believes,

but the statistics
are out there.

Canada is safer than
it was in the '70s and '80s,

America is safer, Australia
is safer, England is safer,

we've been going
through this crime drop

from the mid-'90s, which has
gone completely unnoticed,

because the crime is not
dropping on Nancy Grace.

The crime is not
dropping on CNN,

the crime is not
dropping on Law & Order.

But crime in the real
world is dropping,

so get away from the TV
and go out in that real world

where your kids can
really have a childhood.

You don't have to take it
away from them.

I bet you can't see
me 'cause I'm behind the tree.

I can still see you.

I can see you
from here right now.

What interests me is
how people think that

they are being
smart and proactive

when they think...
"worst first,"

that's my new phrase,
is "worst first thinking."

This woman who was
interviewing me said

she'd just been
talking to her friend,

who'd been at the grocery,
and he was walking

down one aisle, and he saw
a mom with her little kid,

and so he waved, "Hi," you know,
"Hi," very nice moment.

Saw 'em again
in the next aisle,

"Oh, you again, hi!"

Third aisle, the manager
asked him to leave.

What's the assumption there?

The assumption is that,
not that this is a nice guy,

people are shopping,
people run into each other

in the aisles, no,
the assumption is that this guy

is stalking the child?

What's he gonna do,
steal the child

while the mother
is reaching for a can of peas?

Or butter up the mom
so that he can come

and become the babysitter?

I mean, what wild things
would have to happen

for that to be anything
other than a nice moment?

But in these frenzied
"worst first" times,

we really are thinking
like crazy people.

We are thinking of all men
as potential pedophiles,

and all children as potential
victims, all the time.

Judgment turns out
to be one of the biggest

impediments
to free-ranging your kids,

because even
if you think your kid is

ready to walk
to school, you know,

she's seven,
or eight, or whatever,

what about the neighbor who's
driving their kid to school?

She's going to think
that you don't care.

And you worry that everybody
is going to judge you,

and it's really hard
to divorce yourself

from the big worry,
that something bad will happen.

I'm gonna be the one
trying to explain

to Anderson Cooper,
really, I was just going in

to check on the soup,
and I came out, it's like,

"Why were you
checking on the soup?"

You just feel
there's going to be

no sympathy.

* Though I'm just
startin' kindergarten *

* I'll be graduatin' soon! *

And we don't consider

getting into a car
dangerous, even though

that is the number one way
children die in America,

is as passengers, even
in their car seats, in cars.

But we don't think, "Oh my God,
what kind of mother I am!

I'm putting my kid
in the car! What if...

I could never forgive myself,
I don't like to think this way

but I can't stop myself.
What if he dies?"

We don't do that every time
we drive to the orthodontist.

You know?
But we do that every time

we let 'em play
on the front lawn.

Because we've decided
the front lawn is dangerous,

even though the chances
of a stranger abduction

are minuscule, and the chances
of dying in a car

are also very small,
but 40 times larger

than them dying
at the hands of a stranger.

I think a lot of
our fears are market driven,

because if you
can create a fear,

then you can sell us
something to assuage it.

There was a Verizon
commercial that shows

a mom and her kid,
who is at least as big as me,

like a 14-year-old girl,
at the top of an escalator

at the mall, and the girl
is going down the escalator

to meet her
two friends, and it says,

"Now is your big chance, Mom.

It's your daughter's
first time alone at the mall.

Don't you wanna
know where she goes?"

And it shows, yay,
Verizon can track her

like a crazy stalker
from Abercrombie to the Gap,

back to Abercrombie,
to, you know,

the cinnamon bun place.

There's always a market
for creating, like,

a niggling worry
at the back of your head,

"Was I supposed
to be doing more?"

And then,
"Yes, you were! Buy this!"

It's like, oh,
I just have to buy this

and now I'm a good mom?

"Yes, now you're a good mom!"

Okay. And so you buy it.

It seems strange, but lawsuits
are changing childhood

in that anytime something
bad happens to a kid,

a parent can sue.

A child in West Virginia
fell off a swing,

you know, it happens,
broke his leg.

The parents sued
the park district,

the park distract had
to pay, I can't remember

how many thousands
of dollars, because they were

"negligent," because
they had swings, God forbid.

And so, what they
did to prevent this

from happening again
and prevent their county

from going bankrupt, is they
took out all the swings.

There are no more swings
in that county,

because one kid fell off
and broke his leg.

And then there are places
that look at that and think,

proactively, "We don't even
want that first lawsuit.

Let's get rid
of our swings now."

You know, there's
toys that are recalled

because there's a dot
of lead in the pupil

of Barbie's eye, and, you know,
if a child ate the heads of,

you know,
every Barbie in America,

they could get
elevated blood levels!

There's no sense
of proportion,

there's no sense
that a teeny,

tiny, negligible
risk is just that.

Just try to bring back
a little normalcy.

One of those hours
that you were gonna watch

some terrifying show
where the child is,

you know, raped, tattooed,
and dragged from the swamp,

and then the maggots
are examined too,

and then the maggots
are raped, you know,

one of those shows...
don't watch it.

Go outside
in the neighborhood

you chose
to raise your kid in,

and be a part
of the neighborhood.

So in today's world,
as a mother, you know,

we're competing with
each other more than ever.

There's those "Mommy groups,"
there's those,

you know, like, we have to all,

"What are you doing?
Are you signing your child up

for the Fall programs,
or, are you,

is your child
enrolled in this,

are you enrolled in that?"
And people are comparing.

Not only
do parents over-fear

for their kids' safety,
they now obsess about

their success in the future.

$25,000 preschools? Oh, my.

But while this trend
may be en vogue,

it is not doing parents
or kids any favors.

Hara Marano, editor-at-large
for Psychology Today

and author
of "A Nation of Wimps"

did some investigating
that will make you think twice

about tutoring for tots.

And I spoke to over 400 people
on the frontlines of

campus counseling centers,

and they all said
the same thing.

All of these kids
lack coping skills,

and they break down
really, very easily

when they hit
a minor impediment.

They have
no idea how to cope.

And they all said
that the reason they have

no coping skills
is that their parents

took all the lumps
and bumps out of life for them.

Now, you have to understand,
this is a problem

of the middle class
and above.

This is not a problem
with the working class.

In fact, they have, in a sense,
the opposite problem.

And that's the tragedy
of it, of course,

because we're giving
all the attention to kids

who don't really need
so much attention,

and we could afford
to give a lot of our attention

to the kids
who need more attention.

It's all the outgrowth
of parental anxiety.

Parents are anxious
that their kids will

need to succeed,
and won't succeed,

without their
constant monitoring,

without their constant input,
even taking over tasks.

They're very anxious
for their kids,

they don't trust their kids,
they don't trust childhood,

they don't trust
any other parents,

and they're terrified that
"My kid will be left behind."

Literally a true story.

It was Christmas Day,

my neighbor,
who's a grown daughter

of my downstairs neighbors,
and she was wearing

one of those
contraptions on her legs,

what they call
a walking boot.

She said to me,
"Oh, I've just been

in the emergency room
for two and a half hours."

She said, "I've
never been separated

from my daughter
this long."

She's four.

Four years old,
and she's never been away

from her daughter
for two hours.

That's pathetic.

I was hoping it was a fad.

I have to tell you, I'm very
disappointed that it's not.

It seems to be getting
much more deeply entrenched,

and just accepted that
this is the way it has to be.

With really very intelligent
women not stopping

to examine
the premise or think about

what their kids
might be capable of.

And the other thing
that struck me was

how judgmental
they were of other women.

Every woman was judgmental
of the next woman,

of what she was
feeding her baby,

of the choices
that she had made.

And I think, ironically,
that this is a consequence

of the new position
that women are in,

that they do have
a lot of choices,

but no one feels
100 % comfortable

with the choices
that she has made.

That's one of the ironies
of having more choice.

Remember, if you've been
professionally trained,

you've gotten an MBA,
and you, you're really

a high-powered
professional, and you,

you're rewarded
for deploying those skills,

although you're clueless
that those skills

have nothing to do with
parenting and raising kids,

you've learned
everything you know

from experts
and from textbooks,

and you're taking
that same mindset

and applying it
to your kids.

So what you have happening
is this very grim,

joyless approach
to parenting.

And I am not surprised
if it turns lots

of other women
off parenting.

How could it not?

Instead of sitting back,
knocking down

a glass of sherry...

Whoo!

...and saying,
you know, there's a lot

of on-the-job learning
to parenting.

Well, there's not a whole
lot of fun in anxiety,

I can assure you.

The only person who has fun
with anxiety is Woody Allen.

"Well, Terra,
here is the letter

"I've been writing
in my head for weeks.

"I do not intend
to influence you,

"it is more that
I would feel negligent

"if in many years' time,
you might feel

"that I hadn't shared with you
my own experience adequately.

"You see,
with children, it's easy.

"You love
beyond any boundaries,

"there are no negotiations,
no compromises.

"There is this complete love.

"This spiritual connection
that makes you love

"and protect beyond anything.

"Watching a child
grow and develop

"is the most amazing thing
one can ever witness.

"It is a delight,
a laugh like no other,

"a challenge, a stimulation,
a constant source of wonder,

"like no other thing on earth.

"You don't have to read
anything or take courses

"on parenting, it is natural.

"It's obvious.

"You love your children
and your greatest wish

"is for their happiness.

"Everything you do falls
into place, it makes sense.

"They come into
your world and you share

"your joys and your adventures,
and all your days with them.

"Simply know that
parenting has been and is

"the best of life
for me and for your father.

"So many more times and so much
larger than any other thing.

"We made mistakes as parents,
but because we always

"loved you,
things always worked out.

"I don't think that it is
any more difficult than that.

"Anyway, probably enough said.

"I love you, as you well know,

"and I know also that
you love me... us, too.

"It is the way of things,

"and it is
the very best miracle.

Mom."

Phillip Longman
wrote "The Empty Cradle."

He thinks we're not paying
attention to the fact

that we've created
a climate that is

discouraging women
from having children.

We just don't think
about what this means

for our individual
or collective futures.

Definitely baby food
for thought.

Right now, the world faces
this gigantic megatrend,

which is that in countries
rich and poor,

in Christian countries,
Muslim countries,

both hemispheres,
wherever you look,

people are having far
fewer children than before.

There's no exceptions.

People are not even
having enough children

to replace the population
over time.

And this seems
to be the trend

on which humanity
as a whole is coursing.

Why it's happening?
Big question.

What are the implications
of its happening?

Even bigger question.

But it's no doubt
that it's happening.

This phenomenon has spread
from rich Western countries

to poorer
developing countries.

And what that means is,
whereas France,

the United States,
other Western countries

got a chance to get rich
before they got old,

now we're seeing
many developing countries

getting old
before they get rich,

and getting old
much faster than

any Western country ever did.

Mexico, for example, will
age as much in the next

generation as France
did in 140 years.

Well, I think it's important
to emphasize the positive,

from the vantage point
of the early 1970s,

it looked like world
population today might be

as much as 12 billion,
as opposed to the 6.7

that it actually is.

If we had stayed
on that course,

we would face some
very, very serious problems

in feeding the world
and coping with

the environmental
consequences of

that kind of population boom.

But as often happens,
when you wish for things,

they come true, and you have
to deal with the consequences.

As China has produced
fewer and fewer children,

it's produced
more and more pollution.

And this would seem
to be an iron law,

the countries that
first begin to have

this fertility decline
tend to, in the short term,

do economically better,
and so, with fewer children,

each remaining
adult consumes more.

Also, in a world
of aging money

that otherwise
might go to building

high-speed rail
or electric cars

or other things, now has to go
to pensions and healthcare.

All of a sudden
your economy doesn't seem

to grow as fast as
it used to, the tax receipts

don't come in like they used to,

the cost of entitlements
for the elderly

continues to grow, and you
find countries like Italy,

Greece, Spain, Ireland,
you know, in economic extremes.

If you think of a train
struggling to get up a hill,

it's got the force of gravity
trying to push it down,

and it's got the force
of all that steam power

trying to push it up.

The gravity is like mortality,

and the energy in the engine
is like fertility.

And so long as fertility is somewhat greater than mortality,

that engine will
still go up the hill.

But what happens when

the engine suddenly
runs out of coal?

It still continues
to go up the hill

for a little bit, right?

But a slower
and slower pace.

That's kinda
where we are right now.

Human population
is still growing,

but a slower and slower pace.

But eventually,
you come to a point where

it's neither
going up nor down.

And then all of a sudden
it starts going down.

And faster and faster.

And that is, that is
the population dynamic.

This partial exception
to the trend

of having fewer children
is among the religious.

So whether we're talking about
fundamentalist Christians,

fundamentalist Muslims,
or the ultra-Orthodox

in Judaism, these are where
the great exceptions lie.

This is where the five
or six person family

is still the norm.

Everybody's having
fewer children,

but less so
among the religious.

And so gradually,
we see a fundamentalist future unfolding.

The fundamental
vulnerability of modernism

in all of its forms
is its sterility.

Today, if you look
at a typical family tree,

right, you've got
the matriarch and the patriarch,

and then it branches out
all over here.

So when you come
to Thanksgiving,

there's all
kinds of people there

that have this relationship
to you of nephew,

cousin, uncle, aunt.

In a one-child family world,
there's no such things

as uncles and aunts,
there's no such things

as cousins and nephews.

There's only
grandparents and parents.

And the grandparents die,
and maybe your parents do too.

In any case, that's
a very slender thread,

right, and you have
comparatively very little

social capital to draw on,
in not just raising your kids,

but navigating life
in general, right.

It becomes
a very lonely world.

When everything
is so great in the present,

much thanks
to the past,

are we in danger of forgetting
to invest in the future?

In a culture that emphasizes
production and consumption

above all else, have
we downgraded the importance

of family to the point
of endangering the species?

Are we so used
to toeing the party line

and following the leader

that we've forgotten
to carve our own paths

and create
our own destinies?

And what if what
we are so afraid to miss

is responsible
for making us miss the most?

I mean, I think sometimes
people look at me

as being a... you know,
sort of one of those

detached mothers who's
like, got the martini

and the cigarette,
and it's like,

no, darling, go off
and play in the other room,

you know,
Mommy's tired, or whatever.

I mean, maybe
I'm not the kind of mom

who bakes cookies
and throws birthday parties

like some mothers do,
but I am a mom, still.

If you don't feel
like you fit

into some
sort of mold of "mom,"

that doesn't mean you're
going to be a bad mom.

You know, I think
our kids are pretty,

pretty good kids.

We live in a post-modern world

where our communication
is on the internet,

on the telephone,
watching the screen,

whether it's
our phone, or, you know,

movie screens, whatever it is,

it's very broken up,
and it's very fragmented.

And there's
a detached experience

that I think a lot
of people go through,

and I think the antidote
to that feeling of detachment

is family.

One thing I deeply
appreciate about being a parent

is that it's
a very humbling thing.

And it certainly allows
you to have a perspective

on professional life.

Because in the end,
you know, career success

doesn't compete
with the meaning of...

the human connection,
with a child or a partner.

Okay, what I love
about the game Boggle

is that everybody's
looking at the same little

configuration of letters
on this little board,

and everybody sees
something differently.

And it just...
I love playing it,

not necessarily
to be a high scorer,

but to see what other
words that other people saw

that I didn't see, from
their different perspective.

And that's the beauty
of having kids.

It's being able to enjoy...

their totally
different perspective.

Yeah, I think having
a kid means that you're

tuned into a whole
different dimension in life.

You learn that
you have to slow down.

You learn
that you can't control things.

You learn that you
have to be attentive

to peoples' needs,
it's a complete change of gears,

complete change of gears.

As I reflect
back on my life...

the one son that
I have in my life,

the one child, is probably
the best single thing

that ever happened to me
in my life.

And I think it's been a source
of tremendous fulfillment

and it's hard for us
to imagine ourselves

being 50-something as we are,

and not having any tie
to the next generation.

You realize
that who they are

is everyone
who's come before them,

and what a continuum that is.

And you also realize that

you're much more
vested in the future,

that you care much more
about what's gonna happen

shorter term
and longer term,

that you're more
invested, therefore,

in how the world unfolds.

Imagine sitting on the couch,

next to your child,
just talking to them,

looking in their eyes,
and hearing them,

you know, hearing a five-year,
seven-year, eight-year-old,

converse.

Does that sound, what, mundane?

And imagine feeling
warm and enjoying it

and hearing those
things as interesting.

There is a whole emotional
aspect to raising children,

to living family life.

I was at the mall yesterday,

and you know
those big gumball machines,

where the gumballs
come all the way down?

Well, a little girl
was there, with her mom,

and the mom
was kneeling with her,

and they put the coin in,
and the gumball

was coming around,
the little girl was looking on,

and when the gumball landed,
the girl,

the little girl said,
"Thank you, Mommy!"

And I was so touched
because I thought,

nobody ever talks
to you like a child does.

Nobody ever appreciates life
like a child does.

You get a chance,
with a child, to re-see life.

And we get a little on-edge,
and we get a little

bitter as we get older,
and what a child brings

is that wonder
back into your life.

And unless you've had a child,

you don't know how enormous
the difference is,

but it's the depth
of love that you cannot know

any other way, and you
can't put that into words.

It's ephemeral.
It's like a beautiful sky.

The end.