Birth rate debate exposes anti-woke hypocrisy over childlessness

The paradox of those who demand children from others

There is a contradiction running through much of the public discourse on birth rates: those who most insist that people are not having children because of a political agenda are, quite often, the ones who do not have any either. A viral tweet summed it up with a smirk: «Because of the 2030 agenda, people are not having children». The reply was not long in coming: «Buddy, you don't have kids either, nor you, nor Milei, nor Lilia, nor anyone on the right». And it did not stop there. What began as an exchange of accusations turned into an improvised inventory of well-known faces from the anti-proge activist scene, with an uncomfortable question hanging in the air: how many of those who pontificate about birth rates have actually gone through the business of raising someone?

The matter has substance because it touches a raw nerve. Birth rates are a complex demographic phenomenon, with economic, cultural and housing causes that no slogan can solve. But in the public conversation it has become a weapon to throw. And thrown weapons, when wielded without first checking one's own record, end up firing backwards.

The list of the childless who demand children

The central argument is simple: if the lack of children were the direct consequence of an ideological conspiracy, the ideologically opposed should be breeding like rabbits. That does not seem to be the case. «For every anti-proge person with kids, you get 5 or more without», one comment claimed. The assertion comes not with a census but with an impression repeated across many messages: most of those waving the spectre of depopulation are approaching forty without any offspring.

The accusation of hypocrisy is explicit: «You can't complain that “eeeveryone refuses to have kids” and then approach 40 without having any yourself». The tone is jokey, but the jab is aimed at a lifestyle that, in practice, looks suspiciously like that of the «pogre» they claim to despise. «They are “pogre” in their way of life — single, childless — but they hate pogre and are conservative when it comes to telling you what to do», read another reply.

From the 2030 agenda to biology: the argument runs dry

When the debate moves away from the exchange of accusations, a more prosaic explanation appears: people do not have children because they do not want to or cannot. «People don't have kids because they don't feel like it. Stop overthinking it», one comment concluded. Another added a material nuance: «We are all part of a lobotomised society and the economy affects us too. Besides, a single person cannot have children, even less so if he's a man».

This opens a path that the ideological noise drowns out: unwanted loneliness, the lack of a stable partner, the costs of raising children. Factors that do not fit the conspiracy-agenda narrative but explain the fall in fertility better than any decree. The irony is that some of those who denounce the «agenda» most loudly are the first to admit, when asked about their own case, that the problem is not political but personal.

The robokids plan and the empty ditches

There is no shortage of outlandish remarks. One message imagines a future in which the lack of children is solved with machines: «Well, that's the plan up to 2100, everything is going as it should — let them do whatever the hell they want, they'll be sold robokids». The caricature serves to point out the drift of a discourse that, from invoking the end of civilisation so often, ends up sounding like cheap science fiction.

The end of the exchange leaves a bitter aftertaste. «And the ditches still unfilled», someone snaps, mixing birth rates with historical memory in a leap that illustrates the temperature of the issue. The underlying question remains unanswered: if the blame lies neither with the agenda, nor with the pogre, nor with single people, whose is it? Perhaps no one's. Or perhaps everyone's.