The Two Faces of Natalism

I’m jumping on one of my hobbyhorses today to talk about natalism and the freakshows who are ruining it. This is not headline-news urgent stuff. But I hope you’ll come on the ride with me just the same. —JVL

1. Making Babies

Last week we had a brief natalism flareup when the Trump administration pretended that it wanted to get Americans to have more babies.

For instance: Maybe Trump will give parents a $5,000 “baby bonus.” Or give out Motherhood Medals to women who have a lot of kids.

Some years ago I wrote a book about natalism. It’s quite good. You should read it. The précis: It would be good for America if we had more babies—especially since our society is becoming hostile to immigration.¹

In the book I devoted some time to natalist policy proposals such as cash “baby bonuses” and motherhood medals. Short version: They don’t work.

We can talk about the policy details in a minute, but what I really want to get to today is how Donald Trump and MAGA activists are giving natalism a bad name. Because these people make having babies looks creepy as hell.

And it doesn’t have to be that way.

Elon Musk is the most famous natalist in America. Here is one recent example of his baby-making protocols:

Musk has had at least 14 children with four women. . . . Multiple sources close to the tech entrepreneur said they believe the true number of Musk’s children is much higher than publicly known. . . .

Musk refers to his offspring as a “legion,” a reference to the ancient military units that could contain thousands of soldiers and were key to extending the reach of the Roman Empire.

During St. Clair’s pregnancy, Musk suggested that they bring in other women to have even more of their children faster. “To reach legion-level before the apocalypse,” he said to St. Clair in a text message viewed by The Wall Street Journal, “we will need to use surrogates.”

He has recruited potential mothers on his social-media platform X, according to some of the people.

Musk has used his wealth to buy the silence of some women who have his kids, according to St. Clair as well as other people, text messages and documents reviewed by the Journal.

Perhaps the second and third most famous natalists in America are Michael and Simone Collins, thanks to many, many press profiles of this activist thirtysomething couple. Here’s a sample of their views on parenthood:

Every decision the Collinses make is backed by data. “Nominative determinism is a heavily studied field,” Malcolm tells me, when I ask about his children’s names. “Girls that have gender neutral names are more likely to have higher paying careers and get Stem degrees.” Names like Titan and Industry are much more than gender neutral, I say. “We wanted to give our kids strong names. We want our kids to have a strong internal locus of control,” he continues. . . .

“Almost all the toys are gifts,” Malcolm says, almost apologetically. “We don’t throw out anything that gets sent to us.” Both boys have their own iPads fitted with a strap so they can wear them around their necks. Two-year-old Torsten is alone somewhere with his.

They take me upstairs. As well as having separate offices, Simone and Malcolm sleep in different bedrooms. . . .

Simone shows me some decorations in the living room; they relate to the “intentionally constructed religion, technically atheist” that they have developed to provide a moral framework promoting their values for pronatalist families. Instead of Christmas, they have Future Day. “The Future Police come and take their toys, and then they have to write a contract about how they’re going to make the world a better place, and they get their toys back with some gifts and stuff. They get more gifts when they do whatever they said they were going to do. What does Christmas teach them? Get random toys if you’re vaguely good?”

I am not one to judge other parents. But that’s fucked up.

And there’s more where that came from...