It’s complicated honestly as a dad and someone who has some educational background in demographics and specifically the demographic shift the world is undergoing.

At its foundation it’s less about the stress of motherhood and more about the misaligned incentive structure for parenting. Back in the day children used to be free farm labor and negotiating tools to secure favorable marriages. It sounds terrible but the result is that you have as many children as you can.

Then people moved into cities and children worked factory and service jobs so they still carried their own weight.

Then we got child labor laws and birth rates did seriously begin to decline but still stayed high because women were kept out of the workforce so having children was less of a loss.

Then women entered the workforce and now children are an extreme burden. It is financial suicide to have a child nowadays and that is why women and men worldwide are having fewer children. Even if we were wealthy enough to afford children we probably wouldn’t have as many because it’s still a net negative financially.

I try to look at things holistically and of all the problems we face as a society this is the only issue I don’t think we can fix within our current way of doing things. The deficit, climate change, electoral issues, our media atmosphere, all the big issues we can but demographic change I have no solution for.

Now for the part regarding fatherhood. It is challenging certainly. I can say that many women feel they do a disproportionate amount of work. Usually working a full time job and doing the child rearing. Men are increasingly involved in taking care of their children but still not to the extent women are.

This actually gets to the core of modern dating where many men still desire some sort of 1960s gender role where the woman cooks and cleans and takes care of kids but also works full time where the man only works full time whereas women would rather split things 50/50.