Live-and-let-live has always been part of the American ethos, but in recent decades, this laissez-faire individualism has become a prime directive in elite ethics.
This is one reason the United States didn’t start wrestling with the baby bust until the past couple of years, a decade after Europe started facing the reality of low and falling birth rates.
If people aren’t having children, that’s their choice, the thinking went. It’s logical in a way: The point of the sexual revolution was to disentangle love, sex, marriage, and baby-making. The point of the pill was to end the idea of parenting, likewise marriage, as the natural thing that most grown-ups just do. Becoming a parent became a lifestyle choice instead.
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The result was a culture that believes,
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