Welcome to Matriarchy Report
We believe that having kids in the U.S. doesn't have to be bananas
I reported on social issues and a “poverty” beat full-time for years, and through researching and publishing hundreds of stories, one thing became clear to me: most suffering and intractable issues begin with a pregnancy, and the birth of a child.
I learned that in the U.S, one of the easiest ways to go bankrupt is to have a child. I learned that American women are more likely to die in childbirth than in any other high-income country, and that parents of 12.5 million children in the U.S. can’t afford enough food for their children. I was astonished. I also learned that there are solutions and ideas--both big and small -- to a lot of these issues that are underreported, or haven’t gotten traction in the U.S.
Then, two years ago, I had a baby myself. During those first grueling months, the thought that went through my head over and over again was, “How has the species survived like this?”
The burden of caring for a child in modern America can be crushing, and there’s little support or incentive to do it. As another friend of mine struggling with a newborn put it: “This sh** is bananas.”
As a new parent I found that regular childcare for a baby in the U.S. costs as much or more than college tuition, and that parents, including those that give birth, have little or no paid leave in many states.
I learned that most parents, and especially women, live in an underworld of overwhelm and expense, and often debt. No wonder the number of children born in the U.S. has been dropping for over a decade, and that we are projected to reach a new “baby bust” low due to the pandemic.
The choice to have kids in the U.S. doesn’t have to be bananas—we can do better than this.
My co-writer Allison Lichter and I started this newsletter to research and report exclusively on these issues because we can’t stop thinking about them: from headlines about how 100% of job losses in December were to women as a result of COVID (and 154,000 of those that lost jobs were black women), to when we visit the drugstore baby aisle and see that baby formula is in a locked cabinet to prevent desperate parents from stealing it.
We can’t stop thinking about these issues and better ways to address them.
This newsletter is for anyone interested in joining this conversation: including parents (especially female and non-binary parents), people thinking about being parents, and most importantly, anyone who is interested in relieving suffering and increasing well-being and equity in the U.S.
Congrats on this new venture! I’m sure there will be great things to come.