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Birth rates across the West are plummeting, and our economies will suffer untold carnage in the years ahead — all because we have failed to assign value to the unseen work of child-rearing. Still, we have an opportunity to turn this mess around.

This was the eye-opening message I took away from the 2024 ARC conference, which I had the pleasure of attending this week in Sydney.

The Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC), whose inaugural event was held in London last year, was founded by Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, former Australian Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson, and Baroness Philippa Stroud of the UK. Its purpose? To revive the values and vision that made the West great and turn the tide on the despair and declinism gripping our civilisation.

Topics at the event ranged from political leadership to Indigenous affairs, energy and the environment to responsible citizenship, and free market trade to the enduring importance of faith in society.

But the sessions that stood out to me most were those by Erica Komisar, a New York-based clinical social worker, parent coach and author, and Virginia Tapscott, a mum from country Australia who also hosts a podcast and writes for The Australian.

Their respective talks centred on the vital role mothers play in the lives of their young children, the family home and the nation. What Erica and Virginia shared was a deafening wake-up call.

Erica Komisar on Caring for Our Kids

An academic heavyweight, Erica shared alarming data showing that when children under 3 years of age spend extended periods away from their mothers, they are likely to suffer trauma and are diagnosed with mental health problems at much higher rates.

She had a warning for Australia, whose incumbent Labor government, in a bid to raise workforce participation rates among Aussie mothers, plans to make universal childcare a signature policy at next year’s election:

Don’t trade in the timeless value of a relationship between a baby and its mother in pursuit of economic goals.

She urged parents to be as emotionally and physically present as possible for their children.

She urged mothers to resist the narrative that work done outside the home is more important than the childhood and family formation that happens inside the home.

She urged policymakers to banish plans for universal childcare that would almost certainly institutionalise generational damage for Australia’s children. Instead, Erica argued for ample stipends and tax breaks for parents who stay home with their children, and generous on and off ramps for working mothers.

Policy influences culture, Erica warned. And getting policy right has a huge impact on the behaviour and values of a nation.

Virginia Tapscott on the Value of Motherhood

Complementing Erica’s clarion call to Australia was a powerful message from country mum Virginia Tapscott, which I summarised in this article’s opening lines.

Western governments have treated universal childcare like an economic silver bullet, Virginia explained, but have not stopped to consider the downside.

Armed with national and global research, Virginia warned that when the public purse funds strangers to raise a nation’s children, slowly but surely, the bonds of motherhood unravel and mothers stop wanting to have children, resulting in negative birth rates — a frightful precursor to economic collapse.

Virginia advised that the political push for ever more labour has turned into an all-out assault on mothers and families, and entire countries will certainly pay the price.

The reality is that mothers actually want to raise their children. One fascinating stat shared by Virginia from the 2021 census: Less than 7% of parents with children under age 15 would increase their work hours if government-funded childcare was made available to them.

In short, parents want and need time to parent. There are many policies that can provide for this, not least paid parental leave of 6 or even 12 months.

If that sounds like an economic nightmare of its own, Virginia offered a powerful corrective: pregnancy, childbirth and childcare is work — it’s just that our economies have failed to recognise them as work and assign motherhood the value it has always delivered to a nation. Fix this, she said, and we could turn our fertility crisis around, and much besides.

Virginia added that while pro-natal policies get a bad rap these days, pro-natal is actually pro-equality and pro-women. By contrast, the idea that women should push out a baby and get straight back to work is dehumanising and backwards.

As a new dad trying to work and balance a growing budget, the talks shared by Erica and Virginia had particular purchase for me. While economics is not my strong suit, their message made a lot of sense. I can only hope Australia’s leaders are listening.

As I write these words on my flight back to Adelaide, I reflect on the blessing it was to attend the ARC conference this week as part of my work with the Canberra Declaration, while my wife Angie was back at home looking after our daughter and growing our second baby, due in January.

Surely, she has the most important job in the world.

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Image courtesy of Unsplash.