Shades of The Scarlet Letter! It’s not clear that the conservative Heritage Foundation folks behind Project 2025 ever read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 19th century novel about Puritan America, but their influence on the Trump Administration is reflected in Vice President J.D. Vance’s declaration, shortly after the Inauguration, that “I want more babies in the United States of America.” Accompanying his declaration is an effort to propose federal legislation that would provide government savings accounts for new babies, but only if they are born to married couples. The new savings accounts could be funded by cutting or abolishing existing child-focused programs. One target appears to be Head Start, a highly successful early childhood education program that has helped millions of at-risk children be better prepared for elementary school.
Deciding to have a child can be exciting, excruciating, and expensive, costs and emotions borne by more than just parents. Rearing a child to age 18 is estimated to be $23,000 per year (in today’s dollars), or more than $400,000 overall, not counting college tuition. Contemplating that sort of investment, it’s no wonder that many young men and women today are opting for independence and careers rather than marriage and family. The U.S. birth rate has been declining for years, exacerbated in recent decades by the Great Recession and the covid pandemic. Nonetheless, 3.6 million babies were born in the United States in 2024, a slight increase over the 2023 figures. And every one of those babies is a new American citizen, despite the Trump Administration’s attempts to upend the 14th Amendment. All that political energy and effort should be put into improving access to reproductive health care, reducing housing, food, and medical costs, and recognizing that families can be more than a father, a mother, a couple of kids and a dog (the “nuclear family” espoused by The Heritage Foundation). It really does “take a village” to raise a child.
My mother married during World War II and, like most young women of that time, saw her future as a homemaker and mother, but post-war challenges put a strain on many young families, and ours was no different. Occasionally assisted by my grandparents, she raised her three daughters to be strong and independent women, and we all struggled at times to balance marriage, children and jobs/careers, fortunately with mostly positive results. Women today have opportunities that were only dreamed of when my mother was growing up. From the traditional teacher, nurse, or secretarial role, women today compete on an equal footing with their male counterparts for almost any job, excepting perhaps, President of the United States!
The U.S. has a maternal death rate higher than many other high-income western nations. The maternal death rate for Black women is 50.3 deaths per 100,000 live births. For White women, the maternal death rate is 14.5 percent, and for Hispanic women, 12.4 percent. It’s ironic that Mr. Vance advocates for more babies while the number of OB/GYN physicians is declining, often because “red state” legislation restricting reproductive health care puts their patients and careers at risk. The risk is higher in rural areas where seeking, and finding, pre-natal health care can be distant, difficult, and expensive, leaving patients, married or not, to fend for themselves.
Judgment and punishment were major themes in The Scarlet Letter, but they should not be incorporated into government programs, for children, their married or unmarried parents, or anyone else. Getting married and deciding to have children are two of the most personal and private decisions anyone will ever make, not opportunities for governmental intrusion or direction, despite the desires of The Heritage Foundation and the Vice President of the United States.