On a Saturday morning at my local playground, our toddler swung alone on a four-swing set while the other swings swayed empty in the breeze. Ten years ago, this park would have been full of young parents chasing children through slides and sandboxes. Now, the silence is striking.

America isn’t just having fewer babies. We’re becoming a country where many will never hear a child call them “Mom” or “Dad.”

The CDC’s latest numbers confirm it: The U.S. fertility rate hit an all-time low in 2024, just 1.59 births per woman, well below the replacement rate of 2.1. While headlines treat this as just another data point, it’s a warning sign for America’s economic, cultural, and spiritual future.

This isn’t just a birth rate problem. It’s a family formation crisis.

When fewer people have children, the effects ripple far beyond the home. Economically, fewer workers will support Social Security, care for the elderly, and staff our military. Culturally, it means smaller families, lonelier households, and fewer aunts, uncles, cousins, and siblings to share life with. Spiritually, it raises questions about how we see the future: What does it say about our worldview if more and more people opt out of raising the next generation?

>>> What Conservatives Miss About Marriage

Interestingly, the CDC published its report one day before National IVF Day on July 25, a time when many Americans celebrate the more than one million children conceived through in vitro fertilization (IVF). Without a doubt, these boys and girls are a gift to the world. But it’s a gift they’re not going to enjoy with many siblings.

For many, IVF is seen as the solution to infertility and declining birth rates, but the numbers tell a different story. IVF births tend to be first births, and IVF mandates have had little impact on overall fertility rates.

Lyman Stone, a senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, recently analyzed the impact of free or subsidized IVF on fertility rates. He found that, contrary to popular belief, state or corporate IVF subsidies do not boost the fertility rate. Instead, it reshuffles who chooses to have children and when. When IVF is subsidized, younger women tend to delay childbearing (and sometimes marriage), while older women are slightly more likely to have a child.

The net result is that women, who may have been able to have multiple children naturally, are only able to have, on average, one child with IVF later in life. As Stone notes,

Most IVF users do not have high odds of going on to have more children: whereas 2.3% of first births in 2022 involved IVF, just 1.8% of second births and 0.9% of third births did. Society-wide fertility is unlikely to be increased by interventions aimed at 40-something women having a first child.

This is why “more IVF” cannot be the solution to declining births. Ultimately, it doesn’t promote family formation, and over the long-term, it is likely to suppress the number of children a given woman may be able to have, especially when factoring in high costs, unreliable outcomes, and unethical practices.

>>> U.S. Fertility Is Declining Due to Delayed Marriage and Childbearing

There is no single reason for declining birth rates, so no single solution will reverse them. We need to think bigger than cash payouts. We need a full-scale pro-family initiative that addresses economic, cultural, and structural barriers. That includes:

• Affordable single-family housing for young families.

• Infrastructure for larger families (affordable minivans, practical car-seat designs, etc.)

• Tax and welfare reforms that remove marriage penalties.

• Medical research into reproductive health conditions like PCOS, endometriosis, and male dysfunction.

• A cultural shift that treats parenting as a public good, not a private burden.

Taken together, it’s a complicated family matter that requires buy-in from every sector. We must shift the cultural narrative: Forming a family should be seen as both aspirational and attainable. That means leaders in politics, business, media, and faith communities must champion family life not just as a personal choice, but as a cornerstone of national prosperity.

One of the best examples of this came from one of our vice presidents at the Heritage Foundation. Early in my daughter’s life, I had a last-minute news hit and no one to watch her. A secretary kindly offered to help. After the segment, I saw an email from my superior titled “baby sounds.” My heart dropped. I was terrified my daughter had been disruptive while I was gone. However, the email simply said, “Thank you for bringing your daughter to work today. It was such a blessing to hear her coo’ing in the office. She’s always welcome.” 

That moment crystallized something for me: Building a pro-family culture is not just about policies—it’s about everyday choices to welcome children into our shared spaces.

If we fail, the future won’t just be quieter. It will be lonelier, poorer, and less innovative. But if we succeed, we won’t simply boost the birth rate. We will build a country where children are celebrated, marriage is valued, and the next generation is not an afterthought but our greatest investment. And in the end, that might be the most powerful strategy of all.