Neurotic Moms Are Killing Birth Rates

And inflating parenting standards to unrealistic extremes

What if the toddler climbs into his crib? What if he hits the baby? What if, in a well-intentioned effort, the toddler thinks the baby is cold and tosses a blanket over him and accidentally suffocates him?

These are some of the comments my wife saw when she checked in on reddit to see what people think about babies and toddlers sleeping in the same room. We just recently successfully moved the baby out of a bassinet in our room to sleep in a crib in his brother’s room, but you’d think we poured gasoline on the kid and lit him on fire the way these people were acting.

This type of neurotic what-if-worst-case-scenario thinking is highly prevalent in online parenting discourse, and it’s being driven by moms with too much nervous energy and not enough outlets. Oh my God, what if he falls? What if he trips? Is he developing quickly enough? Amanda’s kid is only seven months older and he can do all these things my kid can’t do. What if the plastic toys are embedding microplastics into his body? Better shell out the cash for a Lovevery subscription.

Ugh, this food is so processed. What if it’s bad for him? Better buy organic. Better yet, make everything from scratch. No boxes or pouches, only hours spent slaving away in the kitchen so that the kid can smear it all over the wall. Better google what to do. Solid Starts? Better follow every step to perfection, and if you don’t, you’re a bad mom who just created a picky eater because you weren’t willing to work hard enough to properly steam broccoli and patiently wait for the kid to vomit it up and ask for milk.

What if the vaccine causes autism? Let me google it. It says that COVID kills billions of children every year and that I’m literally a eugenicist because I don’t wear a mask anymore. What if he gets COVID because he doesn’t have the vaccine? What if he gets sick at daycare? Better quit my job and stay home. What if he won’t properly develop socialization skills and go into kindergarten emotionally stunted and underdeveloped?

What if the sky opens up tomorrow and the Rapture begins? What if the seas boil and the dead wake from eternal slumber? What if the Apocalypse is tomorrow, Katie? What then? Did your nervous hair twirling help? What if Cthulhu himself wraps his tendrils around your child’s head and a thousand screams echo in their mind for eternity?

What if? I don’t know, man. What if a clown stabs your kid on a walk? About as reasonable to fret over that as it is over the possibility that a car hits him through some convoluted Final Destination type of scenario, so instead you keep him at home. I mean, what if the exhaust fumes and break dust increase his chances of getting lung cancer by 2% when he’s 108 years old?

“Oh my God, you haven’t even thought about the clown-stabbing scenario? You’re a terrible mother. Me, personally, I have a whole contingency plan for when I see a clown on the street.”

This type of thinking is suicidal; it drives people to a slow death by neurosis. It’s the driving force behind million-dollar companies founded by other neurotic moms and their sociopathic husbands who recognized they could massively profit off of exploiting the psychological weaknesses of women who haven’t slept a full eight hours in months. It’s the driving force behind every online mommy war battle over breastfeeding and co-sleeping. “No, I’m more neurotic!” “No, I am!”

It’s social death is what it is. It’s inflated standards to a comical degree. It’s being unable to justify a second or third kid because you don’t have a whole-ass separate bedroom for them and can’t afford to buy a bigger house. You’re locked in at a 3% mortgage, Emily. This is your forever home now.

It’s preventing people from having kids in the first place because the standard is no longer “Are they alive at 18?” No, now the standard is “Did you maximize every potential possibility? Did you ensure you minimize every possible threat to their physical and mental wellbeing? Are they on the leading edge of development for their age group? Did they inhale a fume or scratch a plastic? Did they cry for more than two seconds?”

Just as with tribalism and seeking out sugar at all costs, neurotic moms used to be really useful when humans were roving the savanna, and are now killing us in modernity. It used to be beneficial to be jumpy and afraid of every rustle in the bushes, but now the bushes are ornamental and the predators are extinct.

My constant hobby horse is that too many people are under the illusion that we are in control of how our kids turn out, and while this is the right time to mention it, it’s not the right place to argue it. Instead, I want to propose that we regain balance, because balance has been lost. The neurotic caveman mother used startle awake in the night in false alarm and be comforted back to sleep with the heavy hand of her caveman husband who wants them both to sleep and senses no danger. Modern husbands are apparently too willing to entertain their wives’ neuroses and unwilling to call them on their bullshit. “They’re fine, Jessica. Stop worrying. Go back to sleep.”

Put the phones down, ladies. I’d rather have you scroll through AI slop than whatever parenting insanity the TikTok algorithm is feeding you. I assure you that there is not one proper response to a toddler throwing a tantrum that will simultaneously calm them down without also giving them long term emotional trauma. The top five list of threats to a child according to a pediatric nurse is not helping. Social media serves the function of tribe gossip, which is an important for women in human society, and just like with many of our modern issues, the female instinct is being tricked by social media and women scrolling their phone while on the toilet are being subconsciously deluded into thinking that they’re experiencing something important when they’re really just taking a poop break away from the kids.

Your constant worrying is going to cause you long term psychological trauma more than your child, and it’s going to make getting pregnant with number two about a thousand times more difficult because you’re always tricking your body into thinking that your ranch house in the suburbs is the equivalent of the thickest jungle homo sapiens has ever traversed. I’d like us all to still be able to rely on your instincts, they’re actually very important for human kind.