They say we need more childcare subsidies to fix the birth rate, as if money alone makes people want children. I taught children for thirty-six years, and what I saw wasn’t a lack of strollers—it was mothers with eyes full of exhaustion, working two jobs just to keep the heat on. My husband worked himself into the grave by fifty-eight, and now they want young families to repeat that? I don’t hear anyone asking why people are so tired they can’t imagine raising a child with joy. We built a country on overwork and silence, then wonder why no one wants to live in it. The real subsidy needed isn’t for diapers—it’s for time, for peace, for someone to believe their life might be more than surviving until Friday.
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