Is starting a family becoming impossible?

Hogging seats on a crowded train, not saying excuse me, watching videos on your phone with no headphones in. Sometimes it feels like we don't know how to act anymore. What we have been seeing, increasingly, is people breaking rules. Why should I play by the rules if nobody else is going to do that for me? This week on Explain It to Me, how to mind your manners.

New episodes Sundays wherever you get your podcasts. Fertility is dropping around the world. Sure, there's an economic case to be made for trying to bump up birth rates, but I also think there's a deeper psychological case for doing so. The willingness and ability to try for children says something about our broader state of mind as a society. And if we're balking at doing so, that suggests something is deeply wrong.

In today's conversation, I'd like to get into the cultural reasoning for this, the stuff that isn't easily reflected by polling and statistics. The feeling of dread and uncertainty about the future that has become pervasive among millennials and Gen Z. How do these opposite of rose-colored glasses change the biggest decisions of our lives? I'm Christine Emba, sitting in for Sean Illing, and this is the gray area. My guest today is Anna Louis Sussman, an author and reporter.

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