Actress Anna Kendrick says motherhood is not for her, a position that some would say makes her one of the many “childless cat ladies” people like GOP vice presidential nominee J. D. Vance say are making the rest of us miserable through their outsized influence on politics. There is certainly a kernel of truth to the idea that childlessness is one of the factors driving political psychopathy.  

It’s not just women, however. In a recent interview, Kendrick noted that men are often exempted from discussions about the business of family. “It’s like when I hear husbands say they want to ‘help out’ with the kids,” she said. “It’s two working parents! And I always want to kind of say something, and then I’m just like, ‘Well, I’m the childless cat lady. I’m not gonna say shit.’”  

She’s not wrong. It’s easy to find examples of men boasting without fear of backlash about their permanent adolescence and childlessness. Senior HuffPost reporterBrittany Wong points to an interview between Howard Stern and Seth Rogen, in which the latter said, “I don’t know anyone who gets as much happiness out of their kids as we get out of our non-kids.” Stern then praised him for forgoing a family.  

Maybe part of the reason this doesn’t get discussed as much on the conservative side of things is that it’s a tricky topic to navigate. You run the risk of appearing to blame child-free men for the existence of childless women. That’s not fair, because it’s a complicated question. I also believe that people like Rogen, who relish the absence of children in their lives—or at least claim to—are in the minority.   

That said, it is true that many men under the age of 43 (the oldest of the millennials) do not behave or think of themselves as adults but instead operate as fully-grown adolescents who occasionally engage in adult behavior, i.e., paying bills and taxes. Hence the term “adulting,” which first entered our lexicon in 2013. Merriam-Webster defines it as: “the act or practice of attending to the ordinary tasks required of a responsible adult.”   

The act of an adult, rather than being an adult.  

It’s easy to conclude that there are more and more of us “adulting” due to generational entropy: people are just softer nowadays. Maybe. But it’s undeniable that many of the traditional markers of adulthood are simply harder to attain. To illustrate that point, we can cite an essay called “Becoming Adult: Meanings of Markers to Adulthood.” In it, researchers outline the five traditional social markers associated with adulthood that emerged in the middle of the 20^th century: “(i) finishing school, which once meant high school but now generally means higher education; (ii) finding a job, (iii) leaving home, (iv) getting married, and (v) having children.”  

Progression through these phases was once relatively swift, easy, and straightforward, with women primarily occupying the role of housewife and men functioning as breadwinners. That’s obviously not the case today. Compared to previous generations, young people take longer to leave the nest, mainly due to economic factors. Higher education wasn’t a virtual must for a job that paid well enough to support a family on a single income. Gender norms were also still in effect back then and supported by cultural expectations.   

“This model was accompanied by strong cultural prescriptions and proscriptions about the ages and sequences that these events should or should not be accomplished,” the authors write. “It was also accompanied by social and other kinds of rewards for staying the course and sanctions for not doing so.”  

Men were expected to—and, more importantly, could—provide a family with a roof over its head and food on the table, prepared by a mother who acted as a guardian of hearth and home. All that changed with women entering the workforce, the erosion of gender norms, changing cultural expectations, and the slow-motion collapse of the possibility of surviving on one income for most people. The hope of owning a house is also more out of reach for millennials and Gen Z than it was for their parents and grandparents.   

Simply put, it is harder today for men to feel that they are able to be fathers, given the mismatch between traditional expectations and reality. Earlier this year, a Pew Research Center study found that the number one reason adults both under and over 50 gave for not having children was that “not having kids has made it easier for them to afford the things they want, have time for hobbies and interests, and save for the future.” There are many ways to slice that. Let’s start with the explanation that these men feel the conditions of life today make certain things mutually exclusive.  

All this is to say nothing of the dreary dating scene, which is inherently stacked against men. In the age of the #MeToo movement, approaching and interacting with women in person can sometimes feel like navigating a minefield. There are generally more men using dating apps than women, and only a small portion of the women are actually on these apps with a long-term relationship in mind. Indeed, one study found that many women use them merely as ways to validate their attractiveness. It’s a travesty, and everyone loses.  

Kendrick is right. A lot of men these days have ruled out the possibility of starting a family. But folding that into a narrative about sexism forces you to overlook key factors contributing to the rising number of homes that will never hear a child’s laughter.