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TheGlimmering brings up a really good point. Start scrutinizing the childrearing process a bit more carefully, and maybe people won't be so quick off the mark to have that baby just to demonstrate that they've arrived at adulthood.
Oh, I know this kind of response will bring a flurry of indignant responses: "I will have you know that I carefully planned for my child and raised him only on organic vegetables and soy protein, that is, after I breastfed him until he was six on a raw-food diet! And I read the complete works of Proust to him in the womb! And I quit my job as a cancer researcher to home school him!" Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. As always, it's not about you. It's about the people who simply don't think, either before or after having children, about whether they're really prepared to raise them and whether they even want them or love them, even. Children don't deserve parents who are total fuckups. Since indolence and selfishness are these would-be parents' primary motivations for reproduction, they might not think too hard about their children's best interests--but they'll think long and carefully about their own.
