Two: 'some people are watching teletubbies and cleaning up vomit, and we're going to be drinking margaritas in Paris.'

SALT LAKE CITY—Normally I do my man-on-the-street reporting by going to the local pubs or coffee shops. In Utah, I know I have to do it differently. Today I walked around downtown Salt Lake City and an adjacent neighborhood called The Avenues. I had a few telling conversations with parents, and came across some interesting research.

This newsletter is where I present what I find, in my research, my reporting, and my parenting, on the way to writing a book about the need for and the path to a new American Baby Boom.

People I met: The childless-by-choice ex-Mormon and ex-Catholic in SLC

The Avenues are a very nice-looking neighbhorhood. Most of SLC has dreadfully wide roads and really large blocks. The story is that Brigham Young insisted that the roads be wide enough for a four-horse carriage to do a U-Turn, or something. The Avenues are more human-sized.

Check The Avenues out on a map, and it looks like a perfect place to raise kids. But as I walked around at 9:30 this morning, I saw almost nobody.

Finally, I came across a young, very friendly couple and struck up a conversation. Her name is Nicole. His name is Isaac.

He was raised “Super-LDS.” She was raised Catholic by Polish-immigrant parents. They’ve both fallen away from the faiths of their fathers.

“We don't want kids,” Nicole told me.

For now, or forever?

“Probably ever,” Isaac said.

Why not?

“We can't afford it,” Nicole said

I am generally convinced that “kids cost too much” generally isn’t about the cost of kids, but about the opportunity cost of kids. More on that another week. But that wasn’t the case with this couple. They aren’t high-paid professionals. So I pressed them on what made kids so expensive.

“Everything,” Isaac began. “Healthcare.... But honestly, it's just selfishness,” he said. “I joke with Nicole, ‘some people are watching Teletubbies and cleaning up vomit, and we're going to be drinking margaritas in Paris.’”

Isaac was very nice and knew I had six kids. So he quickly said, “No offense.”

In fact, my book in its first drafts includes a chart of “Vomit in my life, by age.” So I took no offense, although I never watched Teletubbies.

‘Hipster walkabilty’ versus ‘kid walkability’

These really wide roads in Salt Lake make the city hostile to walking. I noted, though, how light the traffic congestion was in both morning rush hour and evening rush hour.

There’s tons of highways, too, and the speed limit is 70 everywhere. So while the folks who commute into downtown won’t say there’s no traffic, really it seems there’s no traffic. The first source I checked suggests that most people who work in SLC take less than 20 minutes to get to work.

So Salt Lake City is built around cars. There is public transit, but this seems like a car town. And downtown isn’t terribly walkable.

I believe walkability is important to parenting. You need to be able to let your kids run around. Ideally your kids can get places without needing rides or having to dash across 6-lane roads.

But a friend today made a good distinction. Walkability in an adult’s life is not the same as walkability in your kids’ life.

What if the ideal situation is a suburb filled with single-family homes, but not much commerce, combined with a short commute into work, aided by really wide roads and freeways?

Sure there’s not much commerce in walking distance from your home, but there are dozens of other kids, some basketball courts, a little-league field, the elementary and middle schools, and maybe a 7-Eleven. That’s enough walkability for the kids, and for the adults, driving doesn’t take as much time as it does in the most “walkable” cities.

The data: Utah is converging on national fertility trends

I came out here to report on a place that is having babies, but I have also learned that Utah has been below replacement level for two years. In fact, fertility is falling more rapidly in Utah than in the rest of the country.

Some part of is surely composition. Enough Californians are moving out here that Utah is less distinctive than it used to be.

But some of it is that LDS women, getting more education, are getting more job opportunities, thus driving up the opportunity cost of having children in one’s 20s. Postponed babies, it increasingly seems to me, means fewer babies.