It’s both the happiest and most stressful thing I’ve ever done. But my children, their children, their friends, their colleagues, their generation, are looking to tomorrow and building our future. Of course, this was all spoiled a bit by the election of Donald Trump, but he too will pass eventually.

Loading

Which is not to say that being a parent is at all easy. Until governments adapt to the changing roles of women and men, parents and grandparents, there are things we must do ourselves.

Leonora Risse, associate professor of economics at the University of Canberra, wrote her doctoral thesis on parental leave during the Howard government and Peter Costello’s baby bonus. Immediately after the bonus there was a brief increase, to an average birth rate of 2.0 children per family, but now we are down to 1.5 and we are only going one way.

Many women don’t have children because they can’t handle everything everywhere at once. Risse says there should be no trade-off between having children and pursuing other dimensions of life, such as a career. Ideally, government policies, business structures, and society in general would be designed in a way that allows for true harmonization of all the competing priorities in our lives.

She also wants to pay tribute to the country’s grandparents, whose unpaid caregiving makes modern family life possible. Pivotal of the economy, it wants governments to recognize and support them as well.

Loading

This brings me to what men and women my age need to do if we want to do more than just be shoved into a dreary retirement village and left abandoned. Lyn Craig, from the University of Melbourne, is blunt: provide housing and childcare.

Earlier this year I wrote a story for the Have a nice weekend on modern grandparents. What horrified me was how many men and women I spoke to had no interest in helping their children even if they could. People telling me things like, “We had to do it ourselves.” As if struggling was in itself a good thing. This is not the case. It leaves us broken for years.

Babies are our beacon. They force us to imagine a decent future. They are our last best hope.

Jenna Price is a visiting scholar at the Australian National University and a regular columnist.

The Opinion newsletter is a weekly collection of opinions that will challenge, defend and inform your own. Register here.