# Family is the last human institution — and natalism is the last battle.

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/exit-podcast-5646171/family-is-the-last-human-institution-and-natalism-is-the-last-battle
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/exit-podcast-5646171/family-is-the-last-human-institution-and-natalism-is-the-last-battle.md
Podcast: [EXIT Podcast](https://stenobird.com/podcast/exit-podcast-5646171)
Published: 2025-04-02T14:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://blog.exitgroup.us/p/family-is-the-last-human-institution
Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/160399785/1948fa29cff403c4a30ad2cc5a81748e.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/exit-podcast-5646171/episodes/family-is-the-last-human-institution-and-natalism-is-the-last-battle
Duration seconds: 747

## Resource

[Above is my keynote address at NatalCon 2025 this weekend. Full recordings of the event soon to come — please be patient as we get them edited. Below is my response to getting DESTROYED with facts and logic by Lomez later that evening.] I’m very proud of the people we brought together and the conversation they generated this weekend at NatalCon 2025 . I’m deeply grateful to our speakers, our sponsors, our volunteers, our attendees, and our crew, and I’m excited to do it again. But — to be honest — the speech that resonated most deeply with me was Jonathan Keeperman ’s dinner toast, “ Why the Natal Conference should be disbanded as soon as possible, why you need to care less about your kids, and why I am not a Pro-Natalist ”. It was such a well-argued speech that I felt it deserved a response — and that I could use that response to explain why this issue is worth raising, and why we will continue to organize around it. I agreed with Keeperman, violently, that building your life and identity and ambitions solely around being a parent is a mistake — because it’s an unhappy way to live, because it’s recursive, and because it burdens your children with the responsibility to justify your existence. It’s rarely aspirational, and young people generally opt out . “The truth is that most parents who give up on their ambitions once they have a family, do so not because they have to but because they want to. They may not tell themselves this, but it’s true. Do not use your kids as an excuse to give up on the things you want to do with your life. This, more than anything, is the best lesson you can teach them.” In addition to being exhausting and boring and miserable for your kids, helicopter parenting militates against having grandchildren, which I would argue is the real finish…

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## Transcript

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