Although the great engine of American capitalism is now humming on all cylinders, Americans remain strangely reluctant to have children.

That birthrates plummeted during the Great Recession, which ran from 2008 to 2016, is no surprise. Who would want to bring children into a jobless, stagnant economy? But the return of prosperity after the 2016 election should have produced a quick uptick in births. That, after all, was the consistent pattern we had seen in the past.