Focusing on tech or anxiety is too superficial and misses the deeper reason. The nature of parenting has completely changed. For modern parents today kids are r

Focusing on tech or anxiety is too superficial and misses the deeper reason. The nature of parenting has completely changed. For modern parents today kids are really more like a tool for self-actualization (so is almost everything else), personal projects, rather than independent people in their own right. That's why they're so obsessed with following them around, kids are just an extended version of the life project that is you and so every minute of the day must be spent optimizing it. It's why this phone anxiety isn't prevalent in all classes but this discussion always evolves around members of the middle class and up. It's also I think one of the most important factors of falling birth rates that nobody ever seems to talk about. If you're obsessed with one kid every waking hour of the day nobody simply has the time to have another one.