But a return to stay-at-home motherhood as a norm would end up creating new pressure for a "family wage" that would keep single-earner families from falling too far behind, and we'd be right back where we started.

In addition to carping about the alleged economic privileges bestowed on parents, the fighters for the child-free are forever whining about other people's children intruding on their lifestyle. Sure, I can think of a few times when a small child started wailing or acting up in a restaurant, at a concert or at a lecture (and, almost without exception, was quickly taken outside by mom or dad). But I can think just as easily of restaurant meals ruined by the braying laughter of a group of adults at the next table, and of train trips on which my plans to take a nap were foiled by someone's loud conversation on a cellphone.

I can also say that my own residential environment became much more pleasant when the couple in the condo unit next door defected from the ranks of the child-free. They used to have raucous parties that lasted into the wee hours. The husband played drums in a rock band and spent hours every day practicing in the basement; quite a few times, he also had the band over for rehearsals. All of that came to an end when the first of their two children was born. (The guy still plays his drums, but on rare occasions and much more softly.) The kiddie parties and family gatherings they sometimes have on weekends are much less loud than the parties they used to have before.

Of course, this is purely anecdotal. But generally, parents tend to behave more responsibly than nonparents in ways that enhance the overall quality of life. They're less likely, for instance, to drive recklessly.

For all the "perks" -- which millions of parents, particularly small-business employees, do not have, and of which many others don't avail themselves -- it is fairly self-evident that life is generally much harder for people with young children.

Compared to their "child-free" peers, parents have less time, less freedom and less disposable income. Working mothers, and fathers who are hands-on caregivers, nearly always lose out on pay and promotions. One study of men and women with MBA degrees in the early 1990s found that while the childless women, single and married, earned only about 4 percent less than the men, the wage gap for mothers grew to more than 20 percent.

Unlike some feminists, I don't believe that these disparities are necessarily unfair -- life is all about trade-offs -- or that the primary responsibility for raising children should be shifted to "the village." Parenthood certainly has great rewards as well as hardships. But there's nothing wrong with some societal recognition of the sacrifices parents make, or some societal effort to make things easier for those who have undertaken this difficult job.

Nonsense, scoff the "child-free" militants: These people made the choice to have children; why is that anyone else's problem? Why, they cry, should I give up anything just because you decided to reproduce?

Try this: Because if no one made the choice to reproduce, none of us would have a future.

Order "Mothers Who Think: Tales of Real-Life Parenthood" from the editors of Mothers Who Think.