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A ‘motherhood medal’ to encourage having more babies? Why 71% of women say ‘no thanks.’

With six kids — including two she adopted — her full-time content creation job and a husband who was laid off last year, Sharon Johnson can think of a lot of things that would make her life as a working mother easier. For starters, there’s affordable child care, health insurance and housing.

“I’m a good mom, and I love my children, but I would never advise someone to have more than just, like, two or three kids, especially right now,” says Johnson, who makes a living as a mental health advocacy content creator.

The U.S. government is weighing possible ways to encourage more American women to have bigger families, like Johnson’s, in an effort to boost the historically low national birth rate. One proposal that’s generated a lot of buzz is the idea of awarding a National Medal of Motherhood. Getting the award wouldn’t convince Johnson to do it all over again. And, according to a recent Yahoo/YouGov poll, an overwhelming majority of women agree.

Why a motherhood medal in the first place?

The White House is considering a number of ways to encourage people to have more children, according to a recent New York Times article. The declining U.S. birth rate, coupled with the aging population, has given rise to concerns about economic instability due to a shrinking workforce (though whether having more babies is the most efficient or ethical answer is a matter of debate).

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Proposals for how to increase the U.S. birth rate submitted to the White House include providing a $5,000 “baby bonus” to each woman who gives birth, reserving a certain share of scholarships for people who are married or have kids, menstruation education to better inform women when they can conceive and the aforementioned motherhood medals. As reported by the Times, the suggestion of motherhood medals was made to the White House by a pro-natalist couple, Simone and Malcolm Collins.

How Americans feel about motherhood medals

The proposal is unpopular with most Americans, according to recent Yahoo/YouGov polling of more than 1,500 people between April 25-28, 2025. Overall, 64% of Americans said they disapprove of the idea, while just 19% said they approve of giving moms of large families medals. Women are especially opposed, with 71% disapproving of the motherhood medal. “It’s not at all surprising,” Leila Abolfazli, who serves as director of federal reproductive rights for the National Women’s Law Center, tells Yahoo Life. “Generally, the reaction from people and from women has been that there’s just an ‘ick’ factor to all this.”

As a mother of six, Johnson goes so far as to say the proposal “just feels like a slap in the face.” Johnson grew up in the Mormon faith, and was raised to “essentially be a tradwife” whose purpose in life was to get married and have many children. She initially followed that path, giving birth to four kids and taking in two more children from foster care (through what’s known as a kinship adoption, meaning they were relatives’ kids). She doesn’t have any regrets, but to her mind, there are big concerns that need to be addressed as higher priorities than awarding medals for big families. “We have no community, no support, a terrible quality of life and it’s literally killing women,” Johnson says, referencing high rates of mental distress among moms and maternal mortality.

Yoreim Virella doesn’t have children, “by choice,” she tells Yahoo Life. The 42-year-old human resources program manager says that she grew up in Puerto Rico with the expectation that she would get married and have babies. But when she reached her 30s while living in the mainland U.S., she “started seeing the struggles, the challenges, the lack of health care and programs around parenthood — and parents’ distress levels became so evident.”

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“My husband and I decided we should steer clear [of having kids] in this environment,” Virella says. For her, the suggestion of giving out medals for larger families doesn’t make her feel that mothers are valued, but rather dismisses the real challenges. Plus, she says, “history has shown us the dangers of what happens when governments try to control reproductive choices with rewards,” alluding to motherhood medals given out in Nazi Germany and the eugenics movement. “Instead of giving medals, it would be nice to give paid parental leave,” she says.

What women really want — and need — to have kids

Mothers, families and groups that advocate on their behalf have long called for federal policies that provide better support for parents, especially as the cost of living has skyrocketed. That’s why Erin Erenberg, a lawyer, mother and CEO of the Chamber of Mothers, views the Trump administration’s consideration of pro-family policies with optimism. “If this administration is saying, ‘Hey, we want to look at what would be supportive of mothers,’ then we have an opportunity,” she tells Yahoo Life. However, the medals don’t quite fit the bill of what moms are asking her organization for.

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Feeling unappreciated for the largely hidden and unpaid labor of childbearing and raising kids is a common sentiment among parents, especially mothers. “Moms feel really ignored,” says Erenberg, whose Chamber of Mothers is in contact with some 40 million moms a month. But among those mothers, there’s a consensus, and it’s not about medals. “There’s an 80% approval rating for investment in paid leave, child care and maternal health — that’s what’s really needed,” Erenberg says.

As glad as Erenberg is to see the White House consider pro-family policies, “I don’t know a single mom who wants a medal,” she says. “We want time to breathe and think and just be, but we can’t because we’re just drowning in care. We need more support. Everybody talks about ‘the village,’ but it’s set at the federal level, where law and policy inform our culture and what we expect of one another. And there is way too much expected of mothers without support.”

What do Americans want that support to look like? According to our polling, the most popular policy (with a 79% approval rating) would be making pre-kindergarten free for children ages 3 and 4. Tied at 62% approval, the next most favored policies would be funding six months of paid family leave for new parents and creating a $6,000 child tax credit to support the first year of a baby’s life. The $5,000 baby bonus reportedly being considered by the Trump administration received support from 39% of respondents, and another proposal to fund menstrual education programs to help women learn when they can conceive was approved by 44% of people we polled. Motherhood medals were the least popular family-related proposal, with just 19% of men and women in support.

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Although paid family leave didn’t make the list of family policies being considered by the Trump administration, the president did sign a form of parental leave into law during his first term. For the fiscal year of 2020, he approved 12 weeks of paid parental leave for federal employees to accompany the birth, adoption or fostering of a child. “We hear moms demanding that over and over,” says Erenberg. “It’s really the first step of parenting: You have a baby and the birthing person or parents have to take care of the baby; that needs to be attended to.”

Johnson, the mother of six, left the workforce after having her first baby and realizing that her entire paycheck was just going straight to child care. For her, neither a medal nor the $5,000 baby bonus would convince her to have more kids. (“I’m not going to say no to $5K — it’s a lot when you have six kids and you’re lower middle class — but that barely touches the hospital bills” for having a child, she says.)

Though Johnson is put off by the idea that women should have more children based on any government incentive, the recent proposals are especially offensive to her. “All of it means nothing if you’re not going to back it up with meaningful changes,” she says. “I don’t want to be recognized or given anything until you’re giving maternity leave with guaranteed pay and treating us like humans, not just people that are having babies. You can’t celebrate us and say ‘good job’ when you’re taking away our humanity.”

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