Better in their words…

Early last month, Time Magazine quietly ran a sleeper story headlined, “Why So Many Women Are Quitting the Workforce.” As usual, it never actually answered the question, but rather was a massive bat-signal for the conservative counter-revolution at work, which is probably why you never heard anything else about it.

Get this: According to the most recent labor statistics (as of August 1st), -212,000 women between ages 20 and 44 have left the workforce. It’s clearly a gender-specific phenomenon. During the same period, +44,000 more men in that same age range entered.

Something is happening.

Time rounded up a baker’s dozen of possible explanations. It claimed post-pandemic “back to work” policies unfairly affected women (presuming without evidence that back-to-work kicked in hardest during the second quarter of 2025). Insultingly, it speculated that younger women are exploring more “gig work” and female-friendly online opportunities (i.e., OnlyFans, though Time was too chicken to say it). Time even blamed immigration enforcement, under a complicated, multipart theory about illegals being ripped from day care centers, and Americans not wanting those jobs, so moms are quitting to stay home.

Time readers who heroically completed the mind-numbing article were left more confused than when they started at the top.

But the Washington Post went where Time refused to go. A week later, WaPo ran a much more thoughtful story about the same statistics, headlined, “Mothers are leaving the workforce, erasing pandemic gains.” Mothers. So … it’s not back-to-work, OnlyFans gigs, or ICE raids on nursery schools. It’s motherhood. That’s the “problem.”

It turns out that, if you pick apart the official labor data, the largest cohort of ladies fleeing traditional jobs were those with kids under 5. WaPo admitted that a lot of them are pretty happy about it, too:

The same theme tracked straight through the story. “Work was a big, big part of my identity, but all of these little things added up,” said Isabelle Beulaygue, 37, who this year left her job as a university professor in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to stay home with her infant. Ellie Santoni, 39, said, “I was working so much, there were weeks when I saw my kids for maybe 30 minutes a day. Finally, it was like, ‘Let’s slow this down, so I can be a present mother.’”

Don’t misunderstand; both Time and WaPo unquestionably presented the trend as a deplorable setback for women’s rights. Instead of seeing the joyful fulfillment these mothers achieved, both pessimistic platforms saw only losses; lost income, lost opportunity, lost respect.

But what was possibly most impressive about this underreported story was how these women —happier working for their families instead of for their bosses— were quoted at all, and quoted unskeptically, at that. We have apparently achieved a new cultural milestone where motherhood is now finally re-recognized as a viable option for young women, and not necessarily always the lesser option.

Circumstances obviously vary. It’s not a good fit for everyone. Financial realities often intrude. But plainly, moms of young kids aren’t any longer automatically branded as sellouts to the fairer sex or gender traitors if they even consider a career making a home.

I’ll leave off analyzing whether this trend reflects cultural progress or cultural retrenchment. But it’s clearly a win for our counter-revolution, pushing back progressive excess that, whatever else it might have accomplished, did it at great cost to children.

I thank our heroic moms, who found their bear-like voices during the pandemic. WaPo, albeit without much evidence, credited “MAGA.” You’re welcome. Combine this story with the story about falling progressive fertility rates, and larger forces seem to be at work. Maybe —just maybe— the culture is slowly healing after fifty years of erosion.

Have a terrific Tuesday! Plant yourself right back here tomorrow morning, for another delicious serving of C&C style essential news and commentary, including whether it’s all over and President Trump has mysteriously kicked the bucket, or if he’s just been trolling the libs again.