On Tuesday, after a White House report surfaced, President Donald Trump endorsed the idea of doling out $5,000 “baby bonuses” to moms giving birth to the next generation. Is this idea due to the influence of womanizer Elon Musk and his own repopulation concepts?

While the intention is good — fixing America’s severely declining birth rate — this method is shortsighted and doesn’t learn from past mistakes.

The drop in the U.S. fertility rate is tied to many hot-button issues that all link back to feminism. First, there’s the prevalence of abortion. According to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, “Approximately one in four women are expected to have an abortion by age 45, given 2020 abortion rates.” Abortion researcher Carole Novielli underscores this point by noting that Millennials and Gen Z are missing “50.5 million lives” because of abortion. Even as abortion clinics close, the death toll continues to rise due to the ease and availability of abortion pills. Our culture is very quick to encourage the killing of preborn children because the Left has painted them as an inconvenience, a financial drain, and “not yet human.” It’s all a coping mechanism, and this terrible abomination just continues to grow.

Another major factor is that people aren’t getting married young and committing to starting a family. As the Washington Examiner’s Conn Carroll points out, “The cause of falling birthrates is not that American women suddenly want fewer children. According to Gallup, 45% of Americans say the ideal family size is three or more children, and women actually prefer larger families more than men do.” Men and women are waiting until later in life to tie the knot. This is largely due to feminist admonition that women should have their careers first and families later.

In truth, a woman’s fertility window is fairly limited. After the age of 35, conceiving children becomes much more difficult. Moreover, if a woman starts her family in her 30s, the likelihood of having more than two children is very low.

Tangentially related is the fatherlessness epidemic. While this is particularly prevalent in the black community, conceiving children out of wedlock is not a good recipe for any demographic. A mother who is left to fend for herself faces the toughest job in the world. Not only was raising children never solely meant to be the job of the mother, but single motherhood discourages additional childbearing.

The last phenomenon working against potential mothers and fathers is American culture itself, which is tribalized and seemingly disconnected. Millennials and older Gen Zers struggle with a lack of involvement and support from their extended family. In an interesting book, Hunt, Gather, Parent, author Michaeleen Doucleff examines the question of why modern parenting is such a challenge. One of her first findings was that parents today lack child-rearing input, knowledge, and support from the older generations. To be fair, it’s not all the parents’ and grandparents’ fault. Many have been actively shut out when it comes to parenting help.

For the rest of the newer generations, though, there is a tendency among parents and grandparents to take a very hands-off approach. “I’ve raised my kids; I don’t want to raise yours” is the general attitude.

Monetarily incentivizing women to have children without the stability of marriage is a recipe for disaster because it leaves the root causes unaddressed. Just ask single moms, especially black women, how that worked out for them. They were given money for each kid they had, but their baby daddies were never expected to commit. This situation was not good for them, their children, or society. Poverty and high crime rates have dogged many black communities ever since.

The nuclear family — the most stable and essential building block for children — should be at the core of ameliorating the declining birth rate. At the end of the day, culture needs to change. Government interference is going to do more harm than good.