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I鈥檓 a lone wolf. I鈥檝e become a spokesperson for solitude. So I wouldn鈥檛 put myself in the 鈥淕en-X woman discovers newfound sexual freedom鈥� category, but I do think there are lots of people who enjoy their solitude, especially women. I think it鈥檚 easier for women to be out of a relationship. This is a generalization, but there鈥檚 data on it. Women have richer friendships in general and build social lives that don鈥檛 necessitate having a primary romantic relationship.

I didn鈥檛 want to suggest that your book is rehashing July鈥檚 “All Fours.” It isn鈥檛. But it does feel 鈥渙f the moment鈥� to me. It鈥檚 about giving up on certain dreams 鈥� marriage, children 鈥� or realizing that those dreams weren鈥檛 ever your dreams to begin with. And it鈥檚 about accepting the loss that comes with that realization but also finding freedom in loss.

I鈥檓 glad it comes across as freedom. It鈥檚 definitely loss. There鈥檚 a Victor Hugo quote, 鈥�40 is the old age of youth; 50 the youth of old age.鈥� You lose parents at this time; you realize that certain ambitions are not going to be realized. And then one day it dawns on you that most people in the world are younger than you are, which is shocking. I鈥檝e had to console myself: I don鈥檛 like getting older, but I鈥檓 glad to be from my generational cohort. I鈥檓 grateful that I was in my 20s in the 鈥�90s, before dating apps, social media, and online pornography.

What is it about that experience that you value?

You were connected with material reality. If you didn鈥檛 have a cell phone, you had to occupy yourself, to sit still and be bored. If you were in your friend鈥檚 neighborhood, maybe you鈥檇 stop at a payphone to see if they鈥檙e around, or maybe you鈥檇 just show up. There鈥檚 a degree of spontaneity that you experienced and a corporeal reality that you occupied.

We鈥檝e talked about how acceptance of loss can lead to a kind of peace. On that note, I have a question that I feel guilty about: Was losing your house in the LA fire somehow liberating?

After the fire, there was this initial moment of weird exhilaration. I felt like, 鈥淥h, I鈥檓 free.鈥� I鈥檝e had conversations with people who are in a tortured relationship with their clutter. I definitely was.听There were these layers of cheap, disposable things, and all of it was lying on top of the valuable stuff. In the moment of evacuation, I couldn鈥檛 figure out what to take with me.

What did you take?

It鈥檚 not like I was running from the flames. I left because it was windy, and I knew that the power was going to go out eventually. I went to a friend鈥檚 house, thinking I鈥檇 be back the next day. I took a pair of shoes, my cheapest Old Navy cargo pants, and a flashlight, as if I was going camping. I didn鈥檛 take art off the walls, because the chances of damaging the art in the car seemed exponentially higher than the chances of the house burning down.

You have an essay in the book about your parents and how focused they were on self-reliance, to the point where, as a child, you were forbidden from asking friends鈥� parents for rides home from school. Then, after the book was finished 鈥� but before it was published 鈥� the LA fires hit, and, as you wrote recently in the New York Times, you found yourself homeless and completely dependent on friends. Was it hard to confront that childhood taboo against relying on others?

The fire was a collective catastrophe. So, in LA, we all felt like we were part of something larger. People wanted to help. That was a revelation to me.

Your parents believed, it seems, that when you ask for help you鈥檙e placing a burden on someone else in order to relieve a burden on yourself.

Yes, you are putting the other person in a position of having to get out of an obligation.

What do you think your parents missed there?

Most people want to have a sense of community, and I don鈥檛 think my parents ever had that. They grew up in households that were alienated and dysfunctional. My father grew up poor, and his mother should have been on public assistance, but she wouldn鈥檛 accept it. Because of their insecurities, my parents didn鈥檛 feel that they were in a position to help others. To ask for help would be to become indebted, and they didn鈥檛 want that. My parents were into self-reinvention. They created a persona for our family, that we were an island. Even the family unit was not an organic place for them.

That鈥檚 something you鈥檝e wrestled with too, particularly with your realization, in your 40s, that motherhood wasn鈥檛 for you. This revelation is the subject of the 2016 essay collection Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids, which you edited. In the new book, you revise some of your assumptions about parenthood. You have not changed your mind on the question of whether motherhood was right for you. But you have started to worry about low fertility in our culture writ large. I don鈥檛 disagree with you, there. I just never thought I鈥檇 hear a worried argument about the fertility crisis coming from 鈥� of all people 鈥� Meghan Daum.

I am a child of the 鈥�70s and the 鈥�80s, which was the era of the population bomb. People feared that the world was overpopulated, and they were adopting internationally, because it was considered the right thing to do. But over the last 10 years, a discourse about population collapse in western democracies has come to the forefront. I have to credit my former podcast partner, Sarah Haider, for introducing me to these concepts. She鈥檚 20 years younger than I am and an immigrant. Politically, she runs with a different crowd. She鈥檚 pro-natalist, and I鈥檝e learned a lot from her.

During the lead up to the recent U.S. election, I watched a conversation between the New York Times journalist Lulu Garcia-Navarro and then Senator, now Vice-President JD Vance. He has talked in the past about the birth crisis, often in creepy, misogynistic ways. But in this case, he told a moving story about being on public transportation and observing a young woman with kids. The kids were acting up, as kids do, and the mother was being exceptionally patient. Yet everybody on the bus was visibly annoyed at the whole scene. Vance says that he felt deeply empathetic toward this young woman.听 He was pointing to a contradiction in our society: we want people to have kids, but we鈥檙e also intolerant of kids.

Vance is smart on this stuff. When he puts his mind to it, he can make trenchant arguments about economic incentives and disincentives, what we鈥檝e done to the family, and the intersection of professional managerial-class values versus more traditional middle-class values. He has been an advocate for options for women and paid parental leave. He is also of a generation 鈥� and of an extremely online class of people 鈥� that defaults into trollishness. That鈥檚 his vernacular. So, what he might say on an edgelord podcast is not something that should be said in the White House.

The conversation about fertility feels timely, and yet it seems that few people are having it earnestly. On the right, you get people talking about it in creepy ways. And then the left doesn鈥檛 want to touch the topic, for fear of seeming creepy too.

Yes, but there鈥檚 also a whole secret world of people who are talking about this stuff in good ways.听Tara Henley, from Toronto, is a friend of mine. She was a CBC personality, and now she has a podcast called Lean Out. She talks regularly about the housing crisis and affordability and about wanting to have kids but running out of time.听So, these conversations are being had, but mainly in alternative media and on podcasts. That鈥檚 why I do my podcast: I want to talk through complex issues without pandering to NPR 鈥渮ombie鈥� talking points or to right-wing trollishness.

You decided to not have kids. To what extent was that decision about kids, per se, versus our society being inhospitable to kids?

It鈥檚 the former. My parents didn鈥檛 like kids. They didn鈥檛 like it when my brother and I acted like kids. They鈥檇 say, 鈥淲e love you. We just don鈥檛 like other kids.鈥� I didn鈥檛 like being a kid. I like adults. I don鈥檛 think raising a kid is a good use of my time. I can be more valuable to society in other ways. I recently started this enterprise called Speakeasy, which came out of the Unspeakable podcast. It鈥檚 a viewpoint-diversity initiative for women. We have a vibrant online community, and we run retreats. I am entirely about serving people intellectually and bringing them together. I wouldn鈥檛 be able to do this stuff if I had other obligations.

You鈥檝e talked about the importance of people having thoughtful conversations, without the self-censorship that happens in dogmatic, extremely online communities. To what extent do you think the culture wars are in abeyance today? Do you think we鈥檝e passed peak wokeness?

If you had asked me this question six weeks ago, I might have said things are getting better. But now? No. I went on Facebook the other day for the first time in a while, and I couldn鈥檛 believe the level of unhinged I saw there.听

Was it progressive unhinged or MAGA unhinged?

Progressive. It was my old left-wing friends.

Do you feel like the reemergence of Trump is turbo-charging things?

Yes, because people are seeing the trollishness. They鈥檙e seeing Elon Musk and JD Vance saying vile or ridiculous things. Of course, they鈥檙e reacting. On the fringes of the left and right, the culture wars are more extreme than ever. But there are more people in the middle who are sick of it all and are wanting to just live their lives.

The journalist David French has written about 鈥渢he exhausted majority鈥�: that cohort of people who find MAGA and wokeness tiring and are ready to just engage with other things. In my urban, liberal-ish friend circle, I see people leaving wokeness behind and joining ranks with the exhausted majority.

It鈥檚 happening on the right too. I鈥檓 seeing people on the right saying, 鈥淓lon Musk and Donald Trump is not what I鈥檓 about.鈥� I had the journalist Emily Jashinskyon the show. She says, 鈥淚鈥檓 a conservative, but I’m not a Republican.鈥�

In the final piece of your book, you write an elegy for the personal essay, the once-mighty genre that made you famous. What are the forces that have knocked the personal essay off its cultural pedestal?

Today, personal essays are a dime a dozen, because you don鈥檛 have to pay people to report them. For a long time, outlets couldn鈥檛 publish enough personal essays because they were filling up the pages. The more outrageous they were, the more the algorithm favoured them.

So the personal essay has been cheapened. It鈥檚 made and bought cheaply, and it鈥檚 optimized for clicks.

I make a big deal when I teach writing about the distinction between confessing and confiding, a concept I borrowed from the essayist Emily Fox Gordon. If you are writing a personal essay, you want to have intimacy with the reader. You want the reader to feel 鈥渟he鈥檚 talking to me directly,鈥� or 鈥渟he鈥檚 saying something that I have felt but can鈥檛 articulate.鈥� That鈥檚 confiding.听Confessing is dumping, and it鈥檚 an imposition. An essay should be generous. If you鈥檙e just dumping something onto the reader and asking them to sort it out, or asking them to forgive you, that鈥檚 not art.

Maybe the dark reality is that the internet wants more confession than confiding.

The internet is the beast that you鈥檝e got to feed. It wants anything that people will consume. And it wants stuff that will give you a quick hit.

Nevertheless, are you at all hopeful for the future of the personal essay?

There鈥檚 an audience for everything today, and writers are adjusting their priorities. Nobody鈥檚 trying to get rich or even pay the rent doing personal essays. But you鈥檙e happy if you have a lively comment section and people thank you for your writing. I wouldn鈥檛 have collected these latest essays into a book if I didn鈥檛 think the endeavour had value.