The previous chapter ended at the limit of policy. Governments can lower a cost, protect time after birth, or make a home easier to afford. They cannot create the web of trust in which two people marry, grandparents remain close, and a child feels like the natural beginning of a shared future.
That web has been thinning while family formation has become a project attempted after education, career, and housing are settled. Many people then reach the end of the long preparation with fewer children than they wanted. Reversal requires practical room to begin earlier, but it also requires places where parents receive help and a culture willing to admire what they are doing.
We begin with the practical path into adulthood, because the promise of a family needs somewhere to live and enough time to become real.