Elon Musk’s war on Head Start childhood education exposes how “pro-natalists” are really anti-woman

Elon Musk’s ongoing infiltration-style coup of the federal government continues to cause chaos across the country. As Musk seizes executive powers and rejects all congressional authority, it’s increasingly clear that Donald Trump is shaping up to be more of a reality TV host in his return to office than the actual president. 

Last week, Trump pulled back the across-the-board “freeze” on all federal grants and loans, but despite the alleged “unfreezing,” reports are streaming in from various states that money for Head Start has disappeared, forcing some centers to close or lay off staff. This is likely the doing of Musk, who has been interfering with the Treasury Department systems that disperse funds, and bragging on X that he has dictator-like powers to unilaterally destroy programs he doesn’t like.

The targeting of Head Start, a program that provides early childhood education and support for over 800,000 children, isn’t a surprise to those who combed through the Project 2025 handbook. This blueprint for a second Trump term explicitly calls for the elimination of Head Start, hiding behind false claims that the program is somehow bad for children. But the driving animus the right has long harbored against Head Start was never focused on children, who benefit tremendously in both long-term measures like increased likelihood to attend college and short-term measures like improved self-esteem and self-discipline. No, the program has long been targeted by conservatives because it makes it easier for young mothers to have jobs or go to school, helping women secure economic independence. 

“And if Head Start’s not available, it just causes panic. People worry about their jobs ’cause they can’t show up,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer noted on Wednesday. “So this is very, very important to the lives, the average daily lives of so many.”

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Elon Musk taking a very illegal ax to the program is noteworthy because he frequently pushes pro-natalist views, arguing that people should have way more children than they currently do. (He claims he means all people, not just white people, but his alliance with white nationalists should cast doubt on this.) But, of course, anyone who sincerely wanted to increase the birth rate would not only protect Head Start but advocate for dramatically expanding it to become a universal daycare program. Research on this front is crystal clear: Women across the socioeconomic spectrum delay having children because they fear, correctly, that having kids young will harm their financial prospects. Free universal childcare may not, in itself, address these concerns. But any program that would work would likely start there. 

If these well-worn arguments feel like a waste of pixels, it’s because they are based on a false assumption: that “natalism” has anything to do with birthrates. Instead, natalism is a thin disguise for a movement whose real goal is to reinstate race and gender hierarchies that elevate white men above everyone else. That much was made clear during the presidential campaign, which featured an endless number of unearthed comments from now-Vice President JD Vance which showed his “natalism” was mostly just overt misogyny. He yelled about “childless cat ladies” and declared women shouldn’t be able to leave men who beat them. He even agreed with a podcast host who argued that “the whole purpose of the postmenopausal female” is to help young mothers, so men don’t have to bother with bedtimes and diapers. 

On Tuesday, the Washington Post published the approximately billionth profile of Simone and Malcolm Collins, whose entire existence is built around getting soft-focus media coverage meant to misrepresent the toxicity of their natalist ideology. The two are thin, wear nerdy glasses and repeatedly swear up and down that they’re neither racist nor sexist, which is often enough for credulous audiences to code them as “liberal” or at least not MAGA. But of course, the ruse is a millimeter thick — and not just because they love Donald Trump. Despite the couple’s empty claims to have an egalitarian marriage, they admit Simone Collins does most child care and housework, with the usual false claims that women are intrinsically better at these tasks. They also brag about how much money they put into genetic testing and IVF treatments to get the “best” babies, which is not only overtly eugenicist but cuts against their claim that they want everyone to have more babies. Most people have neither the money nor time to spend on such nonsense.

The Post profile overlooked it, but Hope Not Hate dug even deeper and found that the couple has suggested women not be allowed to own property, lambasted programs to reduce racial discrimination in hiring, and falsely suggested IQ scores are dropping as the U.S. population becomes more racially diverse. (The opposite is true, a fact so well-documented it has a name: the Flynn effect.) “You do not want to give money to women,” Malcolm Collins declared on one podcast. 

But what’s viscerally creepy in the Post report is how fixated the couple is on imagining Simone’s death in childbirth. “I’m happy to die in labor,” she declared dramatically, an especially weird statement because she delivered all four of her children via C-section. Malcolm Collins also fantasizes about his currently pregnant wife’s death, seemingly gloating that “she’s putting her life on the line.” They deliberately inject unnecessary physical suffering into her pregnancies, including the use of IVF, an incredibly taxing and painful process, for the strict purpose of genetic engineering. He even brags about “her ability to withstand pain and gore.” It’s just an amped-up version of the same romanticization of female sacrifice that’s endemic in conservative circles, where what makes a woman “good” is how much self-subjugation she can endure. 

The Collinses frequently speak at pro-natalist events, which also do a poor job of concealing the true, bigoted agenda under all this happy baby talk. As Gaby Del Valle reported in Politico last spring, this year’s NatalCon featured a “mostly male audience,” many “of whom are childless themselves.” They speak a big game about creating “a culture in which child-rearing is paramount,” but, of course, not for the men who want this change. That women will do most of the work is implicit. Indeed, that’s not an unfortunate side effect, but the apparent goal. 

When it comes down to brass tacks, “natalists” like Musk seem only interested in raising birth rates in the most inhumane way possible, by force. Musk loves to bleat lies about how birth control is dangerous, which is an unsubtle pretext to take it away, perhaps by likely Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy, chosen because he puts MAGA ideology before science. Musk’s billionaire buddy Peter Thiel has dumped huge amounts of money into spreading scary disinformation about birth control, as well. Vance certainly has no ideas for making motherhood a more appealing choice for women, but instead prefers shaming tactics like name-calling and lectures on “duty.” And, of course, they’ve all allied themselves with the same GOP that’s passing abortion bans as fast as they can. 

The other giveaway is that these “natalists” don’t care one whit about the well-being of children after they’ve served the purpose of sinking a woman’s ambitions. That’s why Musk is going so hard after Head Start, even though it’s demonstrably good for children’s health and economic futures. Or why Musk and his goon squad are attacking the Department of Education. Or why they’re allied with an anti-vaccination activist like Kennedy. Or why they’re trying to shut down USAID, whose programs are critical for allowing women in poorer countries to give birth safely to healthy babies.

This utter disregard for what happens to a baby after she’s born is also illustrated in the Post’s profile of the Collins. The couple rails against car seat laws and daycare regulations, basic common sense measures that keep children alive and safe. Natalists claim they want more babies for the long-term good of humanity, but that’s hard to square with the scorn for any measure that would keep children alive, much less help them be productive members of society when they’re grown. When you pay attention to what they do and not what they say, it’s clear that “pro-natalists” are anything but. It’s just an elaborate intellectual rationale for plain old misogyny.