Almost 1 in 4 millennials and Gen Z-ers say they won't have kids due to finances
Almost 1 in 4 millennials and Gen Z-ers say they won't have kids due to finances
Raising a child in the U.S. costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many younger Americans say they can't afford it.
Boomers: have more kids! we need the workforce
Boomers: all those taxes that made our families possible - nah fuck that. Keep the minimum wage locked for 15 years.
You used to be able to buy an entire house, pay the mortgage, support a small family, and still have minimal left over. One salary. Companies used to reward loyalty more than they do so you didn't need to job hop to get anywhere. Universities were affordable, like you could work any job and pay for the semester from that.
Someone more familiar with the economic conditions correct me if I am wrong. Boomers could afford to live because venture capitalists weren't extracting all the value from the economy to buy yachts.
Sure, in fact, I'm about to have a kid very soon.
Oh wow great. You know what it'll be yet?
Well of course, they'll be a wage slave, just like their parents.
Boomers are the most selfish generation 🤷♂️
It's a bit of a selection bias. The self-sacrificing, hard working boomers have died out.
Only the greedy lazy bigots are still standing.
Many people my age have terrible boomer parents who just had kids because "that's just what you do". They didn't even consider you could just not make babies.
Maybe we just think more for ourselves than the older generation.
Right??? My siblings have an 18 year span, I'll be 38 when the youngest graduates highschool. I feel like I already have kids, I'm doing so much emotional and financial support for these ones
Worse in my case, I had the sort of parents who thought that more was better at any cost. My childhood really sucked.
pretty sure that's why I exist.
Yep. My parents let me know why a burden my existence was at all possible times. They would leave me and my brother home alone (aged 8 and 5) after until bedtime. I have no idea what they were doing because work ended three hours ago. We lived off ritz crackers and easy to make food.
The teachers would tell us to shut up and be grateful we had a home when we talked about being hungry. Back in the 80’s you didn’t get free/reduced lunches. You were just a kid who forgot their lunch money for the 100th day in a row because you are a stupid piece of shit.
The 80’s were wild. No idea how Boomers got away with so much child abuse.
For me it's the climate - no point in bringing a child in a world with a society that will inevitably collapse and a possible world war over land that's still inhabitable.
Adoption maybe - but for me more children only equal more future suffering - and if not for my children because it'll be somehow possible to shield them from the worst then for a couple of others that have to suffer in exchange when western countries pull up the drawbridge and let the global south deal with the mess they made for those countries...
Also, *gestures wildly around themself* look at the state the world is in. Which sane person would want to bring a child into this fucked up world?
Well, you and similar people know the world is fucked up, but there's a lot more people out there swimming in the ignorance of simply believing everything is fine or that the people raising problems are catastrophising and that everything will somehow work out.
Those people will keep having kids even if basically every sign pointed to the certainty of that kid's life ending early during some kind of traumatic existential struggle.
There's just a percentage of society who simply don't put in much thought beyond their immediate existence and future. That's almost definitely bad in the grand scheme of things, but I guess on the flip side, they potentially live happier lives in ignorance before getting blipped out of existence.
A lot of people that aren't doomers.
We won't have kids because, despite doing everything right, despite working hard, we're struggling with finances. Kids wouldn't be affordable without an extra job, and most of work two already!
This, but also if it’s this bad for me, why would I create more people to partake?
I have some kids and it’s incredibly bittersweet listening to them talk about the little art and music they create. They talk about painting pictures and making songs, being able to live in a nice house while doing that for a living.
Nope, have to be STEM, a nurse, a teacher, or learn a trade, kiddo. All those other degrees are fucking worthless and won’t get you a decent job.
I was shopping for daycare trying to kinda get a financial picture of how we could swing it not too long ago and the cheapest daycare I could find came out to about twice my mortgage lol. So I guess I either hit the lottery so I don't have to use daycare or I just don't have kids
This solution is of course not for everyone and its by no means ideal, but a third option for some is to start your own daycare.
No idea if that makes sense for you at all, just posting it here for people that really really want kids and need ideas for how to make the math work.
Look for certified in home daycare. Lots of GenX grandmas taking care of kids, and if you find a licensed one it’s a pretty good setup. The one I use is $100/day.
When we grew up wondering how we would address overpopulation, impoverishment wasn't something we had in mind.
it's by design
Seems like a side effect of unchecked greed instead. If it were properly designed people would be able to afford enough bread and circuses to stay complacent
If it gets bad enough, birth rates will go up. Developed countries typically have lower birth rates than undeveloped countries.
Not having kids is one of the biggest middle fingers to the capitalist machine. Take away their wage slaves and lets see how much good their money will do the rich.
All these conspiracy theories about how the elites want to reduce the world population have always been nonsense. If you look, all the most vocal ones have been promoting population growth and when you look at history, downward population trends have only increased the common person's rights. They want a surplus of people so we fight amongst ourselves.
It's also the single best thing any individual could do to reduce their carbon footprint.
I’m a millennial… aren’t we a bit old for this shit anyway?
We're going to be retiring soon, some of the older millennials, and they're still going to be telling us to have more kids lol.
Unless you're talking about FIRE, no: the oldest millennials are in their early 40s and have two decades to go before traditional retirement age.
The youngest millennials aren't even 30 yet, and there's lots of places where most people have children in their early 30s nowadays
Eeeeh, it's still technically possible.
Hey government, are you paying attention?
- You want families? Help people make more money and give them assistance affording literally everything, especially childcare, healthcare, housing, and education.
- Republicans: If you actually care about families, help them afford things as stated above.
- If you really believe in small government, make it easier for immigrants to become Americans.
Otherwise you're gonna be starting down the barrel of a demographic collapse that will drag America into an economic gutter it'll likely never class it's way out of. Like China.
Childcare is a massive one that needs government funding. You can pay 1.5k per child and given that many places do 1 teacher to 3 infants, the literal max that one teacher can make, if every penny went to the teacher, is 4.5k/month, or 54k/year. This does not include facilities, utilities, administration, taxes etc. we all know in reality the teacher salary is much, much less.
In order to fairly compensate childcare staff, rates in reality need to be much higher. The problem is that severely limits access to childcare, which has a cooling effect on parents advancing their careers, because many will not have a choice between being a stay at home parent or working.
Therefore the government supplementing the costs is a much-needed solution.
Maybe if our leaders created a society more conducive to having kids more people would have them.
Well it's 3 things for me:
- Too expensive
- Don't think I'd make a good dad, especially since:
- I really don't like children.
I'm not an antinatalist, though. I think we can still improve our situation, so I don't agree with choosing to not have children, because of the current state of the world, or because of fear it'll become too extreme. I guess it's possible you just want to wait to see if it gets any better, but personally speaking, if I were to have children, I'd choose to do so before I was 40. It isn't enjoyable for the child, for them to be born much later than that.
Part of my problem is i can't even find trustworthy relationships. Everyone is addicted to hook up culture and finding their next partner on their phone. I've even had people claim I'm sexist because I'd want my partner to remain sober during their pregnancy (I'd be willing to stay sober with them the entire time as well).
Ummm...those people are absolutely not people who should be having children anyhow so I guess you're dodging a while bunch of Bullets?
I'm trying to understand who you hurt with your comment to get downvoted like that. I 100% agree with you and even for those who don't, not drinking during pregnancy is an absolute must if you don't want to fuck up your child's health for life...
As for not wanting to be part of the hookup culture is totally a valid personal choice. What's wrong with that?
For me it's more about not subjecting a person to my own residual trauma and a society that's accelerating towards self-annihilation
Avocados > Children
Why not both? Makes for a delightful breakfast
How do you so yours? do you put the avocado on the children or the children on the avocado?
My parents had an avocado tree. I have more neighbors. More neighbors don't give 🥑 avocados.
The real reason. Mmm avocados.
I wonder how many won't have any due to the Weimar conditions in America or the looming climate apocalypse. In combination with financial issues I assume it is huge.
Very hard to justify bringing more people into the world when the folks already here feel so miserable.
For me, a Zennial, born between Millennial and Gen Z, I won't have kids due to following reasons:
- My abyssal lack of/difficulties with social interaction (I'm practically an hermit), friendships and relationships (not sure what "loving someone" is/means; I feel more comfortable among literal "demonic entities" and computers than with people)
- Climate changes turning Earth into a vision of underworld that even Dante couldn't imagine, with ever-increasing scorching temperatures.
- Other complex and multifaceted political, societal, technological, esoteric, philosophical and scientific reasons too long to be summarized and enlisted.
- And, of course, finances: it'd become worse for my hypothetical son/daughter.
Not that Earth and Nature couldn't bear more individuals (considering a mutual respect between the Homo sapiens and the whole biosphere, a respect that Homo sapiens clearly lacks), but the idea of a children growing in a world where 120°F/48°C is the "new normal" can't be bearable. Not to mention that Homo sapiens is walking towards extinction due to our poor relationship with the environment and with ourselves. Unfortunately, next generations will inevitably face ever-increasing, deadly issues. Not only humans, other animals too (some are already becoming extinct).
Bro you are like my twin. Same generation same problems.
I'd like to double click on what you mean by "literal demonic entities" - thanks!
Lilith, Kali, Stolas, Lucifer, Baphomet, entities and deities that are often seen as malevolent but are neither evil nor good, they're multifaceted sentient forces of Nature, manifestations of the Cosmos, archetypes of the transcendental divine. My quotes around the "demonic" is because I don't see the demonic as inherently evil.
I guess we'll all just be childless cat ladies.
i see nightmares that i can't take care of my pets. a kid would destroy me, not just financially.
Man, I just hate children and want none of that. A dog is enough responsibility for me
Having to take something out for a walk everyday?!? Even that's to much.
Cats are where it's at!
Kids are crushingly expensive in their early years... if you want to have a career at the same time...
I'd love to have kids, but I don't feel like I can afford it, even though I make better money than many.
Currently working my way through domestic adoption. If you're in a state that's criminalized abortion, you're in luck. The maternity ward is filling up with people who make a lot worse money than many.
Dogs > children/people.
This is concerning. Especially people telling poor people to not have kids. Are we just gonna take it and accept that the joy of being a parent and having children should only be a right bestowed on the wealthy? Poor people are stuck in a financial fuck loop that they will never escape, having children is the only joy some people will experience in this fucked up system
Edit: it's crazy how many people have been brainwashed into accepting this roundabout eugenics and telling poor people they aren't entitled to children
And how are poor people supposed to afford that joy when we can barely afford to keep ourselves housed/clothed/fed?
You aren't. You're supposed to stay poor, unhappy, and unable to support your kid so they can't get a good education and can't critically think and are taught to worship trump and the GOP.
Start making heads fucking roll
I'm going to counter with 2 distilled, oversimplified thoughts:
Happiness is a choice; most people can find a way to be happy in their lives with what they have.
People shouldn't have children mainly to experience joy, be complete, or just because. That's fucked up. I know people will fluff out a number of reasons if challenged, but I think you nailed it, and I think more than a few people have kids just to have kids.
All I'm hearing is neuter the poor people