Are any young adults in your life planning on having kids?
Yup. We’re fucked. The Earth is basically done, so is anyone still having kids? I’m seriously asking.
Do any readers with adult “kids” plan on being grandparents? I don’t.
Are any grandparents reading this expecting their grandchildren to reproduce?
It seems to me that (in addition to the climate going ka-plooey), a drastically shrinking young Euro/American bourgeoisie carrying the torch of middle class stability will be a big change.
People that use climate, politics, or student debt as an excuse for not having kids are just blowing smoke. The decline in childbearing is a confluence of more working women and a Peter Pan syndrome that has extended childhood into the the early 20s. I don’t see many well-off kids with the life skills or maturity needed to rear children. There are quite a few people in the 25-30 age bracket that are “delaying”, but biology doesn’t wait, especially for women. The explosion of autism and auto immune disorders correlates with late 30s/40 pregnancies, the prospect of which turns many people off once they are finally “ready”
Watching a discussion with Professor Jacob Mueller from UC Irvine about the genesis of the OK Boomer meme. It’s a response to stuff like this… lol.
These kids today!
No substance, just a throwback to a tired meme. Try harder.
The trend should be exceptionally concerning because it’s based on a collective lie that a whole generation and some of their older peers are telling themselves. I would warn them that the party doesn’t last forever, and neither the company nor the government can hug them back. They would do well to remember that after their first major medical event leaves them alone in facility
So you had kids so someone would visit you in the hospital?
No, but that seems to be the point when people realize that they really haven’t done anything meaningful in their lives.
Not to say a childless life is completely devoid of meaning, but unless you were having a real impact (clergy, doctor, etc) you were probably just muddling around taking up space
Sorry, sport, but everybody is just muddling around taking up space, even the people in the caring professions.
I’m puzzled by your point. You should have kids so you don’t feel like you wasted your life? That seems like a rather severe cure for what you’re describing.
How many people have you been around who have “realized[d] they really haven’t done anything meaningful with their lives”? You seem to be projecting your own feelings onto “other people” who you’ve either encountered or made up.
You started this out by saying that the reasons people cite for not having kids are bullshit. You have said nothing yet that supports this contention.
You got it… Boomer
Some of us weren’t making enough money to afford families until we were too old to have families.
What is “enough”? I know plenty of broke people with kids, at what dollar amount are you considered financially responsible
Enough would be an amount sufficient that a prospective spouse would consider you an economically viable partner.
Touche
There’s a lot of retirees raising their grand kids these day
When you have no class analysis and a warped understanding of socio economic factors across generational cohorts you say dumb stuff.
Like anecdotal stories and “back in my day” opinions. I love this stuff
Consider that average university tuition in 1975 was $1,500. About $7,000 in today’s dollars.
The minimum wage was about $7/hr for 15 years.
Just go from there.
@Shameless: On the one hand you judge individuals for their choices, claim they’re bullshit, then you use general trends to justify your dismissal of their statements.
You’re just looking for an excuse to be judgy. Says more about you than anyone else.
I think its the old people who think “no way would i have kids today.” Columbine was in 1999 and my wife was pregnant during 9/11. Since then mass shootings have gone through the roof, school shootings seem to happen every day. To those of us growing up in the 70s and 80s things like this didnt eve occur to us. But for those kids who are now in college or just graduating, its how the world is so i doubt that it will deter them from anything since they have been living during one of the worst times imaginable.
It’s really not that bad (on the whole). America has been getting better with re-distributing the misery to ensure it is shared by a greater portion of the population. We thought we had it easier because the poverty was more concentrated to the urban core and the criminally insane were institutionalized.
Economic and social conditions in the USA have remained consistent for 50 years. It is the dang kids who have changed. In fact it’s “getting better.”
Lol.
I am a young adult! And I don’t have any kids, and definitely will never.
Mostly because I’m a sad loser with no relationship prospects and more baggage than an airport terminal. But yes, also Millennial ennui, yada yada.
My favorite comment in 6 years.
To actually answer the question, no. My 2 twenty something children are not planning on having children ever. They both have well paying, stable jobs related to healthcare that were relatively unaffected by COVID. This was their position prior to COVID as well. My older child has no debt beyond a mortgage and my younger child has student loans that together we should be able to eliminate in the next three years, however she is concerned about the price of the rental markets locally and being able to save for a home purchase.
Is either one in a committed relationship? Because if they enter one, that could eventually influence the decision.
My experience with immediate family and friends is that most everyone in their 30s are having families that were carefully planned after being settled in careers.
An older sister has had 5 grandkids born in the last 3 years from her 3 kids.