Millennial women are saying no thanks to parenthood

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One reason I'm glad I had a kid is that as I get older, it's the one relationship that stays pretty great. There's just a lot of mutual acceptance and we always had good communication. I think being able to start out a relationship from scratch with a new person is an underrated aspect of being a parent.

I am not saying my kid is my best friend. Our relationship is and will always be parent-child, there are good boundaries and I don't view my kid as a confidant or my support system. But I do really like her, enjoy her company, and appreciate that we have a very mutally respectful and loving bond.

I compare that to every other relationship in my life and realize how rare that is. I have a good marriage and we have good communication and respect, but we have more conflict and struggle than I ever have with my kid. Part of that is that we are equals in a marriage, it creates different dynamics that just being someones mom where the responsibilities are very clear and obvious.

Friends are great but they can come and go. My FOO is a huge PITA. Marriage is solid but takes a lot of work. My relationship with my kid feels easy and super rewarding by comparison. Extremely strong ROI. Not why I had a kid but really great result.

I totally get this! My DD is the best. No one told me how joyful being a mother is

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Women are opting out of the BS where they have to earn $$$, look perfect, haul Johnny to upteen zillion dollar extra-curriculars . . . while their husband earns less than them and scratches his crotch on the couch while they frantically pack lunches while answering a work email and tripping over the dog. Women have been sold a total scam and this is the fallout.

I'm sorry this your life. It's not mine and it's not the life of 95% of my friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's really about the expectations for parenting. You can't have kids and keep living your pre-kids life without being branded a bad parent. As soon as you have kids, your life becomes kid-centric with playgroups, music classes, sports practices, and on and on. If you aren't interested in this shift, then you don't have kids. In prior generations, people just ignored their kids and went on with their adult lives.

You have to go pretty far back for that. My boomer parents (and many others) experienced this same shift. In fact many boomers were extremely helicopter-ey IME (not mine, but many of my friends' parents).

My millennial husband was raised by Boomer parents who were very hands off. Many 80s kids were latchkey kids--that was super common.

My husband's childhood consisted of coming home alone after school to play on railroad tracks, ride his bike around town and blow things up with his dad's gun powder. None of that would ever be possible in Arlington.

There's been a big shift since the 80s in parenting expectations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting WAPO article -
"Millennials aren't having kids"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/11/03/millennials-only-children/
I love seeing the data on this. It really follows closely what I see in my personal life among my friends. What do you think are the reasons? I don't think it will turn around, millennial are rapidly approaching 40 or are already there.

It is very obvious to me ( Gen x) Women are expected to earn and make a good living AND also be the perfect homemaker/wife/mom. Until men step up women are smart not to fall into the trap.

And stay thin and have enthusiastic sex a min of 4x a week.

That has been the expectation of women/wives/mistresses since time immemorial. That's nothing new.

No it hasn't. Women have been been expected to try to stay attractive and sexually available since time immemorial. The part that has been ADDED is the part where she also needs to hop out of the hospital bloody and leaking milk and resume being the bread-winner for her family. Nothing but a dirty scam in the name of "feminism".

[Anonymous]

I was a very reluctant mother for many of the cited reasons and had my children late. But I changed my mindset - I guess I had too! The biggest mind shift for me is realizing that kids aren’t kids forever. It goes quickly and then you have these (hopefully) fully formed people in your life to love. Now it’s hard for me to imagine another purpose. And yes, I like money and I like nice things and I have certainly had to sacrifice. But I have adopted an abundance mindset - there is enough of everything to go around, and my family will want for nothing.

[Anonymous]

- Women are staying single for longer because they have higher standards for a partner/they don't need to marry the first person who asks just so they'll have roofs over their heads
- Women still do the bulk of parenting and domestic chores whether or not they work, and it's harder to have even a middle class lifestyle with only one income so most women have no choice but to work, and they don't want to run themselves ragged doing everything
- Higher parenting expectations like a PP mentioned - you can't just send your kids out to play, they have to be in a zillion enrichment activities

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it's really about the expectations for parenting. You can't have kids and keep living your pre-kids life without being branded a bad parent. As soon as you have kids, your life becomes kid-centric with playgroups, music classes, sports practices, and on and on. If you aren't interested in this shift, then you don't have kids. In prior generations, people just ignored their kids and went on with their adult lives.

In prior generations, people married and had kids much earlier. Most people didn't go to college and move to a big city to live in an apartment and go out with friends and have adventures. Most people married someone they met in high school or college, settled in the region where they grew up, and maybe worked for a year or two before having kids, or simply had them right away. Their adult lives WERE marriage and kids. The ship they experienced was from being a child, or maybe a student, to being a wife/husband and a mom/dad.

Even as recently as 1990, over half of all women were married by the age of 24. Men skewed slightly older but only slightly -- still over 40% of all men were married by 24.

Anyway, in prior generations people didn't "go on" with their adult lives when they had kids. Kids WERE their adult lives. Also, because people were so much younger when they married and had kids, they were more connected (and often physically much closer) to their families of origin, plus their parents were younger, often in their late 40s or early 50s. So it was easier for parents in those generations to have social lives, because they had stronger support systems and more of a "village."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Posting here from the Midwest. I have three neighbors with 5 kids a piece, all 10 and under. No religious affiliation at all.

That's not the norm here. 2-3 kids a family is the norm but onlys are quite rare and usually isn't by choice.

Having a number of kids on the coasts or in the big Midwest cities (okay, there's really only one) is very very hard, which is why we moved to a lower COL area with our two kids.

Cost appears to be key.

In some cities and some rural areas, if only the low/no income, low/no educated would stop having kids. Or stop after one at least.

[Anonymous]

The internet and social media have amplified voices whining about how hard everything is, parenthood included. Young people don’t want to work, read, cook, clean, exercise, rear children. Everything’s too hard. Wah.

[Anonymous]

I mean, the article answered with a poll about why childless women aren’t having kids. It wasn’t about chore balancing in a marriage, the women responded: medical reasons, financial reasons, and not having a partner as their top answers. The top answer (medical) is sad. Whether it’s waiting too long to have kids, lack of insurance, or other health problems interfering with pregnancy, it’s sad to think of women wanting children who can’t.

[Anonymous]

Yes, let’s blame women for not bearing children, but let’s not mention young men not being ready to commit, not pulling 50% of their weight around the house, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The internet and social media have amplified voices whining about how hard everything is, parenthood included. Young people don’t want to work, read, cook, clean, exercise, rear children. Everything’s too hard. Wah.

I mean, I dislike social media too, but you can’t expect people not to use it. And the truth is the parenting does suck especially the way we have a configure now.

Parents should include the kid in their lives, and lives with the family, not make the kid their whole life. It’s not working for anyone.

We’re going to see increasing pressure in the next couple of decades for women to stay at home and have kids. The United States is headed into a reactionary period. Our daughters may not have a choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Women are opting out of the BS where they have to earn $$$, look perfect, haul Johnny to upteen zillion dollar extra-curriculars . . . while their husband earns less than them and scratches his crotch on the couch while they frantically pack lunches while answering a work email and tripping over the dog. Women have been sold a total scam and this is the fallout.

I'm sorry this your life. It's not mine and it's not the life of 95% of my friends.

But it is 60% of the country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a millennial and chalked up the lack of kids to being in a high-achieving cohort. Maybe half of us have kids? The other half aren't married. I don't many that are childless by choice (as far as I know). My friends both gay and straight that are married by in large have kids usually 2-3. But I myself hit total unexplained secondary infertility at 35 so have 2 kids but am unlikely to have 3.

My husband is in the military and in his friend group we only know 2 childless by choice couples. Most men have 1 if not 2 sets of kids by different women thanks to the damage the many years in war did on their personal lives.

It’s funny how individual the definition of “achievement” is because if you’re in your 30s unmarried and/or married and childless for a reason other than infertility I would define this as a massive life failure. As would most of my “cohort” (all who have good high paying jobs).

Valid point. By achievement, I meant these are all women who graduated from MIT and went on to pursue grad school, medical school, law school or other exceptional professional interests. Many did marry right out of college, some after grad school. But many are still single.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a millennial and chalked up the lack of kids to being in a high-achieving cohort. Maybe half of us have kids? The other half aren't married. I don't many that are childless by choice (as far as I know). My friends both gay and straight that are married by in large have kids usually 2-3. But I myself hit total unexplained secondary infertility at 35 so have 2 kids but am unlikely to have 3.

My husband is in the military and in his friend group we only know 2 childless by choice couples. Most men have 1 if not 2 sets of kids by different women thanks to the damage the many years in war did on their personal lives.

It’s funny how individual the definition of “achievement” is because if you’re in your 30s unmarried and/or married and childless for a reason other than infertility I would define this as a massive life failure. As would most of my “cohort” (all who have good high paying jobs).

Birthing babies is not an "achievement".