honestly really tired of seeing these stupid “analysis” articles. people are not having kids because we don’t have the stability that generations before us had. this is not even uncommon, EVERY species needs to have stability to breed. you can’t put two people in a fucking house and say “ok have a kid” when those 2 people are paying some fucking landleach 4000/month for a 1 bedroom apartment, spending the other 200 dollars on whatever garbage food they can find, and then not afford anything else. who the fuck would be thinking “wow I should have more responsibility right now” ??????

Money. Every fucking answer to every fucking question is money.

Not having kids if you can’t even support yourself properly.

Maybe we should redistribute some of that 1% wealth.

Kids are cute but if you haven't thought about how your precious baby is gonna afford rent in 18 years which will probably be like $5K/mo for a sleep pod, then you're a sadistic asshole.

I feel absolute dread every time I see a small kid or a pregnant woman. That kid doesn't deserve the shithole they're getting into.

“If I don’t do everything right, then my kid will end up living on my couch forever or be a serial killer. … I don’t know if or when I’ll have what it takes to be a ‘good’ parent."

These are pretty much the words I've heard spoken. Especially when there's a lack of a support system / a support system you trust to help raise the kid right. The fear of permanently screwing up some poor soul is real.

I think stability is a pretty big factor too. It's not just owning a house and having a job that pays the bills. It's about being in a place where you feel able to really give the kid everything they will need, emotionally and monetarily, in the long term. If one can't count on a job to see the humanity in people, or even pay a living wage, how can they trust that their employer won't let them go if their "metrics" go to crap, or that they wont just drive them insane. It's nice to think you can leave the baggage at the door, but I've definitely been employed at places that have permanently changed me as a person, and not for the better.

Obviously, everyone has their own reasons for not wanting a child, but, at its core, it's our screwed up society and what it demands from us, with so little of a return.

The article lays out key reasons why imo, like access to knowledge and birth control. We didn't really get much for sex ed, but a few years later we could ask about it in the Internet when the teacher wasn't looking in the computer lab.

As someone else asked, the better question is why are we still asking this question? We should be acting on what is now 20 years of data!!!

Millennial here. Not going to read the article. Just going to tell everyone why I don't have children.

1. My partner and I both work. We simply cannot afford to lose 50% of our pay, we barely scrape by as it is.

2. We don't have a permanent home to raise a child in. Housing is outrageous, and every place we rent from jacks the price up 20 to 30% every year if you are not a new resident, so we move every year.

3. Until very recently, any pregnancy complications would have long term consequences to my partner's health, or could possibly take their life. Without access to medical care and reproductive rights, I simply refuse to compromise their safety in that way.

4. There are already thousands of children in the foster home and adoption systems, who desperately need love, support and stability. It seems unreasonably selfish to bring another person in to this world when so many are already suffering and in need.

Money

As a Gen x mother to 2 millennial who do nit want children(my son got a vasectomy in fact.) I'd love grandchildren. However, I would NEVER force, coerce, torture or tease ANYONE to have a baby. There are little one who need (extra) grandparents. Find some. Volunteer with kids. It's fun. And your children won't resent you. For that at least.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Every two years, the Census Bureau quietly appends a battery of fertility-related questions to its workhorse monthly questionnaire, the Current Population Survey, our go-to source for everything from the unemployment rate to Americans’ moving habits.

Hammered by the Great Recession, soaring student debt, precarious gig employment, skyrocketing home prices and the covid-19 crisis, millennials probably faced more economic headwinds in their childbearing years than any other generation.

And, unlike previous generations, millennials had the means to delay pregnancy thanks to affordable, long-acting birth-control options, said Alison Gemmill, a demographer at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

If women are able to follow through on their delayed family plans, much of the rise in childlessness could be erased, according to a 2020 analysis of the same data set by Gemmill and Caroline Sten Hartnett of the University of South Carolina.

These days, when the outlook may be even bleaker, there’s intense pressure to pump your kids up with every available ounce of organic superfood, superior schooling and extracurricular enrichment to give them a slim shot at getting ahead.

So the decision to avoid having children may amount to a kind of performance anxiety in the face of intense expectations and weak governmental and social support, Guzzo said: “If I don’t do everything right, then my kid will end up living on my couch forever or be a serial killer.

The original article contains 1,779 words, the summary contains 230 words. Saved 87%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Where's that de-clickbait headline bot

https://archive.is/0WSor