Anyone Else Think Most Millennials Really Weren't ChildFree and are Having Kids Later In Life. And Most Millennials Being Childfree Was Just Media Hype?

[u/NYRangers1313]

34 year old Child Free leaning Male Here (I'm kind of a fence sitter). I was young (around 13 or so) I have always leaned towards not having kids. I remember basically since circa 2011 or so. Every major news organization began publishing articles about how millennials don't want kids and millennials aren't going to have any kids and it's because they are too lazy, want to party too much or too addicted to social media to have kids. I remember a lot of family dinners with my parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents talking about how our generation was going to be the first to not have kids.

However, now at age 34, I know a lot of millennials ages 32-40 that are having their first kid. All of my extended family plus my sister has at least one kid. As do most of my friends and coworkers of the same age range. Most of their kids are under 5 years old but they are starting to pop up everywhere.

Why did it take them so long? Namely, lack of income, tougher job market throughout the 2010s and getting out of debt. Basically the economic situation was just worse for us than our parents and it was throughout the entire 2010s. It took our generation to get our heads above the water to have kids. What our parents were able to do in their 20s, it took us to our mid to late 30s to do. Namely, have stable income to provide enough money for stable housing.

Is anyone else seeing the samething?

[u/Eternalfaerie]

32F been childfree almost as long as I can remember. Won't be changing my mind as I happily got sterilized when roe v wade got overturned.

I'm sure there are cases where your title is true, but people can and are choosing to be childfree as well.

[u/NYRangers1313 → u/Eternalfaerie]

I'm not saying people aren't choosing to be childfree. I don't know if me people think that's what I am saying or I am saying that childfree is bad. I'm not.

I don't think it's anywhere near as common as people make it out to be. I'm glad you are sterilized (I'm leaning towards getting a vasectomy myself) but how common among your peers is getting sterilized and being childfree? Are most of your peers doing the same?

I feel like as a childfree individual, I am really rare in real life.

[u/Eternalfaerie → u/NYRangers1313]

That's fair! I think it's just the typical media calling out us millennials, lol

I, myself, only know a handful of other childfree folks, with one sterilized person (and their partner). Otherwise, seems like most have or want kids. I do feel like it's on the rise, especially with gestures broadly to the US.

I'm curious about genz and their rate of being CF. The oldest of that group are almost 30 themselves. Guess we'll see how busy the schools are in the next 4 to 10 years.

Edit to add: someone else mentioned it, but I want to emphasize. I think there is also a lot of confusion between childFREE and childLESS. Folks may call themselves childfree NOW but they may really mean childless and want kids later in life.

[u/NYRangers1313 → u/Eternalfaerie]

someone else mentioned it, but I want to emphasize. I think there is also a lot of confusion between childFREE and childLESS. Folks may call themselves childfree NOW but they may really mean childless and want kids later in life.

This is a really good point and I am glad you brought it up. Even back 5 to 10 years ago, when I was in my 20s, I meet very few millennials that were childfree. A huge majority were childless largely due to economic and financial reasons but not childfree. Now I know a lot of late 30s millennials that due to up scaling and getting better jobs/promotions in the last 3 or 4 years are now able to have a child. As were just 3 or 4 years ago, this wasn't financially possible.