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.
Teacher isn’t going to make them much money and most don’t last more than 6 years.
Depends on the district. Most public school teachers in blue states and suburbs make a decent living.
Not single ones
I live in a blue district and the teachers make just barely a living wage, so not great.
For starting pay? The teachers on every district around me make 75k+ a year once they finish five years and get their required master’s. When they get their masters +40 looking at low six figures.
I don’t even live in a big city. People need to look at the entire pay scale and not just that first year.
The point is that not everyone lives where you do.
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.
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.
15 more years.
Also Boomers, “Minimum wage was never meant to be a living wage.”
And yet, the person who created literally said it was.
Ok then let’s change it to be so? Do we want people to do those jobs or not?
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.
Why would you link to some gold bug garbage when you could be sending articles on Reaganomics?
Gold bug garbage‽‽‽ How dare you make such an outrageous accusation!
It’s bitcoin bug garbage.
The website basically tries to discredit fiat currency. I have a much simpler hypothesis.
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.
When we grew up wondering how we would address overpopulation, impoverishment wasn’t something we had in mind.
If it gets bad enough, birth rates will go up. Developed countries typically have lower birth rates than undeveloped countries.
Developed countries typically have lower birth rates than undeveloped countries.
That is more to do with education and women’s liberation (including contraception), than finances. Which I suspect is still the predominant reason that birth rates are dropping, with finances just a secondary reason.
— Karan Singh
but is that related to infrastructure or wages?
They lack a social safety net for retirees, so children take care of them in their old age. Children are also a source of wage labor. We’re already softening up on child labor here in the USA to address the labor “shortage”.
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.
I mean, 50% of humanity doesn’t have an inner monologue- they’re essentially just moving from one impulse to another.
Half of everyone. There’s no chance for this species without radical change.
Don’t confuse lack of an inner monologue with not thinking or not thinking critically. I lack a monologue when not doing verbal tasks, but I think visually/spacially/relationally instead for other tasks or when in rest or in the experience of my own consciousness. I pinky swear I’m not a philosophical zombie during that time:)
I still think there’s no help for humanity without radical change, lol.
We’re socially still cave-people, just with advanced technology. Technology that is increasingly a mystery even to its Users.
Ultimately, our species is more likely to fall back on our tribalism and devolve into religious ravings than to endure to something more enlightened.
If you’re talking about aphantasia that’s less than 5% of the population, not half
Approximately 30% to 50% of people regularly experience an inner monologue, while the remaining 50% to 70% do not have a talkative brain.
https://www.bustle.com/wellness/does-everyone-have-an-internal-monologue
https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/inner-voice.htm
I distinctly remember developing one when I was around 8. I wanted it then, but it hasn’t shut up since
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.
They’ll keep having kids, but the kids won’t last as long.
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…
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 guess we’ll all just be childless cat ladies.
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.
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.
For me it’s more about not subjecting a person to my own residual trauma and a society that’s accelerating towards self-annihilation
Maybe if our leaders created a society more conducive to having kids more people would have them.
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.
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.
As a Class of 2000, aka OG Millennial, wtf are you talking about?
We’re in our early 40s.
That’s what I’m saying! Too old. Did you know the medical term for a pregnancy after 35 is geriatric pregnancy? Ya bro, we’re getting committed to the old folks home soon here, you and I.
Old folks home playing nothing but My Chemical Romance and Dr Dre + Eminem
And some of us are getting ready to leave the work force, that was my only point.
Wtf “some of us?” You and Zuckerberg from what you’re suggesting.
Americans who got lucky in life have a bad habit of shrugging off the majority that didn’t as somehow irresponsible and not worth considering.
My cousin does this. Looks at you like you’re speaking a foreign language when you say you can’t afford something that would make your life easier like replacing a malfunctioning appliance right now.
Privilege is a bubble of willful ignorance akin to the Republican bubble.
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.
I think early 40s is a fine time to retire, if you don’t have to support your children and you’re in a dual income situation.
If you’re that 1% super elite CS student, then sure you can retire at forty. The rest can’t even if they are child free.
That’d probably only work if you met your SO immediately when you began working, and you both had the same money plan.
Otherwise it’s probably not enough saved money to support 2 people, only 1 (edit until the later 40s)
My wife and I make similar money and created a 20 year plan 20 years ago, we won’t be rich, we just won’t have to work. Think living off $4k a month for two people for life.
If you do it over 20 years absolutely it can be done.
But to do that and retire in your early 40’s (40-43.33) as you suggest means people will need to likely meet in highschool or early college and work on it right away once they start earning income.
Unless people happen to create a similar plan 20 years prior and are able to find each other many years into their plans. It is possible, but it’s harder.
edit: changed the perspective to people, not specifically you.
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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.
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?
Just guessing but “everyone is addicted to hookup culture” could come off a bit vaguely incel or the problem is everyone else, nothing wrong with me.
Personally I have several friends & family members, who met their significant other through one “hookup app” or another. Most of them are married and have children nowadays, and are seemingly in very loving and caring relationships.
Don’t get me wrong, datings sucks or rather I sucked at it; on top of that the scene could be even worse than it used to be. But you know, Michael Jackson told us all to start by asking the man in the mirror, to make that change.
