7 ms·

I've been doing this math frequently of late. I'm 35, have one child and of my high school class ... maybe 25% have children? there is certainly a bias from pol

by lumost 3y ago

I've been doing this math frequently of late. I'm 35, have one child and of my high school class ... maybe 25% have children? there is certainly a bias from polling social media. But the anecdata would say that we're closing on the point where millenials have chosen to simply not have children.

echelon 3y ago
Kids aren't expensive. They're a distraction from dopamine and career advancement. My peers are all wealthy and they'd rather jet set than settle down. By all means they could raise families of two to four kids and still be incredibly comfortable. Vacation home comfortable. Instagram is the anti-child. Instagram and the endless feed of social media, internet, and things to do. Once you have children, the dopamine ends and the self-directed path takes a backseat. Nobody I know wants to give that up. It's not just the wealthy. I know upper middle class people in their 40s who are partying on the weekends and taking trips all over the world. It's the life they want for themselves, and children put an end to that.
- zigman1 3y ago
  You know what is also anti-child? Having parents that were completely unprepared to be parents. Stop with this dopamine epidemic nonsense excuse for everything that isn't working the way you want
  - echelon 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - zigman1 3y ago
      Recorded history you mean the history of domestic and emotional abuse, alcoholism, family disputes, lying and nromalised cheating? Then we are doing fine. Congratulations on your millions. My dad beat and cheat on my mother, and his dad beat and probably cheat my grandmother.
    - vecinu 3y ago
      > Here I am, just fine, a self-made millionaire today. That says everything about how you view the world. "self-made". Nothing about how your adoptive father contributed, your peers or the entire society you grew up in. Something else I'd love to get away from is that having money != being a well adjusted individual.
    - swells34 3y ago
      Are you aware that other people have provided everything you have in life, or have you really drunk the "self-made" Koolaid. Work the farm? Excellent, now one must purchase and run a farm in order to have children. How much do those cost? Oh, millions you say!? Wonderful.
    - swells34 3y ago
      Ah yes, what I said was toxic because I would have to thank a lot of things for any success I had. Frankly, above a certain amount of income, no one has earned it. That's not toxic, it's just fact. You are welcome, my tax dollars have allowed you to become rich. I'm very glad you were as fortunate as you were, just remember to give back to the society which enabled your wealth!
      - echelon 3y ago
        > You are welcome, my tax dollars have allowed you to become rich. This has to be one of the most entitled things I've ever read. If you pick me out of this society and tax base and drop me into another, I will still be trying and working my ass off to accomplish my goals. That's my character. You have nothing to do with my success. Jupiter clearing our orbit, the evolution of Eukaryotes, capitalism, post-WWII tailwinds, and my hard work have more to do with my success than your tax dollars. Have you ever thanked your ancestors for eradicating Neanderthal, your mother for not sticking to her first dating prospects, or all those who died in wars so you can live in peace and comfort?
        tgdude 3y ago
        I'll start by saying this isn't really directed at you. > Have you ever thanked your ancestors for eradicating Neanderthal, your mother for not sticking to her first dating prospects, or all those who died in wars so you can live in peace and comfort? More people should make it a practice to be grateful for the things that allow us to be successful, they'd be more content. I've never thanked Neanderthals but I do think about the choices and risks my ancestors took to ensure _they_ were successful. Personally I try to semi-regularly reflect on how I got to where I am and the factors that went into that. That includes thanking my mom and dad for their fuck ups as well as their good choices. It's been a humbling experience and long term day to day I'm happier and less isolated from the world.
        skeaker 3y ago
        Sometimes when I notice a streetlamp come on in the afternoon, the complexity of it dawns on me. It's sturdy, well made. How would I ever roll that material up that way? How could I plant it into the ground so it stays standing? The material of it, where would I ever get the metal? The electricity, surely I would never have figured out how to make that, much less create whatever gargantuan distribution system that was required to turn the light on. And that it came on by itself at night: Is that a timer? A light sensor? Either way, were it up to me to make the thing from complete scratch, I doubt I would be able to crack it. The intellect of those that came before me gets almost overwhelming. How many lifetimes did it take to come up with all of this? How many to build it? And then I look down the street and see dozens more, so common that they are hardly noticed, and realize that I am in a world built on incomprehensible amounts of human ingenuity. I think about how if I were born even just a few decades sooner the world would be nearly unrecognizable to me. Once my mind hits this point, I find it impossible to feel anything but gratitude for the lifetimes laid before me to create the world I now inhabit.
    - brushfoot 3y ago
      > My adoptive father shared an apartment with a roommate when I was in elementary school. Here I am, just fine My wife's mother beat and choked her from childhood. She was regularly told she was worthless and unwanted. Her father abandoned them, and her stepfather would whip her with clothes hangers for imagined infractions. Many people are in similar situations. The abuse may not always be physical or as extreme as what she endured, but many parents are unfit for parenthood, and their children suffer from the trauma or neglect or religious extremism for the rest of their lives to a greater or lesser degree. We don't always hear these stories because our social bubbles may comprise people who are more well adjusted, or at least present so. But abuse, infidelity, narcissism and so on are not new, and they aren't as rare as we might feel. And if those kinds of people didn't reproduce, that would be a good thing.
      - nicksrose7224 3y ago
        Are you saying it would have been a good thing for your wife's parents not to reproduce? Where would that leave her and you? (noted that childhood you described sounds awful, i agree)
        loa_in_ 3y ago
        That's a philosophical question, but I would say probably better off. If that wouldn't have taken place, it means a lot of abuse around the world wouldn't either.
        brushfoot 3y ago
        While my wife and I love each other, yes, it would have been better had they not had children -- for her sake, and this is her own feeling. Her trauma from childhood and young adulthood continues to affect her deeply and daily even now, decades later, in manifold ways, from complicated health issues to self-efficacy beliefs to frequent nightmares and constant fear about the future. When your own parent refuses to give you food, faith that everything will work out in the end can be hard to cultivate. Personally, selfishly, the thought of my life without her is depressing, absolutely. But I can love her and yet -- or more precisely, "and so," because it's out of empathy that I feel this way -- I can understand and support her desire never to have existed.
    - brushfoot 3y ago
      > Maybe it'd thrill you to know I haven't heard or spoken to that person in over twenty years, and that he abused me? You being a millionaire doesn't mean you aren't still dealing with that trauma. Some people internalize their abuse, forcing themselves to ever-higher levels of achievement to try to be worthy of the love they never received. Your dismissals of parenting concerns are borderline emotionally abusive in themselves, gaslighting others' experiences by repeatedly claiming that things are "just fine" on the whole. For many people, things are not just fine, and not having children is a valid response to that, and an empathetic one.
- vundercind 3y ago
  > Kids aren't expensive. They're a distraction from dopamine and career advancement. They really are. You can pay for some of it by letting your and their quality of life suffer, instead of with money (cram 3 kids into the 2-bedroom you already own; don’t worry that the schools are bad and dangerous and that’s why the place was cheap; that kind of thing) but not all of it, and most people don’t find making those compromises acceptable either, if they have the means not to. The main costs are lost income OR childcare; housing; and healthcare. The rest isn’t exactly cheap (man they eat a lot as they get older) but those are the worst bits, and they’re very expensive.
  - Spivak 3y ago
    It's not even the schools that have that dynamic first. Lots of daycares are sketchy as hell and they also charge crazy high prices so you can't just pay for better. You have to take time out of your day and go suss them out and dig up inspection reports.
    - DavidPeiffer 3y ago
      Availability is another big issue. You find a daycare that's great for your kid and safe. Then some staff turnover and you're not thrilled with it anymore. In my area, the wait is around 18 months for a slot in a different daycare center. In-home daycare offers a lower price and some better availability, but are often unlicensed. You are best off signing up for a couple waitlists before you plan to have a kid and hope the one you choose works out well. And of course, switching childcare providers is way harder than switching grocery stores. Your kid has feelings, grows attached to the caregivers, and make friends. There's a huge risk making a switch, and you most likely can't undo it if the new provider isn't a good fit.
      - echelon 3y ago
        > In-home daycare offers a lower price and some better availability, but are often unlicensed. This is the problem. You're wanting a first class experience for your kid, and this probably causes you to overlook other viable options that are less expensive. > In my area, the wait is around 18 months for a slot in a different daycare center. Wait lists? There's likely service available, you're just setting a quality threshold. > And of course, switching childcare providers is way harder than switching grocery stores. Your kid has feelings, grows attached to the caregivers, and make friends. We have de-risked our species so much that we now care about children's daycare preferences. Some other commenter mentioned spending $200,000 on their five year old kid. This is not typical. As a species, we used to have multiple kids because we just accepted that some of them would die. We are so far on the other end of the spectrum now that children are being treated as princes and princesses. Kids can be as expensive as you want them to be. People are buying their dogs and cats ridiculous things like treadmills these days, so of course it figures that some parents must be doing even crazier stuff for their human children. This is learned consumer behavior. Children are being over-invested in to a degree that some would-be interested people just aren't even bothering to get started (one of several reasons this is happening). I'm not saying don't love your kids, but it looks like having them has become a perfectionist goal that can't be reached. Accept imperfection and less than perfect.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  The cost to raise a child from 0-18 is $310k per the Brookings Institute. This does not include daycare or college.
- nicbou 3y ago
  This is rather judgemental. I don't follow anyone on social media, and I don't post anything about my lifestyle there. It's not a driving force in my life. I just don't want children. Even if I was bored out of my mind and incapable of travelling, I still wouldn't want them. People's values have changed. Having babies isn't everyone's cup of tea.
- bruhbruh78 3y ago
  [flagged]
- tedajax 3y ago
  Honestly, no real productive thing to say here I just think you're a judgemental asshole and I hope your underwear itches forever.
- happiness_idx 3y ago
  You got downvoted because you speak the truth.
- MaxHoppersGhost 3y ago
  Man this is so true, not sure why this is getting downvoted? Most people without kids just don’t want to change their (very fun) lifestyles and commit to something with a very long and uncertain but (hopefully) rewarding payout. It’s certainly scary. That said the amount of dopamine/happiness I get playing with my child is more than any social media feed could ever provide. But in between those moments there’s a lot of work and sleepless nights for sure.
- oblio 3y ago
  > Once you have children, the dopamine ends and the self-directed path takes a backseat. Nobody I know wants to give that up. Except for all those parents that neglect, or worse, abuse their kids.
Dig1t 3y ago
Me too! Among my cohort of friends that I grew up with, all of us in our early 30's, around 10 people, I'm the only one who is having kids. None of them are even trying to get married. The vast majority of people my age that I meet are not planning to have kids. I can't stop noticing it, and even my wife has started remarking about it now. It honestly does seem like an entire generation has chosen not to have kids..
opportune 3y ago
You probably grew up in a very wealthy and highly educated part of a major city. Not the case for 35 year olds in broad swathes of the country
- lumost 3y ago
  Presuming that wealth and education are increasing in the general population - wouldn't this pose a problem for the future?
  - mensetmanusman 3y ago
    Demographic collapse will bring poverty allowing for the continuation of humanity.
    - Spacecosmonaut 3y ago
      I doubt it will. Infact, I would be willing to bet good money that china is going to start factory farming the next generation within the next 20 years, using artificial wombs & in vitro fertilization.
      - skissane 3y ago
        > china is going to start factory farming the next generation within the next 20 years, using artificial wombs & in vitro fertilization Enormously more expensive than producing children the natural way. Given the CCP’s history of using coercion to make people have less kids (forced sterilisation, forced abortion, some even allege infanticide), I would not be surprised if they start coercing people to have more. From an ethical perspective that’s terrible, but why expect a government which hasn’t cared about ethics in the past to start caring about it now or in the future? Coerced natural reproduction is massively cheaper than artificial wombs
        mensetmanusman 3y ago
        They will be the first to ban abortion and clothing.
autoexec 3y ago
> But the anecdata would say that we're closing on the point where millenials have chosen to simply not have children. I'd bet that that isn't a "choice" so much as it is that millennials are prevented by their circumstances from having the children they'd want to otherwise. If more people could actually afford to have kids and were more optimistic about the future I imagine we'd have a lot more babies around
- rayiner 3y ago
  It’s absolutely a choice. That’s obvious because the millennials with the most money and education are the ones having the fewest kids. It’s downtown SF that’s childless. Working class parts of Dallas are bustling with kids. It’s not that millennials can’t afford to have kids. It’s that they’re too self-centered and unwilling to endure the lifestyle hit for doing so.
  - raydev 3y ago
    I'm willing to accept that they feel like their situation is precarious when it actually isn't, because I've certainly been there. But I also overcame it when I realized I wasn't actually thinking everything through.
- happiness_idx 3y ago
  It's quite peculiar to observe members of the tech community citing their circumstances as a barrier during a period of abundance and prosperity.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    Members of the tech community were never driving the decline in cousins or the population generally. Most of us here are wealthy and wealthy people tend of have fewer kids already. Even people here could reasonably have concerns about the future of the environment, our democracy, etc that might make having children seem unwise. Most millennials, in fact most Americans, are not experiencing a period of abundance and prosperity. Their standard of living is in decline, their household debt is at record highs, and they still can't afford to buy the same groceries they normally would.

by lumost 3y ago

echelon 3y ago

Kids aren't expensive. They're a distraction from dopamine and career advancement. My peers are all wealthy and they'd rather jet set than settle down. By all means they could raise families of two to four kids and still be incredibly comfortable. Vacation home comfortable. Instagram is the anti-child. Instagram and the endless feed of social media, internet, and things to do. Once you have children, the dopamine ends and the self-directed path takes a backseat. Nobody I know wants to give that up. It's not just the wealthy. I know upper middle class people in their 40s who are partying on the weekends and taking trips all over the world. It's the life they want for themselves, and children put an end to that.

zigman1 3y ago
You know what is also anti-child? Having parents that were completely unprepared to be parents. Stop with this dopamine epidemic nonsense excuse for everything that isn't working the way you want
- echelon 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - zigman1 3y ago
    Recorded history you mean the history of domestic and emotional abuse, alcoholism, family disputes, lying and nromalised cheating? Then we are doing fine. Congratulations on your millions. My dad beat and cheat on my mother, and his dad beat and probably cheat my grandmother.
  - vecinu 3y ago
    > Here I am, just fine, a self-made millionaire today. That says everything about how you view the world. "self-made". Nothing about how your adoptive father contributed, your peers or the entire society you grew up in. Something else I'd love to get away from is that having money != being a well adjusted individual.
  - swells34 3y ago
    Are you aware that other people have provided everything you have in life, or have you really drunk the "self-made" Koolaid. Work the farm? Excellent, now one must purchase and run a farm in order to have children. How much do those cost? Oh, millions you say!? Wonderful.
  - swells34 3y ago
    Ah yes, what I said was toxic because I would have to thank a lot of things for any success I had. Frankly, above a certain amount of income, no one has earned it. That's not toxic, it's just fact. You are welcome, my tax dollars have allowed you to become rich. I'm very glad you were as fortunate as you were, just remember to give back to the society which enabled your wealth!
    - echelon 3y ago
      > You are welcome, my tax dollars have allowed you to become rich. This has to be one of the most entitled things I've ever read. If you pick me out of this society and tax base and drop me into another, I will still be trying and working my ass off to accomplish my goals. That's my character. You have nothing to do with my success. Jupiter clearing our orbit, the evolution of Eukaryotes, capitalism, post-WWII tailwinds, and my hard work have more to do with my success than your tax dollars. Have you ever thanked your ancestors for eradicating Neanderthal, your mother for not sticking to her first dating prospects, or all those who died in wars so you can live in peace and comfort?
      - tgdude 3y ago
        I'll start by saying this isn't really directed at you. > Have you ever thanked your ancestors for eradicating Neanderthal, your mother for not sticking to her first dating prospects, or all those who died in wars so you can live in peace and comfort? More people should make it a practice to be grateful for the things that allow us to be successful, they'd be more content. I've never thanked Neanderthals but I do think about the choices and risks my ancestors took to ensure _they_ were successful. Personally I try to semi-regularly reflect on how I got to where I am and the factors that went into that. That includes thanking my mom and dad for their fuck ups as well as their good choices. It's been a humbling experience and long term day to day I'm happier and less isolated from the world.
      - skeaker 3y ago
        Sometimes when I notice a streetlamp come on in the afternoon, the complexity of it dawns on me. It's sturdy, well made. How would I ever roll that material up that way? How could I plant it into the ground so it stays standing? The material of it, where would I ever get the metal? The electricity, surely I would never have figured out how to make that, much less create whatever gargantuan distribution system that was required to turn the light on. And that it came on by itself at night: Is that a timer? A light sensor? Either way, were it up to me to make the thing from complete scratch, I doubt I would be able to crack it. The intellect of those that came before me gets almost overwhelming. How many lifetimes did it take to come up with all of this? How many to build it? And then I look down the street and see dozens more, so common that they are hardly noticed, and realize that I am in a world built on incomprehensible amounts of human ingenuity. I think about how if I were born even just a few decades sooner the world would be nearly unrecognizable to me. Once my mind hits this point, I find it impossible to feel anything but gratitude for the lifetimes laid before me to create the world I now inhabit.
  - brushfoot 3y ago
    > My adoptive father shared an apartment with a roommate when I was in elementary school. Here I am, just fine My wife's mother beat and choked her from childhood. She was regularly told she was worthless and unwanted. Her father abandoned them, and her stepfather would whip her with clothes hangers for imagined infractions. Many people are in similar situations. The abuse may not always be physical or as extreme as what she endured, but many parents are unfit for parenthood, and their children suffer from the trauma or neglect or religious extremism for the rest of their lives to a greater or lesser degree. We don't always hear these stories because our social bubbles may comprise people who are more well adjusted, or at least present so. But abuse, infidelity, narcissism and so on are not new, and they aren't as rare as we might feel. And if those kinds of people didn't reproduce, that would be a good thing.
    - nicksrose7224 3y ago
      Are you saying it would have been a good thing for your wife's parents not to reproduce? Where would that leave her and you? (noted that childhood you described sounds awful, i agree)
      - loa_in_ 3y ago
        That's a philosophical question, but I would say probably better off. If that wouldn't have taken place, it means a lot of abuse around the world wouldn't either.
      - brushfoot 3y ago
        While my wife and I love each other, yes, it would have been better had they not had children -- for her sake, and this is her own feeling. Her trauma from childhood and young adulthood continues to affect her deeply and daily even now, decades later, in manifold ways, from complicated health issues to self-efficacy beliefs to frequent nightmares and constant fear about the future. When your own parent refuses to give you food, faith that everything will work out in the end can be hard to cultivate. Personally, selfishly, the thought of my life without her is depressing, absolutely. But I can love her and yet -- or more precisely, "and so," because it's out of empathy that I feel this way -- I can understand and support her desire never to have existed.
  - brushfoot 3y ago
    > Maybe it'd thrill you to know I haven't heard or spoken to that person in over twenty years, and that he abused me? You being a millionaire doesn't mean you aren't still dealing with that trauma. Some people internalize their abuse, forcing themselves to ever-higher levels of achievement to try to be worthy of the love they never received. Your dismissals of parenting concerns are borderline emotionally abusive in themselves, gaslighting others' experiences by repeatedly claiming that things are "just fine" on the whole. For many people, things are not just fine, and not having children is a valid response to that, and an empathetic one.
vundercind 3y ago
> Kids aren't expensive. They're a distraction from dopamine and career advancement. They really are. You can pay for some of it by letting your and their quality of life suffer, instead of with money (cram 3 kids into the 2-bedroom you already own; don’t worry that the schools are bad and dangerous and that’s why the place was cheap; that kind of thing) but not all of it, and most people don’t find making those compromises acceptable either, if they have the means not to. The main costs are lost income OR childcare; housing; and healthcare. The rest isn’t exactly cheap (man they eat a lot as they get older) but those are the worst bits, and they’re very expensive.
- Spivak 3y ago
  It's not even the schools that have that dynamic first. Lots of daycares are sketchy as hell and they also charge crazy high prices so you can't just pay for better. You have to take time out of your day and go suss them out and dig up inspection reports.
  - DavidPeiffer 3y ago
    Availability is another big issue. You find a daycare that's great for your kid and safe. Then some staff turnover and you're not thrilled with it anymore. In my area, the wait is around 18 months for a slot in a different daycare center. In-home daycare offers a lower price and some better availability, but are often unlicensed. You are best off signing up for a couple waitlists before you plan to have a kid and hope the one you choose works out well. And of course, switching childcare providers is way harder than switching grocery stores. Your kid has feelings, grows attached to the caregivers, and make friends. There's a huge risk making a switch, and you most likely can't undo it if the new provider isn't a good fit.
    - echelon 3y ago
      > In-home daycare offers a lower price and some better availability, but are often unlicensed. This is the problem. You're wanting a first class experience for your kid, and this probably causes you to overlook other viable options that are less expensive. > In my area, the wait is around 18 months for a slot in a different daycare center. Wait lists? There's likely service available, you're just setting a quality threshold. > And of course, switching childcare providers is way harder than switching grocery stores. Your kid has feelings, grows attached to the caregivers, and make friends. We have de-risked our species so much that we now care about children's daycare preferences. Some other commenter mentioned spending $200,000 on their five year old kid. This is not typical. As a species, we used to have multiple kids because we just accepted that some of them would die. We are so far on the other end of the spectrum now that children are being treated as princes and princesses. Kids can be as expensive as you want them to be. People are buying their dogs and cats ridiculous things like treadmills these days, so of course it figures that some parents must be doing even crazier stuff for their human children. This is learned consumer behavior. Children are being over-invested in to a degree that some would-be interested people just aren't even bothering to get started (one of several reasons this is happening). I'm not saying don't love your kids, but it looks like having them has become a perfectionist goal that can't be reached. Accept imperfection and less than perfect.
toomuchtodo 3y ago
The cost to raise a child from 0-18 is $310k per the Brookings Institute. This does not include daycare or college.
nicbou 3y ago
This is rather judgemental. I don't follow anyone on social media, and I don't post anything about my lifestyle there. It's not a driving force in my life. I just don't want children. Even if I was bored out of my mind and incapable of travelling, I still wouldn't want them. People's values have changed. Having babies isn't everyone's cup of tea.
bruhbruh78 3y ago
[flagged]
tedajax 3y ago
Honestly, no real productive thing to say here I just think you're a judgemental asshole and I hope your underwear itches forever.
happiness_idx 3y ago
You got downvoted because you speak the truth.
MaxHoppersGhost 3y ago
Man this is so true, not sure why this is getting downvoted? Most people without kids just don’t want to change their (very fun) lifestyles and commit to something with a very long and uncertain but (hopefully) rewarding payout. It’s certainly scary. That said the amount of dopamine/happiness I get playing with my child is more than any social media feed could ever provide. But in between those moments there’s a lot of work and sleepless nights for sure.
oblio 3y ago
> Once you have children, the dopamine ends and the self-directed path takes a backseat. Nobody I know wants to give that up. Except for all those parents that neglect, or worse, abuse their kids.

Dig1t 3y ago

Me too! Among my cohort of friends that I grew up with, all of us in our early 30's, around 10 people, I'm the only one who is having kids. None of them are even trying to get married. The vast majority of people my age that I meet are not planning to have kids. I can't stop noticing it, and even my wife has started remarking about it now. It honestly does seem like an entire generation has chosen not to have kids..

opportune 3y ago

You probably grew up in a very wealthy and highly educated part of a major city. Not the case for 35 year olds in broad swathes of the country

lumost 3y ago
Presuming that wealth and education are increasing in the general population - wouldn't this pose a problem for the future?
- mensetmanusman 3y ago
  Demographic collapse will bring poverty allowing for the continuation of humanity.
  - Spacecosmonaut 3y ago
    I doubt it will. Infact, I would be willing to bet good money that china is going to start factory farming the next generation within the next 20 years, using artificial wombs & in vitro fertilization.
    - skissane 3y ago
      > china is going to start factory farming the next generation within the next 20 years, using artificial wombs & in vitro fertilization Enormously more expensive than producing children the natural way. Given the CCP’s history of using coercion to make people have less kids (forced sterilisation, forced abortion, some even allege infanticide), I would not be surprised if they start coercing people to have more. From an ethical perspective that’s terrible, but why expect a government which hasn’t cared about ethics in the past to start caring about it now or in the future? Coerced natural reproduction is massively cheaper than artificial wombs
      - mensetmanusman 3y ago
        They will be the first to ban abortion and clothing.

autoexec 3y ago

> But the anecdata would say that we're closing on the point where millenials have chosen to simply not have children. I'd bet that that isn't a "choice" so much as it is that millennials are prevented by their circumstances from having the children they'd want to otherwise. If more people could actually afford to have kids and were more optimistic about the future I imagine we'd have a lot more babies around

rayiner 3y ago
It’s absolutely a choice. That’s obvious because the millennials with the most money and education are the ones having the fewest kids. It’s downtown SF that’s childless. Working class parts of Dallas are bustling with kids. It’s not that millennials can’t afford to have kids. It’s that they’re too self-centered and unwilling to endure the lifestyle hit for doing so.
- raydev 3y ago
  I'm willing to accept that they feel like their situation is precarious when it actually isn't, because I've certainly been there. But I also overcame it when I realized I wasn't actually thinking everything through.
happiness_idx 3y ago
It's quite peculiar to observe members of the tech community citing their circumstances as a barrier during a period of abundance and prosperity.
- autoexec 3y ago
  Members of the tech community were never driving the decline in cousins or the population generally. Most of us here are wealthy and wealthy people tend of have fewer kids already. Even people here could reasonably have concerns about the future of the environment, our democracy, etc that might make having children seem unwise. Most millennials, in fact most Americans, are not experiencing a period of abundance and prosperity. Their standard of living is in decline, their household debt is at record highs, and they still can't afford to buy the same groceries they normally would.