In another timeline where boomers didn't destroy the housing market, didn't ignore climate change, and didn't continue to vote for regressive policies, maybe they'd have grandchildren.
childfree
At some point, us millennials need to also start taking that responsibility. Our oldest cohort is definitely at an age where we are starting to take over power. We won't be able to blame boomers for shit for long.
Young folks have been priced out of housing & healthcare, you can be fired from your job on a whim, food is astronomically expensive, the political climate is tense, your basic human rights could be rescinded at any time, the future of the planet is being murdered by shitty capitalists with 0 regard for human life....
I mean, who wouldn't want to bring a child into this world right now?
Eat shit.
I'm hunting for a new job for the second time in less than a year, and I'm honestly a skilled professional with over 10 years of experience, with a lot of proof that I do great work. The labor market is stupid right now, just down right stupid. Full of executives searching for short term profits rather than anyone wanting to actually run a company well. That's alone is a huge reason, on top of everything else. I don't even know if I'll have stable employment, and that means I don't know if I'll have stable health insurance - so genuinely what are any actual incentives to my generation to have kids? Literally are there any beyond just "you have a kid now"
I'm a software engineer currently trying to find employment, and it's so bad I'm wondering if I'll just have to do something else for a while.
My last company basically fired all their US devs, and outsourced to foreign countries for cheaper.
I am a computing director. My take: software dev has been over saturated for the last 12-15 years but people keep seeing dollar signs in their eyes. My advice: learn a business skill like project management. It will allow you to work in any location.
I have 7 years professional experience, and I'm even getting passed over for positions listed as requiring 1-3 years. It's wild right now.
I'm thinking about just going back to school, while the market is complete shit.
That works too. A degree is a reset button on your career. I’d suggest either specializing in something niche to make you more desirable or doing something very different so that you have more options.
It's shit, right? I'm so sorry. I hope that stability comes to you very soon.
Reject tradition. You have no obligation to sacrifice your well-being because some old, out-of-touch fuckwads want something life-changing from you. Can't even afford groceries.
They can foster a child if they want one around so badly. Or go sit at a park. Or volunteer at the church nursery or something, ffs.
bingo. The SO and I have talked about it, and we decided if we regret it a bit later and it's too late, adoption is always a valid choice. After all, we're not bringing new life in so we don't have to feel guilty about that, but instead we would be giving a home to someone else who needs one. However, there are still many, many negatives as to why we don't want to or simply can't right now.
The parts of the world with the most population growth are generally also the poorest. Richer countries have fewer children, and within those countries richer people have fewer children.
I'm not saying that your concerns about your quality of life are invalid or that they aren't the reason you personally don't want children, but they don't explain this general phenomenon.
Kids are a retirement strategy in poorer countries, they are the opposite in richer ones.
Once again Gen-X is ignored. It's Gen-X hitting grandparenting age.
My two kids probably won't be parents, and I'm ok with that. I want them to be happy more than I want to enjoy grandkids. Whatever they choose, I'll be happy with.
I felt pressure from Boomer parents to have kids, and I didn't want to do the same to my kids. That's a hard nope.
Seems like old = boomers and young = millennials for journalist and a lot of people
Yeah this is a good point. Young boomers are, what, 65?
About 59 I think.
maybe if gen x did something we wouldn't be forgetting about them /s (i kid i kid)
but seriously, go get into the government or something, you guys are the prime age for entering the government right now.
"Oh no it's the consequences of my own actions!"
I want the lions share of the profits of our economy! I want to pull the ladder up behind me! Why aren't these lazy millennials having kids for me!?
You're entitled millennials!
/Vomit
you fucking millennials and your avocado toast cost me grandbebbies!
Told my mom if she wants grandkids she better stop voting for conservatives. Didn't work, and a deal's a deal.
Yeah cuz they're hoarding the houses.
Make college and homes unobtainable.. You get what you get and you don't get upset.
Maybe they shouldn't horde and partition their wealth from their children and do everything possible to ensure every penny is spent before death.
You're not wrong, but this is more of a class issue than a generational issue, although in this case they certainly intersect. My boomer parents don't have any money; they got screwed over by the 1% just like the rest of us.
Shouldn't 'ave fucked up the economy and environment, simple as
How dare someone elses wants effect me!!
Make the world a place that will be liveable in 100 years and pay people enough to exist:
A) without children, and B) with children
and boom, problem solved. Statistically, anyway.
Guess you shouldn't have been entitled little shits and fucked up the world, then.
Elder millennial here. I had kids, my brother didn’t, and my kids, though young enough to change their minds, are adamant they won’t have kids.
I think the more interesting stat likely unfolding is the marked decrease of great grandparents in a generation.
To be clear this is not a “threat to society” or whatever, people can decide if they want kids or not. Just a shower thought.
The real solution has always been immigration to get more bodies in the country managing the economy. It’ll never happen though.
Boohoo
The most important generation.
Wouldn't this be prime age for boomers to be great grandparents? Unless they mean paying for their grandkids college...
Boomers are 1946-1964. Definitely the older in the generation are in the great grandparent years, especially if they and their kids had kids young, but the younger boomers, especially if they and their kids had their first kids later, will be grandparents.
I wouldn't exactly call that prime time for them to be grandparents, then...
Aww. Maybe if they didn’t spend their days treating their kids like their bank accounts and actually voted to help them afford things like housing and health care they’d have grandkids.
Instead they supported ghouls like trump and clinton instead of the guy who wanted to give everybody health care!
even if I had kids my dad would be excluded from grandparenting due to the trump worship. don't need that kind of influence on the adult family members let alone kids.
This shit is so dumb. "Anyone older than me is a Boomer!"
Boomers have been grandparents for some time. GenX as well in many cases.
Correct. Boomers are 60 to 80 now. Them getting grandparents is pretty much over. X is 45 to 60, this is about them, they are in prime grandparents age.
I think the point is that boomers are now 60 to 80, and some of their their children are reaching their 40s without yet having kids, and the boomers are finally realizing it isn't gonna happen.
The "prime grandparenting age" part is just headline fluff.
So the share that has grandkids is the share that can afford them, right?
I made a nextdoor account recently for my small business and one of the first posts I see is boomers decrying the closure of a small prop leaded plane toy airport closing to make way for apartments.
Wah traffic, Wah my homes value, Wah crime rates.
These people are fucking obsolete.
Maybe next time leave the ladder behind instead of taking it with you.
The wealthier Boomers left behind millions of tiny little ladders specifically for their kids to climb.
The poorer Boomers died before hitting retirement age, or died in debt, or bankrupted themselves paying for end-of-life health care, or got scammed or otherwise denuded of their accumulated wealth.
Incidentally, its the wealthier Boomers who continue to set national policy from the board rooms and lobbying offices established by their own parents and grandparents. Meanwhile the poorer and more isolated Boomers are left to drown in their own poverty, ineffectually raging at the collapse of neighborhoods and the destitution of their pension funds and the deterioration of their suburban homes, unless their children and grandchildren are able to help them out at the end of their days.
Folks like to pretend this is one generation pitted against another. But its selection bias. The only members of the Boomer generation you hear from are the ones that came out on top. The rest have been killed in the wars or poisoned by industrial waste and lead pollution or foreclosed into homelessness to die on the streets or confined to digital communities like Facebook where they're drowned out by waves of misinformation accounts. Legions of dead Boomers never got to decide how the current generations live. They were burned up and thrown out, just like the current generation of bourgeois GenXers and Millennials and Zoomers plan to do with the rest of us.