THE KID QUESTION
Gen Z, millennials speak out on reluctance to become parents
At 24, El Johnson has decided that she won't bear children, though she and her girlfriend haven't ruled out adoption.
The graduate student who works in legal services in Austin, Texas, has a list of reasons for not wanting to give birth: the climate crisis and a genetic health condition among them.
“I don't think it's responsible to bring children into this world,” Johnson said. “There are already kids who need homes. I don't know what kind of world it's going to be in 20, 30, 40 years.”
She's so sure, in fact, that she'll soon have her tubes removed. It's a decision sealed by the fall of Roe v. Wade and by tight restrictions on abortion services in her state and around the country.
Other women interviewed also cited climate change, along with student debt and inflation, as reasons they'll never be parents. More younger men, too, are seeking vasectomies.
Whatever the motivation, they play a role in dramatically low birthrates in the U.S.
The U.S. birth rate fell four per cent in 2020, the largest single-year decrease in nearly 50 years, according to a government report. The government noted a one per cent uptick in U.S. births last year, but the number of babies born was still lower than before the coronavirus pandemic: about 86,000 fewer than in 2019.
Walter and Kyah King live in suburban Las Vegas. Walter, 29, a sports data scientist, and Kyah, 28, a college career counsellor, have been together nearly 10 years. The realization that they didn't want to have kids came on slowly for both of them. “I think we talked about having three kids at one point,” Kyah said. “But just with the economy and the state of the world and just thinking about the logistics of bringing children into the world. That's really when we started to have our doubts.”
Finances are top of mind. Before taxes, the two earn about $160,000 combined, with about $120,000 in student loan debt for Kyah and about $5,000 left for Walter. The couple said they wouldn't be able to buy a house and shoulder the costs of even one child without major sacrifices they're not willing to make.
Jordan Davidson interviewed more than 300 people for a book out in December titled, So When are You Having Kids? The pandemic, she said, led many to delay childbirth among those contemplating children at all.
“These timelines that people created for themselves of, I want to accomplish X by three years from now, changed. People weren't necessarily willing to move the goalposts and say, `OK, I'm going to forgo these accomplishments and do this differently,'” she said. “People still want to travel. They still want to go to graduate school. They still want to meet certain financial benchmarks.”
Fears about climate change have cemented the idea of living without children for many, Davidson said.
“Now with increased wildfires, droughts, heat waves, all of a sudden it is becoming real that, `OK, this is happening during my time, and what is this going to look like during the time that my children are alive?'” she said.
Among those Jordan interviewed, concerns over the environment were far more prevalent among the younger group. Questions of affordability, she said, troubled both millennials and members of gen Z.
Dannie Lynn Murphy, who helps find software engineers for Google, said she was nearly 17 when she was removed from her home by child protective services due to a pattern of child abuse. Her wife, she said, was similarly raised in a “not great” environment.
Murphy earns about $103,000 a year, with bonuses and equity that can drive that amount up to $300,000. Her wife earns about $60,000 as an attorney. They don't own their Seattle home.
“I can't see myself committing to a mortgage, let alone a child,” the 28-year-old Murphy said. “I think the primary reason is financial. I would prefer to spend that money on travelling versus sinking a half a million dollars into raising a child. Secondarily, there's now the fear of behaving with our children the way our parents behaved with us.”
Alyssa Persson, 31, was raised in small town South Dakota. Getting married and having children was ingrained in the culture, she said. It wasn't until after her divorce that she took a step back and asked herself what she wanted out of life.
“Most women where I'm from lose their identities in motherhood,” said Persson, who now lives in St. Louis and earns about $47,000 a year as a university librarian.
“Having children sounds like a trap to me, to be frank,” she said. “Financially, socially, emotionally, physically. And if there were ever any shadow of a doubt, the fact that I cannot comfortably support myself on my salary is enough to scare me away from the idea entirely.”
Having children sounds like a trap to me, to be frank. Financially, socially, emotionally, physically.