The rise of the Baby Zoomers
Proposals, property and family planning – as priorities shift in the wake of the pandemic, Millennials are getting serious
when lou kettle’s boyfriend of 13 years asked her to marry him in their living room at Christmas, Lou was shocked. Neither of them had been remotely interested in marriage before. ‘It didn’t feel necessary and a big wedding never really appealed,’ she says. That was before the pandemic changed their perspective on tying the knot.
Lou, 33, from Dundee, was made redundant as a magazine editor last October, joining the 600,000-odd under 35s to lose jobs this past year. Until finding a new job she had to rely on her partner’s income, which changed their relationship. ‘All these things came together and made us realise we’re a really good team. When you’re locked down it’s going to either make or break you. We felt stronger because of it.’
Her response to his proposal was an emphatic: ‘Definitely! There’s been so much uncertainty this past year and it was like both of us wanted the security of each other. It feels like everything’s quite out of control right now and it’s nice to know we’re getting the paperwork to say we’re united,’ she says.
She’s one of many to join the ranks of what is being dubbed a new ‘Baby Zoomer’
‘SHUTDOWN FORCED PEOPLE TO LOOK AT THE WAY THEY LIVE’
cohort – Millennials who’ve shifted their lives and attitudes during the pandemic and now care more about the security of marriage, having children or getting on the housing ladder. According to research by Starling Bank, 56% of Millennials (which they define as 25 to 40-year-olds) are now making these life goals a greater priority.
For an age group that’s always been labelled the Peter Pan generation for its tendency to delay typical rites of passage into adulthood, the shift is major. We’re used to being accused (unfairly) of splurging our salaries on avocado toast instead of saving for a house. Then again, we haven’t always helped make the case for our maturity: obsessing over Harry Potter into our thirties and coining the cringey term ‘adulting’ for when we do basic grown-up tasks has seen us ridiculed by Gen Z (aged 16-24) in Gen Z vs Millennial culture wars.
But the pandemic has triggered a sea change for many. For Sarah Craig*, 28, who works in the arts, it’s meant being able to pay off her £40k debt and save for a deposit for the first time in her life. ‘Pre-pandemic, we thought we’d never be able to buy a house,’ says Sarah, who’s leaving her London flat to move to the house in Kent she bought with her boyfriend recently. She says the pandemic saw her go from a ‘shopaholic with an embarrassing amount of credit card debt’ to a debt-free homeowner.
‘I did the classic Millennial thing of accumulating debt at uni that I carried into the early years of my career,’ she says. ‘When I moved to London I spent thousands commuting, socialising, having the right outfit and shopping to deal with a bad day.’ Lockdown promptly nipped this lifestyle in the bud, plus she started freelancing in her newly free evenings to top up her salary. ‘My credit score has soared in the past year because I’ve been able to pay everything off, which has definitely helped us get a mortgage,’ she says.
Starling’s research also found 57% of Baby Zoomers are reconsidering their location. Indeed, lockdown was the catalyst for Naomi Bell, 32, and her husband Sam to swap their flat in the heart of bustling, trendy Shoreditch in east London for a rural village in Scotland. ‘It’s in the middle of the countryside and I don’t drive, which is going to be interesting,’ says Naomi, co-founder of bespoke stationary business Kinship Press. In the first lockdown, they rented a cottage in the countryside. ‘It gave us a total change of perspective. We weighed it up and realised we want this lifestyle now, and we can’t get it in London.’
Many Millennials who previously wanted more time before starting a family have also begun questioning what they’re waiting for. Pre-pandemic, Natasha Grant, 32, delayed having a baby as she worried it wouldn’t fit around the running of her shop, Flavour Like Fancy, in Leeds. Then she became pregnant. Baby Otis is now five months old.
‘[The pandemic] got me and my partner thinking how we’re getting older and wanted to start a family anyway, so we thought it couldn’t be better timing,’ she says. ‘We got really excited about the prospect of growing up, I suppose. I didn’t have the chatter of outside life coming in and influences from friends; it was a real opportunity to focus on us.’
Tess Brigham, a psychotherapist and Millennial coach, thinks the pandemic gave Millennials ‘the freedom both mentally and physically’ to start making different choices. ‘Physically, once work became remote,’ she says. ‘Mentally, sitting at home for months with their thoughts helped young people rethink how they’re spending their time and energy. The shutdown forced people to look at their jobs, their relationships and the way they live without all the parties, festivals, nights out and trips, and decide what’s working and what’s not.’ She also points out young people lost their jobs in higher numbers, ‘which makes you look at what it is you’re doing with your life and if it’s how you want to spend your time’.
Of course, the infantilisation of Millennials was never as simple as a generation ‘refusing to grow up’: try saving for a big life event such as buying a property while facing spiralling living costs and the rise of the gig economy. And the traditional trappings of adulthood are not the only markers of the passage to maturity (nor does everybody want to embrace them, even if they are able to do so).
Yet what is clear is something about the past year has sparked a longing for stability in many of us, inspired us to re-evaluate what’s important and seize opportunities. And if the new world we’re about to emerge into, reincarnated as Baby Zoomers, is one where the word ‘adulting’ no longer exists, well that’s another silver lining.
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