I read this article over the weekend and (being the youngest) sent it to my sister for her thoughts (as she is the middle child). Both of us agreed although there are some interesting bits in it – what exactly was this author trying to convey?
He made a single throw-away comment about Millennials waiting to have kids, and I really wish he had shown the courage to delve into that. But that wasn’t his point and I appreciate it. He also made a snarky comment about the “indulgence” of people he knows who have a third kid and what fiscal security they must feel to do this.
Ok, so (a) OMG his privilege and (b) again, not the courage to get political and discuss the fact that kids are PROHIBITIVELY expensive.
In case it isn’t clear – In 2011 OECD published this report on the change of fertility rates 1980-2009 (ish). Now, to be clear in 2009 kids born in 1982 (early Millennials) were 27, so when they said “the average age at which women have their first child increased from 24
in 1970 to 28 in 2008” (pg 21), they aren’t really talking about Millennials. Taking the 1982-1997 age range for Millennials, we’re looking at people that are now 36-21. Ok, so we can finally all drink and most of us can rent a car. But in 2011 even, many, many Millennials were still in high school and college. So this research might already be wrong. I didn’t find anything that looked legit that was more recent in my quick Google search.
I don’t think the author of this article is wrong per say, but I feel like he didn’t want to dig into WHY people aren’t having more kids instead just bemoaning sadly this loss to his personality. Without digging into what is motivating this change in our society, he acts like people are just doing it on purpose.
In case you aren’t reading my subtext – I’m a bit offended by this.
I would love to have more than 1 kid, but I’m already past 30 and I did wait. I waited for 2 big reasons. The first is I had to find the right partner. That one took awhile, but even after we met we were both working a fairly low-paying job. We’ve fought and struggled to put ourselves into a place where we feel more secure. We still don’t have children and I’m over that “magical” 30-age number that means I’m old to start a family. I’m well past that 28-average age that was true in 2009.
Dream by Day 