It’s becoming unfashionable to have kids

I don’t know if it’s fashion related as such, but yes people who choose not to have children are more outspoken than ever and tend to mock and deride or criticise those who do choose to become parents. The cost of living probably means that those who do have children only have 1 or maximum 2 rather than the 3 or 4 they may want. People are also more environmentally aware of the impact of increasing the population, which is another factor in couples only having 1 or 2 children.

I also (probably wrongly) think that the ridiculous upsurge in the number of people having dogs these days that they treat as ‘fur babies’ (shudder) has had an impact. They get one dog then two, and are almost replacing the babies they might have had, with these dogs that they then have to bring everywhere with them (there was one in the bank yesterday and it wee’d on the floor and the couple weren’t even apologetic!), and fuss over as though they were human children. I love dogs and have them myself but my dogs are dogs and are certainly not equivalent to people.

Personally I wanted 4 children but for various reasons have 2 amazing boys, and cannot have any more (which is a good thing for the environment).

My 24 & 22 year olds don’t want kids.

I also think parenting style nowadays is a huge impact. I’m childfree but perhaps could have been an 80s dad 🤣 My parents raised me “80s style” as they both worked FT and I had a baby brother who kept them busy. I’ve turned out alright, independent, saved a 20% deposit with my husband while renting, travelled alone, pretty comfortable dealing with any problem.

However nowadays you’re expected to spend every minute with your child, research absolutely everything, drive them to activities every night, always do “fun and enriching” activities, my manager is constantly taking afternoons off to go to his kids assemblies/end of term picnics/nursery graduations/sports days/etc. In my day the only thing parents went into school for was parents evening. Then there’s the parents Whatsapp groups. No fucking way do I want to live like that. It doesn’t seem to be helping the kids either as there is a massive youth mental health crisis.

I'm child free by choice. Climate change or the housing crisis have zero impact on my decision.

I'm just too selfish! I don't want to sacrifice my career, hobbies or life style.

I would say around 80% of our social various circles (all millennials) are also choosing to remain childfree.

I think the freedom thing is interesting. I was definitely scared of that, and mourned it quite a bit in the early years. I was around 30 when I had mine, which is I think a bit of a goldilocks age: career is doing OK; finances ok; done a fair bit of the fun stuff.

However, I've got my freedom back much quicker than I thought I would and probably have a better social calendar now than in my 20s. More money would be nice, but I'm not a martyr who would do without for the kids.

Gosh, it's becoming "unfashionable" to have kids, is it? Does that mean it's becoming fashionable not to have them? Does this mean I've been ahead of the trend all these decades and never knew it? I'm 61 and knew before my teens I never wanted children.

As for treating pets as a replacement - ffs, it's as a PP said, why would you be replacing something you never wanted? I don't treat my cats as children. I love and care for them and enjoy their company - none of which applies to children, to whom I am at most indifferent, and avoid.

Yep. I'm Gen X and have never felt any pressure or judgment from anyone my age (in the social circles I chose as an adult). Plenty from older generations but among my friends in my 20s the dominant assumption was that very few of us wanted kids - we wanted careers and freedom. A lot of people changed their minds but it meant that those of us who didn't never felt like we were choosing the wrong path (nor did we face any judgment or weirdness from our friends who did become parents after all).

Well there was one just on this thread… A since deleted post from one thoughtful correspondent saying it was “unnatural”.

There are still a lot of people who basically think breeding is the only thing women really deep down want to do.

@Sweetteaplease my school was a bit rougher and people did start fairly young. But now I live in London I can only think of 2 friends now just turned 40 who don't have children. Pretty much every women I know late 30s/40s has 1 usually 2 now and they are quite well off/middle class. Maybe this could change for gen z though who knows.

Definitely economic status, in middle class circles it would be less than that. Just like in poorer areas, people have kids much younger

I'm 39 and nearly everyone in my school year has at least one child, the majority more than one. There's only one or two I can think of who don't. I was one of the oldest to have my ds at 35. Maybe it depends on area, economic status too.

By current day measures you are all still young.

In my social and professional circle I only know of one person who had a child before the age of 33. Most are now mid 40’s and around three quarters of them have a child, the vast majority only have 1.

Don’t underestimate just how much biology impacts women as they approach 40. If you are settled and successful in a career then logistically 40 is an ideal age to have a child at least from a financial perspective.

I don’t think I even considered it as an option until I was about 38/39. It literally wasn’t on my radar despite having been in a stable relationship for 15 years at that point.

People just live their lives in a different pattern compared to the social norm a generation ago.

Yes, and I can already see it’s becoming more so with Gen Z. Many young women are flat out saying they don’t want children, but we’ll have to see what happens in years to come. With Gen Z certainly it seems to be completely acceptable to say it out loud, whereas even with Millennials it wasn’t so much.
When I was in school I don’t remember any of my peers saying they didn’t want children, and amongst my friendship group we all said we did. Only 2 out of 8 of us have them so far though.

Definitely seeing it too, a lot of the younger people I know (20s 30s) say they’ve no interest in having kids due to cost and change in lifestyle (just to clarify, I don’t ask, I’ve 4 kids and it generally comes up in conversation!!)

Cripes @JenniferBooth. 🙁

Im 51 and i did a couple of chat shows about being child free by choice in the late 90s, I remember a male American accent yelling You"re not human" at me.

I don't think it was ever fashionable, it was just assumed and expected

That’s interesting @Rhaenys. My sense is that being childfree started to become socially acceptable among Gen x’ers like me (50 this year) and became completely acceptable among Millennials like you-would you agree with that? Prior to our generations, it would’ve been considered an odd choice/looked down on.

Agreed. We were brought up believing that every woman needed a man and that those who didn't believe it were deluded feminists.

If I hadn't met a decent one I think I'd have been equally happy with a cat and a load of books - I just have those as well 😂.

People are finally wising up to the fact this world is no place for kids.

Just been posted on a council house thread

eggandchip · Today 23:24
Just be glad you got something op people in my town get given tents and sleeping bags because they are single and childless.
They are told they are not a priority because they dont have children.
Im lucky very very fucking lucky to have got a flat but it took me years of hostels sleeping rough hotels sofa surfing begging housing for help etc.
Still took me a month to get biding but i had a charity to help me along the

I’ve also noticed a massive trend in women not settling for sub standard men anymore.

I recently did a tally of my former classmates and less than half of us have kids. We are 33 now. It will be interesting to see what happens in the coming years, but I predict that ultimately it won’t be much more than half.

Edited to add that we went to an all-girls school, so we only have a finite time to have them.

I think it is more acceptable nowadays to say you don't want kids. Years ago, any woman saying she did not want them was firmly told she was selfish and that she would change her mind.
As a teen (in the 90s), I told a teacher I never wanted kids, and it was brought up in a parent's evening!
Nowadays, expressing you are childfree is met with a reply of 'fair enough'. It think, in he main, people are more accepting of women saying they are childfree.

As a small child, I would not play with dolls, and was not interested in babies. When my brother was born, I refused to go near him.
I have zero idea of how to deal with kids. If someone asked me to watched their kid in a cafe whilst they popped to the loo, I would be leaving as I would not cope.

I have my dog, and I am happy with that in terms of a dependant. I would not cope with a kid at all and suspect social services would be involved if I had one.

Haven’t RTFT apologies but funnily enough the FT had an article on this last month / more recently. The various stats said by about 2080 the global population will level out (at that point those in their teens and 20s now will have mostly died) and then begin to drop. Replacement rate has to be around 2.1 and some Asian countries are already way behind - South Korea on 0.7 now for example. Europe has been dropping for a while. In the meantime the world will have a major problem with so many elderly and insufficient younger people to look after them.