… as the family dissolves.

[rickyrickygrimes]

I listened to an FT podcast today about demographic change, which was fascinating and quite 😱. One phrase that caught my attention was : ‘“There is a huge vulnerability that I don't have an answer for, and that's what happens as the family dissolves, as the family evolves. I don't know what fits into that space.”

The interviewer asked him to explain what he meant by this, and it was basically: when so few women are having children, and the generational family structure that humans have evolved to rely on for thousands of years essentially ceases to exist, what will replace it? And where will people find meaning in life, when family doesn’t exist? And an answer to loneliness?

I can see this playing out in my own family, with 5 out of 6 grandparents now entering their 80s, with only 3 grandchildren between them. My sister chose not to have children, my SIL has only 1. All for reasons that are very valid on an individual level - but at a population level the consequences are huge and will impact everyone. And I choose to live outside the UK - I’m not on hand to provide any kind of care for my own parents - again for valid personal reasons but which will have big consequences at a societal level.

What do you think will replace the family structure, as it dissolves?

From The Rachman Review: Our shrinking and ageing world, 24 Jul 2025
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-rachman-review/id1504048545?i=1000718767539&r=1001
This material may be protected by copyright.

Oh yes certainly, I wouldn't want anyone other than a paid professional to provide any kind of care. Same if I had children too.

I wouldn't want my children to do it either. I can imagine being at my parents though and them saying they need some help with something personal and me just being, "Here, let me do it." I wouldn't mind. I can't imagine doing that for someone I don't know well personally though.

Yes, ultimately I guess parents earn and deserve the care and love they receive, and us childless just have to pay for it (well the care anyway - you can't buy love).

You cant buy love, and few of us will be in a position to afford private care workers.
We'll have to take our chances with those who are doing care work because they dont make the grade for anything with better pay & conditions, ie bottom of the barrel.

It's a bleak future for sure.

Going to listen to this, thanks for posting OP👍

You say paid professional but they are just people who are desperate and can’t get other work. There is very minimal training. . I know because someone I know well did it for a while.

I don't think that's necessarily the case for all caring professions. I was talking about people like chiropodists. I agree care home work should be more of a profession and recognised with better training and pay though.

It's a sad state of affairs. Nobody asks to be born and to have a body which will one day get old and worn out. Most people will need at least a little bit of help at some point, and at the moment it seems the only options are to rely on probably over stretched adult children, or poorly paid care workers.

I think my point was that you can potentially outsource things like washing the sheets and personal care but you can't outsource sitting with a hot beverage with someone that has shared memories with you. I think it's hard when you don't have anyone that has that shared experience with you.

Agreed. I am absolutely dreading my future - no family, no connections, just a loneliness which will eat away at me.

Having children doesn't guarantee you won't have that future either. My mother is looking at a similar future due to choices she made when younger.

I wonder why we see "the family" as the best way to live? They are just people that we don't choose, foisted on us by biology.
If anything, there is something of a cult of "the family" (eg from politicians), so that those of us not in a traditional family set up can feel like second class citizens.

There may certainly be merit in people choosing to share living space with friends, neighbours etc - that is a choice for anyone.
But you only have to read many ov the threads on here to see that families don't automatically bring happiness.

Agreed. There is certainly a strong message that 'family is everything' and for those of us who don't have that, it can feel like our life just doesn't matter, or is so fundamentally flawed that it is pointless.

There is also a strong message that if you don't have children, you deserve to be lonely as you get older and that you will be a burden on society.

In theory I don't see why you couldn't have this meaningful connection with unrelated people that you've known a long time and shared a lot of experiences and memories with. Also agree family is not a guarantee.

I think it's hard when you don't have these people, there can be ways to increase your odds of having these people in your life but again no guarantee. A lot of attempts at cultivating new friendships produce very shallow results.

Interesting. Between us my sister and I have 8 children,all now young adults aged from early 20s to mid 30s. None of them has children,or express a desire to have children. I'm more than happy with that because my 3 are leading full and interesting lives without the stress and cost of children. I have zero desire to be a grandparent.

This is my dream really - to make some close friends though maybe one of my hobbies. I do think it is also possible to connect with people on the basis that you are both in a similar situation re (lack of) family. That has happened to me already.

In the long run I think I will try to be a bit more intentional about seeking out potential friends that are in a similar position without their families nearby. I have friends now but I've had to accept a level of uneven friendship where I need them more than they need me because they have family close by.

Ah yeah, definitely focus on making friends who do not have family. The good thing is, that is beneficial for you both!

I mentioned before I work in Older adults and meet countless of older adults. Part of my job is referring people onto services that can help with lonlieness and almost all the adults I refer on these services have children and families of their own. The reality is their children have jobs or their own family commitments like all of us and simply don't have the time available to be sitting round all day every day providing company to their parents and many are simply burned out by their caring role to go above providing the basics. So it simply isn't true that having a family is some sort of guarantee to prevent lonlieness.

This is a really interesting insight - thank you for sharing.

May I ask please, what do you think is the ideal plan for old age? Or at least what can you put in place for yourself in order to have the best possible chance of a happy old age? I'm especially interested in any ideas for someone without any family (I am an only child and have no children of my own).

Thank you in advance!

@Anabla Yes, the reality is that adult children and other family members aren’t there simply to provide assistance and company, they’re independent people with their own lives. I had children because I wanted to bring up a family, but I have no illusions that they’re going to live on my doorstep and look after me in my old age. They’re already spreading their wings- DD(20) is at uni and she hasn’t been home all summer, I’ve visited her instead. We’re close but I have no intention of asking her or DS to care for me in the future-or do anything much, tbh.

If they go off to Timbuktu, that’s fine, as long as they’re happy! Perhaps that’s an unusual attitude, I don’t know.

You must have a much nicer family than I do.

I have already seen this a lot within my friendship groups, the kids are brought up a bit like cousins would have previously been and we would turn to eachother before family members a lot of the time.

I've found myself being able to be myself around friends and it's nice to have people close who you can trust and feel accepted by. I think that's what we're trying to form for our children.

I'm now a single parent and my best mate lives with us, my dad (widowed) is moving in soon. I think structures have to evolve: it takes a village.

My estranged grandmother died recently. I’d only met her twice in life, and her and my dad hadn’t spoken for over 30 years. She was a horrendous parent - frequently told him how she wished her abortion worked (I believe she tried to have a backstreet one and it failed), used to leave him alone in his own filth for days when he was a toddler and she was off partying, etc - his childhood was full of neglect, abuse and rejection. He was an only child, and unsurprisingly didn’t have any contact with her or do any caring for her in old age, or even know she was dead until an old friend told him. Long story short, she didn’t have a valid will so the death admin came back to my dad, he wasn’t interested so I stepped in. Went to meet her next door neighbours who’d helped her out for the last few years and had POA, and discovered she was something of a local legend - had a designated seat in the pub, loads of friends who loved the parties she used to throw, hundreds of people mourning her on the local Facebook page. Moral of the story: having kids doesn’t guarantee they’ll be there for you in old age (especially if you mistreat them), but being an abusive narcissist doesn’t apparently mean you’ll be friendless and lonely and have your corpse eaten by moths.

That’s so sad. The face some people present to the world isn’t the true face, or only part of the story.