It’s becoming unfashionable to have kids

[Housebuyingfamily]

Birth rates are on the floor which people frame as, people would have more kids were it not for the cost of them or climate change, etc etc. But I feel like it’s now more than this. As if we have a global child-free culture that’s growing every day and it’s becoming increasingly “unfashionable” to have kids, even looked down upon.

Yes sensible but does that mean it's a genuine choice. We are mammals...vast majority of us have a biological urge to procreate. The fact that so many people can't afford housing or childcare and have to make the sensible choice is quite sad in many ways.

Totally agree.

Also, it's not that long ago that words like barren and spinster were perfectly acceptable. That's not the case now and not having kids by choice was not really a thing, if you could have them you probably would for fear of the above labels! And peer pressure is a terrible reason to have a child.

It's not unfashionable. It's just that more people have choice now.

The largest driver of children today is religion and the expectation to have them.

I think people living longer results in lots of younger people not experiencing the loneliness of not having a family. My child free friends have childfree siblings and their parents, they don’t realise in 20years their parents will be gone and it’s crap not having family around you.

Well it was a genuine choice though. There were many ways they could have made children work had they wanted to but it would have involved a life situation they would not prefer.

So they picked the best of the available options - which in this case was remaining childless. Saying that is not a choice strips them of their agency.

Although to be clear - the numbers of people
having children seems largely unchanged. They are just having smaller families.

You are correct OP there is a trend but it’s not to be trendy. This is one of the first times it’s acceptable for a woman not to have a husband, to have their own mortgage, bank account, high flying job and a social life.

It wasn’t that long ago women couldn’t have a bank account without a male signature, their own mortgage, marital rape was only brought in in the 90s. Contraception hasn’t been around and accessible for that long either.

I think this is the first generation where all these things are aligning and it’s socially acceptable.

Some people have family around them and are still lonely. Not all families are supportive.

Flipping this on its head... did people used to have kids because they thought it was cool? :/

Family is more than just parents and children and once your children are adults they won’t be around all the time either. Your ChildFree friends will have the company of their ChildFree siblings. Not sure a good reason for having children is “company in old age”.
What if your kids migrate?

I think it’s the cost of living / people’s expected quality of life.

Housing and childcare is very very expensive - and many people can’t afford to have a decent quality of life and children.

I think people are opting to have a better quality of life and no / less children vs multiple kids and life being a terrible struggle.

I knew loads of families with 3-5 kids when I was growing up (middle class) but that seems frankly insane in this climate and I don’t know anyone with more than two.

I’d like a second but two sets of nursery fees is putting me off, and I suspect by the time my first was in school I might not fancy starting again!

Plus most women end up in care homes after outliving their husbands and children having their own lives. My friend works in a care home and tells me the same every day.

I was 21 in 1994 It was when i decided not to have children

I think that’s a really sad attitude and one that is very of the moment.
Family doesn’t have to live next door, it’s about checking in on the people you love, being there when you need them. Friends come and go. Whenever on mn someone’s in a bad relationship or financial difficulty people ask about family- why, because that’s your support team for the most part.

I think more people realised they don’t have to have them is all. I sort of came to it because Dh wanted one and we had left it quite late so thought why not but many women talk about this immense urge to have children. I think quite a lot of us simply don’t have the motherhood urge. We know that as women become more educated they have fewer children so it makes sense that over time more women opt out completely.

My grandmother was also in a retirement village and her friends there were who she spent most of her time with. People forget kids grow up and lead their own lives.

Having kids has never, ever been fashionable. It is just deeply uncool to be a parent and have to fuss about all the parent things, have no money, never be able to go out and have zero flexibility.

I say this as someone with two children who occasionally really struggles with how tedious my life can be now.

But most women still want in. Low birth rates are primarily caused by three things: cost of living and the housing crisis (including nursery fees); in western nations, male refusal to father a child until much later in life; and a significant global decline in fertility among men.

The visability of the childfree movement is a separate thing and positive I think; women without children have been judged very negatively for far too long.

And yes exactly to what @LewishamMumNow said about people having fewer

I haven't noticed this at all. Today on a bus, a woman complained that nobody was getting up to let her child sit down who looked about 7 and was perfectly capable of standing and was standing just fine and enjoying the ride and laughing and talking. No distress.

This was in London where children don't pay fares so mummy was expecting a fare paying adult to get up and let her brat sit down.

I completely disagree. Everyone has gone crazily, child centric. Parents act as if the entire universe revolves around their children.

Just look at how those are spoken about who don't have children. This thread is a classic. I've seen people say no woman can know love unless they've had children!

It's becoming acceptable not to have children and of course those who have them feel defensive about it because not everyone thinks the world revolves around it.

Fashionable...no. Socially acceptable, yes.

Both my closest friends are childfree. Reasons differ. Every family member of my generation has or wants children.

What a load of rubbish 😂

Societal expectations played a huge role, didn’t they, @CLola24 . Now those expectations have changed and having a career is considered more important than being a parent. Plus we have choice due to the availability of contraception (in first world countries).

Of course, societal expectations may shift again the future. Maybe the fewer children born today will decide that having larger families is preferable, who knows?!

I think having kids expecting them to be their in old age is dangerous. They might be. But statistically its unlikely. And in cultures where elders are looked after, it falls to the women in the family.

I’m child-free by choice.

It’s certainly more socially acceptable to be child-free than in previous generations, but I don’t think that’s the same as it being fashionable.

What I think is a sad attitude is somebody having a child just to have somebody to check in on them.

As I said family is more than kids. It’s friends, siblings, cousins, aunts (and if you have them nieces and nephews.) I have two spinster aunts who live together and have an incredibly supportive network that they have taken the time to cultivate.

And as others have noted children grow up and lead their own lives, move cities, countries. Having them to provide you with company in old age seems very unfair to the child imo.

But I am sure those who do not have children have taken into consideration this and decided it is still not a good enough reason to have children.

As for friendships “coming and going” it depends on the types of friendships you cultivate. I have a number of friends who I am closer to than family members.