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.

At last ... I have waited 50 years to be fashionable in something! 😃

You can’t move for children in my pocket of South London, so no, I don’t think it’s unfashionable at all.

Unless they’re only children like me, @JHound, there are plenty of us about!

For working class people on a low income having children is the only way of getting housed.

Watch the film ‘Idiocracy’ and r/s an old one and pretty daft but it may be the future 😂😂

Well, if you believe the press, ethnic minorities don't seem to have any qualms about reproducing.

I don't have a biological urge to have a child, it's just never existed for me. So for us, it comes down to logic.

I'd have to put myself through pregnancy and birth in a system that is at best woefully underfunded and at worst completely ignores the voices of women when it comes to pain, dignity and repairing the damage that could be done to my body.

I'm lucky enough to have a DH who does more than his fair share but I'd have to lose a huge amount of sleep and devote more of my body to growing said child should I want to breastfeed. I have a disability that I receive no support for from the NHS and is made worse by lack of sleep, overstimulation and lack of routine.

I'm lucky that I'd get a well paid mat leave from my employer but then in order to return to work, over 80% of my income would go on childcare, more if we had more than once child. I'd also have to compromise my career by not being able to stay late, arrive early or travel as much as I currently do so my future earning potential would be capped (household or just mine, depending on how we split the load).

When the child is out of paid childcare, we will have to continue to fund wraparound care and compromise on our careers. The child would also likely inherit my disability which is not taken seriously by the education system or NHS so I'd face a battle to get them even diagnosed, another battle to get them the right support and even then factor in that home or private schooling might be necessary.

On top of that I'd have to steer my child through a world where they may never afford to buy a property without familial support, where usual run of the mill jobs don't afford a decent standard of living, where climate change may impact their future, war is becoming more frequent and navigate teenage years in the age of internet predators and explain complicated debates around sec and gender. It absolutely terrifies me.

Quite frankly, why on earth would I have a child, without that biological urge to?!

We only have one child, not because we only wanted one or it's not fashionable but because the first cost circa £50k to achieve in IVF costs and we live a very comfortable life where we can afford to take him wherever we want worldwide and he can take advantage of numerous activities that we wouldn't be able to afford if we had more than one.

My sister & her husband don't have any because they live a life that is not conducive to children and they like that.

In generations past couples were expected to have a children, women were expected to 'breed' and now they're not.

I've got children, but I don't resonate with this comment at all.

I've known my closest friends since I was 11. We're in our forties now and don't all live near each other. We're in daily contact.

I personally find it sad that others treat friendships like they are fair weather arrangements. The number of people who start threads about "ending a friendship" on here is really upsetting. Clearly some don't take that relationship as seriously as others (me included)

Where is having a career considered more important than being a parent?

Plenty of people still seem to be having children, but dogs are definitely the 'in' thing around where I live. My dog is treated like a celebrity wherever we go, my children not much!

I notice many of my friends have other cultures have much more of an engrained expectation to marry and have kids still. That might change in a few generations but might not.

Not so much career I reckon as its an expensive world and you need money.

It’s not a nice world and seems to be getting worse, I wouldn’t want to bring children into this so that’s why I haven’t

Definitely. My elderly next door neighbour never had kids (I don't know why - choice or couldn't), and I pop in and see her regularly, along with, occasionally, my kids (10, 14 - not so much the 14yo now though).
My own mother, I barely see (partly geography, partly personality clash). I do help my mother out of a sense of obligation, but I run moreerrands for my elderly ndn.

Back to the OP, I think you are on to something. I am happy for the population to decline, and when I am old, if I am reliant on help that isn't available, I'd be content to toddle off to meet my maker (see thread on euthanasia concurrently running) rather than be a burden to my own kids.

Oh she mentioned the childfree people she knows have childfree siblings. Hence me mentioning them. Obviously if you have no siblings it’s very different!

I agree, and wish I'd have been a bit more observant about such things before I had my two.

My family and my mother put enormous pressure on me to be a carer for her when she was terminally ill. She needed full time hospice care and was perilously ill. It was not a responsibility I wanted to take on or could take on. I worked full time.

I as the child free daughter got so much abuse from family about it to take mum home and called lazy and selfish and who cares if it messed up my work.

It's abhorrent to have a child to expect it to be there for you in old age.

Birth rates are falling globally.

I find this so utterly appalling. How awful.

It's become 'fashion' to be unable to afford to buy a house or even rent, what are young people thinking!

I don't know that it's "unfashionable" to have kids so much as it's more acceptable not to have kids. At the same time people are recognising the lifestyle factors you sacrifice having kids in terms of money, consumables and holidays.

I can also confirm I've never been less cool than when I'm wrangling 2 toddlers and trying to avoid being smeared in food, snot or poo so I'm doing nothing to make motherhood look cool.

I agree with you OP, particularly amongst the middle class under 25s. Lots of young couples with "fur babies" though.

Really ? Corporal punishment used to be legal in school and many died from preventable disease in infancy before the advent of modern medicine.

You really think the world is getting worse for children...

It’s utterly unaffordable for people to have children under 25.

If it’s ‘fashion’ it’s driven by financial necessity / likelihood of being settled down etc.

The average nursery cost will be as much as the average salary of a 25 year old.