I am not even 21 years old yet and I have already lost track on how many times people have asked me "So when are you having kids?" Okay, listen here, Carol. Maybe you are trying to make pleasant conversation because we don't have a solid basis of friendship in order to converse about topics we're actually interested in. Maybe you think that at 20 years old my "Biological clock is ticking". Either way, I, like many Millennials will not be having kids. And those who are going to have kids are going to wait much later than their 21st birthday to get pregnant.
In 1970, the average age of a first time mother was 21 years old. As of 2014, the average increased to 26 years of age (Leonard 2016). Hear me out, these women are waiting until they graduate college and have enough time to establish themselves within their career. Such a weird concept, huh Carol? "The times they are a changing" and things are not the same as they were 20, 30, 40 plus years ago. It is exceptionally hard to find a job straight out of high school that can support your significant other, yourself, and a child. In fact, it is so hard to find a job that can properly support a family that most families are now double income families. According to the Population Reference Bureau that "In 2002, only 7 percent of all U.S. households consisted of married couples with children in which only the husband worked. Dual-income families with children made up more than two times as many households. Even families with two incomes and no children outnumbered the traditional family by almost two to one" (PRB.org 2017). Kathryn Vasel of CNN money states that for a child born in 2015 to a middle income family will cost almost a quarter of a million dollars from the time they are born until they are 17 years old. This doesn't even include the outrageous costs of college (Vasel 2017). Millenials already struggle with their own student loans, how are they supposed to help pay off their own kid's?
If both parents are at work, now there is the hassle and expense of day care and the guilt that follows when major milestones of the baby's development are missed. Traditionally women only get six weeks of maternity leave and men often get a mere two weeks of paternity leave. Since when do dads not want to hang out with their new baby? Back on to the subject of money, child care, on average, costs $37,378 per child. So not only are Millenials supposed to manage to afford one kid, but in order to maintain the "nuclear family" image, Millenials need to be able to afford at least one more?!
Please, for the love of god Carol, stop telling people that they "need to have kids" or that they'll "Change their mind later." Babies are not the end all be all to life. Not that there is anything wrong with having or wanting kids, but there is more to life than just breeding. Children are a huge responsibility, both financially and emotionally. They're not for everyone.
Leonard, K. (2016, January 14). Moms Are Older Than They Used to Be. Retrieved March 17, 2017, from https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2016/0...
Traditional Families Account for Only 7 Percent of U.S. Households. (n.d.). Retrieved March 17, 2017, from http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2003/Trad...
Vasel, K. (2017, January 9). Cost of raising a child: $233,610. Retrieved March 17, 2017, from http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/09/pf/cost-of-raising...
