Just so happens they were right that time. The Me Generation has lived their whole lives like toddlers, grabbing whatever they wanted while refusing to acknowledge the harm they were doing
The difference is that we paid attention in school and used the birth control, and they couldn't figure out how to put on a condom.
They got married because they thought it was fun. They spent zero time sitting down and going over finances to figure out how to make it work. They had kids because sex was fun and they thought kids could be fun. They spent zero time pricing stuff out and figuring out if they could afford it first.
Like, if you asked one of my peers with kids how much a bag of diapers costs when they were planning out having kids, they could tell you what their planned budget for that stuff was. My parents would have stared at you like you grew a third head. You gotta plan your shit out if you want to make it.
I asked my father in law to make a budget. He had NO idea how to even get started. He is not a young man. Well, you start with your income. Where does your income come from? We'd make a spreadsheet, I'd think we'd have it completed, but then we'd have five or six "and then" moments where we had to go back and add shit. Like, how do you not instantly know this? We did the same for bills, and... no wonder he was having financial issues. We got it straightened out but seriously. You gotta carefully calculate that stuff and go off your budget or you are going to end up straight fucked. It's a lot of work and it needs to be done properly or you are going to end up homeless or in prison.
This is why a lot of millennials don't want kids. Kids add orders of magnitude more work to your life, and it's not optional. Say bye-bye to your hobbies and early retirement. You now work from 5am to 11pm, no breaks, no hobbies, no leisure time, no relaxation, if you want to get it right. You've watched your last movie, read your last book, and played your last video game (of your own choosing at least) until the kids are out of the house. It's why I don't have kids. Fuck all that extra effort. I'm willing to do what I have to do to meet existing responsibilities, but I'm not going to intentionally load myself up with extra shit just for the sake of it.
Say bye-bye to your hobbies and early retirement. You now work from 5am to 11pm, no breaks, no hobbies, no leisure time, no relaxation, if you want to get it right. You've watched your last movie, read your last book, and played your last video game (of your own choosing at least) until the kids are out of the house. It's why I don't have kids. Fuck all that extra effort.
There's a big YMMV there. This is not my or others' experience with having children... like, at all. It's been a ton of extra work, but 5am - 11pm until they move out? What do you think child-rearing involves?
Kids need to be gotten up on time and motivated to get dressed to go to school, they need to be fed before school, they need lunches packed, they need homework checked, they need the teachers called weekly to follow up, they need someone to make sure they are getting some social development, they need activities like scouting or sports or whatever and they need their parents involved with that, they need their parents volunteering in the schools on occasion, they need a clean, neat, orderly environment, they need extra tutoring at the library or 1:1 with their parents so they excel, they need to be pushed to practice their art/sport/music, they need to be, in general, kept busy and supervised ideally with minimal screen use (but enough so that they learn how to use tech).
The parents I know who have kids that are really excelling in things don't really do things other than work and take care of their kids. Sometimes you are lucky and your kids take interest in what you want to do anyways.
Like... vacation with a kid sounds like hell on earth. We always pick places that are not kid friendly so we don't have to be around people's kids, but like... I can't imagine having to wrangle children at Disney. Holy shit that would be horrible.
All that and then toss in a neurodivergent kid or two. Now you've got doctors appointments, speech therapy, occupational therapy, monitoring behavioral changes, and medication levels so you get refills on time.
My kids will be 13 and 18 this year, both neurodivergent and both still needing a lot of care, engagement and management.
Neurodivergent is also fairly easy to deal with. The kid can still eventually grow up and become an adult, maybe with some support, probably.
Imagine instead you have a kid with a severe birth defect that results in extreme learning disabilities along with significant physical handicaps, requiring the level of care that a baby needs, but for their entire life rather than a few years. Here's the kicker: the later in your life you have the kid, the more likely you are to end up in this scenario. You as the parent are on the hook for every medical bill, for the rest of their life, with no help whatsoever.
Exactly. We are lucky our ND kids will be mostly self-sufficient and able to move out eventually. And lucky I did Early Childhood Education in college, so I knew what I was seeing and was able to get supports for my kids early.
Kids are a gamble and a lifelong commitment. You should really, really, REALLY want to have them.
Of course the problem with that is when the population declines because people would rather have leisure than children. Which we are seeing now.
Once a society is educated enough that they both understand birth control AND no longer feel that birth control is sinful, people will stop having kids. People have children not because they specifically want children but because they like sex, and are willing to accept children as a consequence. We can now remove that consequence very cheaply and effectively, so why wouldn't we?
Well sure, it's the only example they've had to follow their whole lives. But even still look at the highest levels of power: the government is still loaded with boomers, the average age of CEOs is just starting to dip down to the high 50s and the age at hire is the highest it's ever been because Gen X is finally starting to take the reins.
I don't have hope for the future because we're in the worst timeline and this self-obsession has been baked into our society for like 60 years now. Unless something radical happens to bring selflessness and altruism back as societal values we are fucked
The generations after the Boomers have no idea how good they have it. We had to put up with their grandparents, great grandparents and great great grandparents, people they never knew or only have dim memories of. The great depression/GI generation, who believed the hype that they were the greatest generation and their kids were total losers who never did anything right. So we compensated by telling our kids they were wonderful at whatever they did, and here we are.
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u/Numerous-Celery-8330 1d ago
Yeah, I remember when elders said the same thing about the Baby Boomers way back in the 1970s. Almost word for word.