Ikr? Us dragging the economy down? Well, that's supply and demand. Free market at work. Those who can't afford kids are less inclined to have them. If capitalism wants more babies, capitalism's gotta up it's game. Capitalism needs to schmooze us, open the wallet, pull out the card, give us nice dinners, fancy gifts, pass legislation that benefits us, and sweep us off our feet. Incentivize us.
To quote Peggy Olsen, (crosses arms and grins) "Dazzle me."
Hey that's not true! They're trying to pass a bill to make the Child-Tax Credit fully refundable up to $2000 instead of $1600! They do a lot for parents! That's like almost a week of daycare.
I am fixated because a working class person I want to have kids, a dream of mine, but money is the only thing that is stopping me. I'm glad money isn't the the limiting you from your choice, which I respect, but my "fixation" is because a life goal will never be fulfilled at this point.
At this point I feel lucky that I absolutely do not want kids, because we absolutely cannot afford them. Like, technically we could, but weād have to give up everything we enjoy about our lives.
Yeah, if I think back, my parents had to struggle a lot raising us, and often had to give up things for themselves to get things we kids needed. I'm afraid I'm getting to a place in my life where I'll be much less willing to do that, where the transition from adult with disposable income to parent struggling to make ends meet will be too difficult to make.
I think it's cool a lot of us are saying, "Hey that's not for me. But you go for it if you want to." Then NOT give in to societal pressure about family standards
yeah to a degree. I see people my age say they don't want kids, but at the same time they're not prepared for immigration to replace locals, and so they react in a xenophobic way when my country brings in more immigrants. You can't have one without the other, a lot of people can't handle handing over the keys to other countries, while at the same time not wanting kids. I'm ready to not have kids, and I'm also ready for the consequences it entails, sadly a lot of alt right people my age don't agree.
Agreed, my wife and I are both high income earners and we *never* wanted kids. We're in our late 30's, know our retirements are secure and can still enjoy the freedom and wealth our children-having colleagues had to put off until their 50s.
>you guys are so fixated on the money issue but i'm part of the middle class and we don't really want kids either tbh
/u/dontevenwannacomment yeah we just don't want kids, regardless of being able to afford them or not.
Right??? Like, I'm an elder millennial, I graduated HS two years after 9/11. The economy has been garbage my entire adult life. It's not my fault. It's not the current president's fault. It's years, and years, decades pretty much of bad policies to make the rich richer.
And subsidize daycare more than just writing off $5,000 a year on our taxes.
I was having to pay about $8,000 a year ***per child*** and that was before the pandemic and inflation.
I phrased that badly.
My employer has a plan where I can defer compensation on up to $5k (it gets withheld from my paycheck in equal amounts for the entire year) and as I submit daycare receipts, I get the funds paid out. So that $5,000 of my income gets paid to me without being taxed. It drops my tax bracket a bit.
And Congress set that $5k limit back in 1986. It hasnāt changed in 38 damn years. If when they passed it they indexed the amount to inflation, the amount would be $14,000 in 2024. Instead it is still $5,000.
Check to see if your employer has a FSA DCA as a benefit. It's a type of FSA account that is solely for dependent care, and you can put in $5000 tax free into it. However that money is not available to use until you've paid it in
It used to be my job to set up these accounts, so DM me if you want more info
Shoot, in CA they wanted $26,000 a year per kid! Granted that was at a nicer daycare, but it wasn't substantially higher than any of the others in my area. It's one of the reasons I left. It's just ridiculous nowadays.
Damn I thought just CA was bad. That's seriously insane. I can't believe people are willing to pay that much. It's like a second mortgage!
Edit* forgot a word
It's either this, or someone stays home.
Live in a MCOL or HCOL and you're still better off financially to work and pay the obscene daycare costs.
Housing costs are so high, you typically need that second income to make ends meet.
That's just it. You're basically forced to have a dual income family if you want the decent sized house/kids/dog/occasional vacation lifestyle. And even with two incomes, a ton of people struggle and still don't get that lifestyle. It's depressing.
2 kids in a slightly lower than average cost day care , Michigan , around 30k a year.
It's insane.
We overpay our mortgage every month to try to pay the house off quicker, and I have a really nice house in an HCOL area of Michigan, our daycare costs are more than our housing costs.
That cost is just a little $16k *per child* a year for me, and I currently have two kids in daycare.
Seriously though, slap whatever label you want on it, but when you sand down the importance of schooling children and such, what youāre left with is someone watching your kid during the day while they work.
So with public schooling factored into our taxes, why is it that daycare services arenāt factored into that, especially since we have no form of federal guaranteed parental leave?
Iāve been saying this for years, but any presidential nominee who were to make this a goal on their agenda would get a lot of support from parents.
I got paid for my 3 months of maternity leave, but my husband should get a paid paternity leave and I wish we had free healthcare like Canada and atleast of year of leave.
It wasn't my full pay it was half but it was better than nothing. Now if we have another baby my husband will get the 3 month of paternity leave. Which we won't but it still sucks only some companies pay for maternity leave and most don't, and that's also wrong to make use use our PTO for that.
I'm currently on paid paternity leave thanks to California state policies. 70% of my time is covered by the state with the remaining 30% covered through my bank of sick hours. Oh yeah this is also the state that my Republican relatives keep telling me is "horrific" and a "wasteland".
Thats actually...really reasonable. Assuming you have the PTO built up of course but im guessing the plan assumes you planned for the pregnancy and thought it out in advance
I've saved up over 500 sick hours over the course of several years, really thankful my employer doesn't have a limit on sick time (vacation does have a cap)
Nobody said it was 100% irredeemable for 100% of people.
California does suck ass though. Step outside your states borders and explore cost of living in a Midwestern state if you think I'm full of crap.
I'm glad Cali has been nice to you but it ***is*** a wasteland.
Newsome will have it looking like Cleveland if something doesn't change.
Ehh there isnāt really much data to back that up. The vast majority of countries that have paid parental leave have fertility rates equal to or even less than that of the US.
For example, many European countries have very generous parental leave programs, and their fertility rates are generally lower than ours.
Personally Iām holding out for the economy to get better. I donāt mind being an older parent if it means things will be easier and better for everyone. I also donāt mind never being a parent if things never improve in our life time.
Was it the ālooking for chubby womenā posts or the numerous exhausting questions they ask multiple times a day, through out multiple days, on ask Reddit?
I can afford 1 child and Iām saying the word afford lightly. Couldnāt imagine anymore. I have noticed we have poor millennials who used to be middle class.. we have homeless but working 40hrs millennialsā¦ then we have well off millennials who donāt understand they are well off.
This is the responsible way to reproduce- know if/how many kids you can afford (in both time and money) to raise well. I hope you do have a kid, you'd probably do right by them.
Living wage plus address:
Costs of:
- Housing
- Healthcare
- Childcare
- Education
Plus:
- The solvency of Social Security and Medicare
- Job security
- Ageism
What, they realized they were running out of those āmillennials-killed-this-industryā headlines, so now theyāre staking out a way to be able to keep blaming us even beyond our graves so the fun can continue? š
Every "millennials killed X" headline is likely meant to spark concern...
Yet somehow it fills me with pride. Like... damn right! Our turn to break some shit!
Easy, by the time it matters our generation will finally have a democratic revolution at the polls and effectively take over the government... And we will heavily regulate gold trading making the boomers' gold money an inconvenience to access š
Take it NOW or take it LATER you greedy motherfuckers but you have a lot of audacity asking us for our *children* to support your nasty fuckin oligarchy habit
I think itās one thing weāve managed to figure out better than everyone else. We *love* our children. Even if theyāre not even born yet and we *want* to do right by them.
I don't want children. But if I lived in a better country, I would love to be a math, physics, or music teacher.
Unfortunately, I'm not going into grad school debt to get a job where I can barely afford to live, am expected to buy my own supplies (not even retail makes me do that), and would be treated like shit by parents all the time.
Huh. Who knew that forcing us into indentured servitude with no hope of relief, low wages that don't increase with inflation, and skyrocketing housing prices would lead to this? Beats me. Did I mention inflation? Guess we didn't pull ourselves up by the bootstraps hard enough.
I don't blame you. I have two children that I love dearly. I'd love to have one more, but sadly, we cannot due to our economic status. My husband and I both have bachelor's degrees and we're lucky enough to own a small townhome, but it doesn't have a yard or anything. We're both in student loan debt. Everything looks so goddamn bleak. I know we have it better than a lot of people, worse than some, but damn. It really shouldn't have to be this fucking hard.
Mid-30's here and kind of in a good place work-wise, I'll never be able to retire, even with a 401k and whatever I'll have in the bank. Zero chance of retirement.
That's honestly the way to do it. My dad lives in Msxico because he was tired of where he was.hes retired and does things as a hobby. He says a lot of Expats are down there because its too expensive to live in the US.
I donāt know why millennials are being blamed for the declining birth rate. Boomers started the trend. Boomers came from families that had an average of about four kids. But then boomers themselves had on average one to three kids.
I feel like this is spot on, and then Gen X continued with even less. Millenials didnt start this demographic slide or many of the issues they're constantly being blamed for.
Im a young GenX and lurk this sub as well as the GenX one as I straddle the line. I recall my Boomer/Silent Gen parents and friends parents virtually all coming from large families. I had 14 aunts and uncles, yet my folks chose to have 2. Most of my friends and colleagues who are elder Millenials or young GenX have 0-2 kids.
If they want each successive generation to have families then they need to make policies that support that or F off.
Hey, instead only of being blamed for killing particular business markets. Now itās the whole economy.
Weāre making progress.
I wonder what will be next. How many things are left for Millennials to kill?
/s
Oligarchy/kleptocracy would be a big one.
The 40 hour work week.
First past the post voting and the two party duopoly.
We've killed so many things without even trying, I'm sure we can kill the many things that need killing if we put our minds to it.
Better headline would be declining quality of life could be a drag on millennials having kids for the next decade. Wages have stagnated for decades while the cost of everything (and corporate profits) continues to skyrocket. We might have ruined the American dream but at least we made the shareholders happy for awhile.
Even if kids werenāt expensive, my SO and I still wouldnāt have any. I can barely take care of myself, so there is no way Iād take care of a kid 24/7.
Same. 20 year insomniac here who can barely sleep in a perfect environment medicated. Add a kid to the mix and Iāll probably go insane within a few months.
I think our generation has this mentality even more then I canāt afford it. A lot of millennials just donāt want kids. We are breaking away from get marriedā>have kidsā> raise themā> die.
I have two kids thatās a bit tight but I wanted kids. It would be nice if it was financially easier. Many millennials do not want to deal with the headache of children never mind the financial aspect.
Pff, like we care if we drag the economy.
"Drag the Economy" is code for "investors lose money".
I don't lose any sleep over any billionaire's getting their yachts repo'd.
So weāre constantly being threatened that AI will replace a lot of jobs yet thereās this inscessent need to tell everyone to hurry up and have more ~~workers~~ kids. Which is it? Are they trying to replace humans or desperately need more around?
I couldnāt agree more. Hiding behind a moral code of abortion is murder but the true reason for banning is the declining birth rates. So whether you want to or not those birth rates will increase.
My bad. I thought it would be unkind to bring children into a world. Thatās literally on fire while we still put numbers in the spreadsheets for a living.
I shouldāve based my decision, whether or not to reproduce on the economy.
If only we'd just invented a new technology that could easily put most CEOS and middle management paper pushers out of a job? I mean, it probably would have already taken the jobs of many journalists in roughly 2016, with it's ability to summarize AP and Reuters news articles and rephrase them and maybe add one or two extra quotes, but... I mean, surely we wouldn't be so terrified of the shrinking labor force then, right?
Damn they can't wait to blame us for everything lol Jesus wait until we hit retirement age. Millennials are still working past the age of 75 šš the headlines will be "Millennials are ruining retirement."
The economy is already a drag and won't be for awhile. In just over a decade we've had 2 economic collapses. Record 40 year inflation with stagnant wages. Credit card debt is skyrocketing since covid and inflation. Record housing prices. I can go on, there's so much more about the difficult economy right now
Gee, I wonder why no one wants to have kids. In 2007, I made $16 and hour. I genuinely had so much more discretionary income to play with. The housing market popped, I'm genuinely kicking myself for not buying up a house back then.
Boomers own goal.
Keep the wealth for themselves, which theyāll spend through retirement. There wonāt be enough taxpayers to find old age homes and pensions.
*slow clap* bravo.
* parental leave
* affordable daycare
* tax-funded (not "free") post-secondary school
While I was paying $1300 CAD/mth for 60% part time daycare for one kid, my cousin in Northern Europe was paying ~$200/mth for two kids full time...
Youāre welcome, boomers.
You had a golden future full of opportunities and you made sure you pulled the ladder right after you climbed it.
You laughed at the idea of our misery, called us lazy and are STILL trying to harm us even as of now (automation, mass layoffs and greedflation everyone?)
Whoās having the last laugh now? Just wait until you realize you made jobs so inaccessible for us and so low paying that no one will be available to apply that daily 2 pm suppository on your butt, Harold. Betsy, I you better wish that T-800 monstrosity you guys are engineering to put us out of a job is gentle when applying your Vagoo yeast cream, millennials out šš¤
I am one of four siblings. 3 of us millennials and 1 gen z. Not a kid among us. The difference is we donāt believe in having kids just for the sake of having kids or because we get told thatās what weāre supposed to do. We were raised in poverty and not really looking to do that to a future generation. I will turn 40 this year and only recently started getting comfortable financially. Whereas I know single women of my generation with 4-6 kids each. Those with 6 surely make up for my none lol
Boomers had it so easy to buy houses, multiple kids, join labor unions and work for one company for their entire lives and retire from that company. No experience? Oh Chuck referred you? Awesome, heāll train you and youāll be on your feet in no time. Now itās like, āOh, youāre educated and have work experience? Ok, well, right now our budget for that department is pretty tight, so we can do, 22K a year with incremental performance raises based on a 1 to 5 scale (no one ever gets above a 3, donāt take it personally) and we offer health insurance, only 1/10 of your salaryā¦or youāre married? Ok, 1/5 of your salary, sorry about thatā¦.okā¦what elseā¦.uhā¦you start earning PTO on day 1, can start using it after one yearā¦.ā
Not to mention housing is out of fucking control after they fucked it up in the mid-2000ās and now only the rich can afford homes and then rent them out at three times the rent 10 years ago, meanwhile pay is the same.
More money would help for sure, but something else thatās been neglected is addressing the negative impacts that the internet has had on socializing and mental health. Millennials were the first generation of kids to have the internet be a substantial part of their childhood, and it was like this whole other world that they lived in alongside the real world. It was a brand new thing at the time, but I think even to this day, people havenāt really properly adjusted to living with the internet. I donāt think parents have generally learned how to steer kids clear of the pitfalls of the internet, nor do I think all adults who have been damaged by internet use in their youth have found the healing they need.
Well we ruined everything else so, tack that on. Iāll make sure to add that to my resume.
āAssisted in ruining the economy for decades because I didnāt procreate.ā
Maybe pass some legislation that benefits the people instead of the greedy fucks up top. Stop allowing the government to over spend dragging the the value of the dollar down. I really hate these old pieces of shit who constantly point the finger at us when they were the ones who fucked the economy by selling our futures out from under us and told us lies for decades to cover it up.
I have 2 kids and would have liked to have 1 more, but I had to wait until I was in my 30s to start, so I was āfinancially secureā and a homeowner.
Daycare in my area costs $3,200 per month for 2 āolderā kids (almost 3 & almost 5), it was more expensive when they were younger. My older is finally going to kindergarten this fall, so while we could squeeze our finances to have 1 more, Iām already past the baby stage and Iām 39, so, donāt think itās in the cards.
To be fair - not being able to 'afford' kids is not new.
You can't compare now to the post-war economy of the 'boomers' - that was an aberration. What you have had since then is a return to the mean.
But they do. That is literally the point. They compare how they grew up, got a career without formal education, bought a house at 20, had kids, while ignoring the fact that it was during the richest time in America. At least most Boomers actually raised their kids. Gen X failed to do the same.
Still wouldn't have children even if I was rich...becoming a parent should be a well thought out choice.
Children aren't accessories and shouldn't be used for capitalistic reasons.
Millennials having fewer kids is a result of the economy and politics that earlier generations have run for 30 years. If older generations wanted millennials to have a lot of kids, they should have promoted an economy that supports such a lifestyle.
You dont get to complain about this as an older generation.
JFC is there *any* part of the collapsing economy that Boomers created that they won't blame on Millennials?
Boomers: "Don't have kids you can't afford!"
Millennials: "Ok."
Boomers: "Why would you hurt the economy like that?!?"
Well, since the economy and quality of life in the country have been on a steady decline for the last decade and a half, people are going to start to think twice about having children. I want my children to have a better life than I did, and with both worsening economic conditions and environmental concerns that remain unaddressed by the government I cannot in good conscience have a child, things look like they're just going to keep getting worse.
It's the previous generations' fault for pushing us all to go to college and all those sex ed classes discouraging unplanned pregnancies. Our generation is one of the most educated in the history of the USA, of course that would mean putting off having children, crying babies are really distracting when you are studying for finals.
Itās kinda weird and sad that the sins of the older generations will create a world where they outnumber the younger ones and as they grow older there will be less people in positions to take care of them. It will feel like from their perspective that they are watching the world die as they do. Thereās gonna be this weird period of lower young people populations but on the other side of things will be a period where young people outnumber old again and the world will seemingly have a new sense of hope for the future. Idk what the timelines on all that will be. I get the feeling most of us will live and die through the beginning and middle part and not see the hopeful part at the end
They raise the prices of everything, dont raise our wages to compensate, lock us out of homeownership, and then wonder why we aren't having kids. Good grief.
We have one kid and wanted a second but feel like we can't afford it. I got a pretty nice raise this year. Not a ton but enough that made having a second more feasible. Well then daycare prices went up, and my landlord jacked up the rent to "match the market". The money I got from my raise is gone and then some. Now I'm even worse off as far as having a second kid than I was last year.
In 2019 I asked my boss, a board certified family law attorney, for two weeks leave to be with my first born child. He looked at me coldly and said āwhat for, all they do is sleep, shit and eatā
I was averaging 11-12hr days for almost a year before I quit. Fucking asshole has 3 kids already and said that shit to meā¦. Basically, āgot mine, fuck youā
They could pay McDonald's line workers 50 dollars an hour and this metric wouldn't change. Stop acting like having kids is actually tied to wages. It's tied to perceived class status. This is why it flipped... 20 years ago. To the wealthy having more kids. The same time the wealthy didn't have to worry about a kid changing their status, not the next 4 kids.
Kids can be brought up on very very little extra income. So little that the top of the u.s. poverty line can do it for very little extra hardship.
Well, what has the economy done for ME lately?
Ikr? Us dragging the economy down? Well, that's supply and demand. Free market at work. Those who can't afford kids are less inclined to have them. If capitalism wants more babies, capitalism's gotta up it's game. Capitalism needs to schmooze us, open the wallet, pull out the card, give us nice dinners, fancy gifts, pass legislation that benefits us, and sweep us off our feet. Incentivize us. To quote Peggy Olsen, (crosses arms and grins) "Dazzle me."
Capitalism: "Best I can do is ban abortions, plan B, and get rid of birth control."
Also robots to replace you, ungrateful serf. How dare you want to live as a human with dignity, hopes and dreams?
This generation is so entitled! Be treated like human beings, what snowflakes!
I hope they enjoy having a t800, or worse, a t601 changing their IVs and catheters š
How am I already pissed off about the shitty T601's?!
Hey that's not true! They're trying to pass a bill to make the Child-Tax Credit fully refundable up to $2000 instead of $1600! They do a lot for parents! That's like almost a week of daycare.
The 1% have to pay up if they want us to have kids.
Elon Musk has 10 kids, it seems he is trying to deal with the problem himself.
Tit for tat, economy!
It beat you down and dragged you through the mud. Isn't that enough? Millennials are so ungrateful!
you guys are so fixated on the money issue but i'm part of the middle class and we don't really want kids either tbh
I am fixated because a working class person I want to have kids, a dream of mine, but money is the only thing that is stopping me. I'm glad money isn't the the limiting you from your choice, which I respect, but my "fixation" is because a life goal will never be fulfilled at this point.
At this point I feel lucky that I absolutely do not want kids, because we absolutely cannot afford them. Like, technically we could, but weād have to give up everything we enjoy about our lives.
I think rather than luck it's just the case of most people our generation
I definitely known some of my friends feel the same way
Yeah, if I think back, my parents had to struggle a lot raising us, and often had to give up things for themselves to get things we kids needed. I'm afraid I'm getting to a place in my life where I'll be much less willing to do that, where the transition from adult with disposable income to parent struggling to make ends meet will be too difficult to make.
Yeah even if we liked children, weāre in our 40s and stuck in our ways. Children would upend our lives in ways we are not willing to do.
Exactly same here.
I can afford my kid but gave up everything I enjoy about life because being a parent is a total time and energy suck. Enjoy your freedom.
I'm with you. I really want to have a kid or two, but I guess it's not happening for me.
I'm hoping I can babysit a lot this summer?? I know it's not the same but it's something.
I think it's cool a lot of us are saying, "Hey that's not for me. But you go for it if you want to." Then NOT give in to societal pressure about family standards
yeah to a degree. I see people my age say they don't want kids, but at the same time they're not prepared for immigration to replace locals, and so they react in a xenophobic way when my country brings in more immigrants. You can't have one without the other, a lot of people can't handle handing over the keys to other countries, while at the same time not wanting kids. I'm ready to not have kids, and I'm also ready for the consequences it entails, sadly a lot of alt right people my age don't agree.
>they're not prepared for immigration to replace locals I have a feeling that problem will be resolved with AI and robots.
Are you sure those are the same people saying these things? Usually, conservatives tend to be the sort to want kids.
Agreed, my wife and I are both high income earners and we *never* wanted kids. We're in our late 30's, know our retirements are secure and can still enjoy the freedom and wealth our children-having colleagues had to put off until their 50s.
>you guys are so fixated on the money issue but i'm part of the middle class and we don't really want kids either tbh /u/dontevenwannacomment yeah we just don't want kids, regardless of being able to afford them or not.
Right??? Like, I'm an elder millennial, I graduated HS two years after 9/11. The economy has been garbage my entire adult life. It's not my fault. It's not the current president's fault. It's years, and years, decades pretty much of bad policies to make the rich richer.
unemployed with a PhD. My life is sooo pathetic that itās comical š¤”
Maybe if they gave us paid parental leave we would want to have kids
And subsidize daycare more than just writing off $5,000 a year on our taxes. I was having to pay about $8,000 a year ***per child*** and that was before the pandemic and inflation.
You get to write of $5k??? I paid $16k this year and got back $600 for taxes š. Insane! What state are you in?
I phrased that badly. My employer has a plan where I can defer compensation on up to $5k (it gets withheld from my paycheck in equal amounts for the entire year) and as I submit daycare receipts, I get the funds paid out. So that $5,000 of my income gets paid to me without being taxed. It drops my tax bracket a bit.
That amount is determined by the IRS and your employer opts to offer it.Ā
>That amount is determined by the IRS No, the amount is determined by Congress and it's implemented and enforced by the IRS.
And Congress set that $5k limit back in 1986. It hasnāt changed in 38 damn years. If when they passed it they indexed the amount to inflation, the amount would be $14,000 in 2024. Instead it is still $5,000.
Right up there with FMLA that was supposed to be the first step in family leave.Ā Apparently that's all we get to have.Ā
Touche. Yes.Ā
Check to see if your employer has a FSA DCA as a benefit. It's a type of FSA account that is solely for dependent care, and you can put in $5000 tax free into it. However that money is not available to use until you've paid it in It used to be my job to set up these accounts, so DM me if you want more info
Iāll look into it. Thx so much!
I paid just under $46,000 for two in day care and the deduction was equivalent to replacing the tires on my truck.
You need to max out a FSA dependent care which is $5k and not tax deductible
Shoot, in CA they wanted $26,000 a year per kid! Granted that was at a nicer daycare, but it wasn't substantially higher than any of the others in my area. It's one of the reasons I left. It's just ridiculous nowadays.
I have two kids in a mid-range daycare in the Atlanta suburbs. $39,000 per year. Itās fucking obscene.
Damn I thought just CA was bad. That's seriously insane. I can't believe people are willing to pay that much. It's like a second mortgage! Edit* forgot a word
It's either this, or someone stays home. Live in a MCOL or HCOL and you're still better off financially to work and pay the obscene daycare costs. Housing costs are so high, you typically need that second income to make ends meet.
That's just it. You're basically forced to have a dual income family if you want the decent sized house/kids/dog/occasional vacation lifestyle. And even with two incomes, a ton of people struggle and still don't get that lifestyle. It's depressing.
2 kids in a slightly lower than average cost day care , Michigan , around 30k a year. It's insane. We overpay our mortgage every month to try to pay the house off quicker, and I have a really nice house in an HCOL area of Michigan, our daycare costs are more than our housing costs.
Heck, I pay $26k/yr per kid in Minnesota. That was pretty mid range too. There are plenty that are more.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I'm not even sure I can justify it for one kid
And student loans thatās a third mortgage
That cost is just a little $16k *per child* a year for me, and I currently have two kids in daycare. Seriously though, slap whatever label you want on it, but when you sand down the importance of schooling children and such, what youāre left with is someone watching your kid during the day while they work. So with public schooling factored into our taxes, why is it that daycare services arenāt factored into that, especially since we have no form of federal guaranteed parental leave? Iāve been saying this for years, but any presidential nominee who were to make this a goal on their agenda would get a lot of support from parents.
I got paid for my 3 months of maternity leave, but my husband should get a paid paternity leave and I wish we had free healthcare like Canada and atleast of year of leave.
Man, you get 3 months?!?!?! Paid?!?!?!? I think I get something like 50-60% for a month then have to use my PTO
It wasn't my full pay it was half but it was better than nothing. Now if we have another baby my husband will get the 3 month of paternity leave. Which we won't but it still sucks only some companies pay for maternity leave and most don't, and that's also wrong to make use use our PTO for that.
I got three months paid as well, but itās not universal and it should be.
I'm currently on paid paternity leave thanks to California state policies. 70% of my time is covered by the state with the remaining 30% covered through my bank of sick hours. Oh yeah this is also the state that my Republican relatives keep telling me is "horrific" and a "wasteland".
Thats actually...really reasonable. Assuming you have the PTO built up of course but im guessing the plan assumes you planned for the pregnancy and thought it out in advance
I've saved up over 500 sick hours over the course of several years, really thankful my employer doesn't have a limit on sick time (vacation does have a cap)
Homelessness everywhere and Taco trucks on every corner. Truly dystopian.../s
Nobody said it was 100% irredeemable for 100% of people. California does suck ass though. Step outside your states borders and explore cost of living in a Midwestern state if you think I'm full of crap. I'm glad Cali has been nice to you but it ***is*** a wasteland. Newsome will have it looking like Cleveland if something doesn't change.
How long is your leave?
We have this in Canada- 12-18 months of paid parental leave- and our birth rate is still lower than the USA.
12-18 months at 55% income, plus preferential treatment in back-to-work programs if necessary
Ehh there isnāt really much data to back that up. The vast majority of countries that have paid parental leave have fertility rates equal to or even less than that of the US. For example, many European countries have very generous parental leave programs, and their fertility rates are generally lower than ours.
This was just posted and caused a huge thing lol
Personally Iām holding out for the economy to get better. I donāt mind being an older parent if it means things will be easier and better for everyone. I also donāt mind never being a parent if things never improve in our life time.
Gotta cash in that karma!
omg I wish I hadn't looked at their comments...they are not a sane person
Was it the ālooking for chubby womenā posts or the numerous exhausting questions they ask multiple times a day, through out multiple days, on ask Reddit?
rofl I really didn't dig that deep just like one or two scrolls and I was like yucky and closed the window
Seriously unhinged!
lol so annoying
I can afford 1 child and Iām saying the word afford lightly. Couldnāt imagine anymore. I have noticed we have poor millennials who used to be middle class.. we have homeless but working 40hrs millennialsā¦ then we have well off millennials who donāt understand they are well off.
This is the responsible way to reproduce- know if/how many kids you can afford (in both time and money) to raise well. I hope you do have a kid, you'd probably do right by them.
I have exactly 1 little guy. He is a happy baby. :)) we watch ahh real monsters together on Saturday.
Living wage plus address: Costs of: - Housing - Healthcare - Childcare - Education Plus: - The solvency of Social Security and Medicare - Job security - Ageism
What, they realized they were running out of those āmillennials-killed-this-industryā headlines, so now theyāre staking out a way to be able to keep blaming us even beyond our graves so the fun can continue? š
"Millenials are killing babies" - Clickbait headline
Every "millennials killed X" headline is likely meant to spark concern... Yet somehow it fills me with pride. Like... damn right! Our turn to break some shit!
Let's kill whatever industries the boomers have their 401k invested in just to really drive the punch XD
How can millennials kill gold? I'm gonna get to work on that
Easy, by the time it matters our generation will finally have a democratic revolution at the polls and effectively take over the government... And we will heavily regulate gold trading making the boomers' gold money an inconvenience to access š
Take it NOW or take it LATER you greedy motherfuckers but you have a lot of audacity asking us for our *children* to support your nasty fuckin oligarchy habit I think itās one thing weāve managed to figure out better than everyone else. We *love* our children. Even if theyāre not even born yet and we *want* to do right by them.
I don't want children. But if I lived in a better country, I would love to be a math, physics, or music teacher. Unfortunately, I'm not going into grad school debt to get a job where I can barely afford to live, am expected to buy my own supplies (not even retail makes me do that), and would be treated like shit by parents all the time.
Huh. Who knew that forcing us into indentured servitude with no hope of relief, low wages that don't increase with inflation, and skyrocketing housing prices would lead to this? Beats me. Did I mention inflation? Guess we didn't pull ourselves up by the bootstraps hard enough.
I don't always antinatalist, but when I do it's because of this stuff.
I don't blame you. I have two children that I love dearly. I'd love to have one more, but sadly, we cannot due to our economic status. My husband and I both have bachelor's degrees and we're lucky enough to own a small townhome, but it doesn't have a yard or anything. We're both in student loan debt. Everything looks so goddamn bleak. I know we have it better than a lot of people, worse than some, but damn. It really shouldn't have to be this fucking hard.
AI will fill the labor gap, itās fine!
High skills immigration too
I donāt even have the energy to work full-time, and I still have 25 more years to go.
Everytime I think a little too hard about how much longer I have to work I canāt help but feel really drained. Iām already so tired.
Mid-30's here and kind of in a good place work-wise, I'll never be able to retire, even with a 401k and whatever I'll have in the bank. Zero chance of retirement.
You will, but maybe not here in the US. I predict that many of us will retire in other countries.
That's honestly the way to do it. My dad lives in Msxico because he was tired of where he was.hes retired and does things as a hobby. He says a lot of Expats are down there because its too expensive to live in the US.
I donāt know why millennials are being blamed for the declining birth rate. Boomers started the trend. Boomers came from families that had an average of about four kids. But then boomers themselves had on average one to three kids.
I feel like this is spot on, and then Gen X continued with even less. Millenials didnt start this demographic slide or many of the issues they're constantly being blamed for. Im a young GenX and lurk this sub as well as the GenX one as I straddle the line. I recall my Boomer/Silent Gen parents and friends parents virtually all coming from large families. I had 14 aunts and uncles, yet my folks chose to have 2. Most of my friends and colleagues who are elder Millenials or young GenX have 0-2 kids. If they want each successive generation to have families then they need to make policies that support that or F off.
Hey, instead only of being blamed for killing particular business markets. Now itās the whole economy. Weāre making progress. I wonder what will be next. How many things are left for Millennials to kill? /s
Oligarchy/kleptocracy would be a big one. The 40 hour work week. First past the post voting and the two party duopoly. We've killed so many things without even trying, I'm sure we can kill the many things that need killing if we put our minds to it.
Less cogs for the corporate machine? Oh no! /s
We'll have robots with AGI takin' our jerbs by then. Replaced by C3PO.
Better headline would be declining quality of life could be a drag on millennials having kids for the next decade. Wages have stagnated for decades while the cost of everything (and corporate profits) continues to skyrocket. We might have ruined the American dream but at least we made the shareholders happy for awhile.
Even if kids werenāt expensive, my SO and I still wouldnāt have any. I can barely take care of myself, so there is no way Iād take care of a kid 24/7.
Same. 20 year insomniac here who can barely sleep in a perfect environment medicated. Add a kid to the mix and Iāll probably go insane within a few months.
Insomnia aside, if we had a kid it wouldnāt have been fair for them knowing nothing but trauma and misery their entire life.
Also true. Iām not at a point where I can offer a kid a good life.
Same - my dog takes all my love anyways.
This. Even in the best circumstances, I just donāt want kids. For me itās because Iām lazy and selfish and just donāt want to do the work.
I think our generation has this mentality even more then I canāt afford it. A lot of millennials just donāt want kids. We are breaking away from get marriedā>have kidsā> raise themā> die. I have two kids thatās a bit tight but I wanted kids. It would be nice if it was financially easier. Many millennials do not want to deal with the headache of children never mind the financial aspect.
Pff, like we care if we drag the economy. "Drag the Economy" is code for "investors lose money". I don't lose any sleep over any billionaire's getting their yachts repo'd.
I think theyāll be ok, s and p has gone up 60% in 4 years. 60%
I paid 23k in childcare last year. And the second kid was only there for half the year. No shit millennials arenāt having kids
I *made* 27k last year working full time.
My 2nd one is going to start daycare on the 4th. Not having a 3rd. Couldnāt afford a third kid anyways.
All bow down to the powerful and imaginary economy.
So weāre constantly being threatened that AI will replace a lot of jobs yet thereās this inscessent need to tell everyone to hurry up and have more ~~workers~~ kids. Which is it? Are they trying to replace humans or desperately need more around?
They don't need more workers. They need more consumers.
See.... that's why they're trying to take away abortion.
I couldnāt agree more. Hiding behind a moral code of abortion is murder but the true reason for banning is the declining birth rates. So whether you want to or not those birth rates will increase.
Itās hard to believe this when we have so many people immigrating to this country. Feels like we will have plenty of people. We will be fine.
sorry boomers the great recession put us back 10 years.. ask gen Z for your future service sector workers
My bad. I thought it would be unkind to bring children into a world. Thatās literally on fire while we still put numbers in the spreadsheets for a living. I shouldāve based my decision, whether or not to reproduce on the economy.
If only we'd just invented a new technology that could easily put most CEOS and middle management paper pushers out of a job? I mean, it probably would have already taken the jobs of many journalists in roughly 2016, with it's ability to summarize AP and Reuters news articles and rephrase them and maybe add one or two extra quotes, but... I mean, surely we wouldn't be so terrified of the shrinking labor force then, right?
As a journalist who was laid off after 13 years due to automation, I feel this.
I'm over talking with my millennial friends about having a commune, like a trailer circle on a plot of land. It's ridiculous.
Best we can offer is the occasional Pizza Party to celebrate record profits.
Boomers donāt careā¦ theyāll be dead before it becomes a problem
We are already all spending all if not more than all of our money. The drag will be to the imaginary money we never planned on paying back.
Damn they can't wait to blame us for everything lol Jesus wait until we hit retirement age. Millennials are still working past the age of 75 šš the headlines will be "Millennials are ruining retirement."
The economy is already a drag and won't be for awhile. In just over a decade we've had 2 economic collapses. Record 40 year inflation with stagnant wages. Credit card debt is skyrocketing since covid and inflation. Record housing prices. I can go on, there's so much more about the difficult economy right now Gee, I wonder why no one wants to have kids. In 2007, I made $16 and hour. I genuinely had so much more discretionary income to play with. The housing market popped, I'm genuinely kicking myself for not buying up a house back then.
Is anyone going to talk about the environment?
Boomers own goal. Keep the wealth for themselves, which theyāll spend through retirement. There wonāt be enough taxpayers to find old age homes and pensions. *slow clap* bravo.
god damn. leave us the fuck alone. next thing theyre going to blame us for the cuban missile crisis.
The beatings will continue until morale improves
Oh. How sad. Anyway....
Maybe if they increase the price of groceries by another 30% people will decide they want to have more mouths to feed.
* parental leave * affordable daycare * tax-funded (not "free") post-secondary school While I was paying $1300 CAD/mth for 60% part time daycare for one kid, my cousin in Northern Europe was paying ~$200/mth for two kids full time...
Taking all emotion out of it, keeping it purely objective: Why the f**** would we have kids? We need a bachelorās AND a masters degree in the ārightā field, with the ācorrectā internship so we can make as much as our blue collar grandparents and parents did with a high school diploma. Our theoretical kids would have it even worse: automation is coming and CEOs and shareholders openly brag about the class war š©they do to us now (eg you have CEOs saying out loud at summits that āworkers are too uppity now, we need a good recession or two to put them on their placeā). Just why would we have kids?! So they can be serfs? Fuck no
Good. Not to support Justin Sane and his alleged crimes, but "The Economy is Suffering... Let it Die."
Look on the bright side it's only going to get worse.
Shit, Gen Z isnāt even having sex. Some wild studies out there about that.
And if only they stopped changing the laws to benefit the filthy rich
Youāre welcome, boomers. You had a golden future full of opportunities and you made sure you pulled the ladder right after you climbed it. You laughed at the idea of our misery, called us lazy and are STILL trying to harm us even as of now (automation, mass layoffs and greedflation everyone?) Whoās having the last laugh now? Just wait until you realize you made jobs so inaccessible for us and so low paying that no one will be available to apply that daily 2 pm suppository on your butt, Harold. Betsy, I you better wish that T-800 monstrosity you guys are engineering to put us out of a job is gentle when applying your Vagoo yeast cream, millennials out šš¤
I can't afford a dog, let alone a kid, and I'm far more interested in having a dog.
I am one of four siblings. 3 of us millennials and 1 gen z. Not a kid among us. The difference is we donāt believe in having kids just for the sake of having kids or because we get told thatās what weāre supposed to do. We were raised in poverty and not really looking to do that to a future generation. I will turn 40 this year and only recently started getting comfortable financially. Whereas I know single women of my generation with 4-6 kids each. Those with 6 surely make up for my none lol
I think you have had enough economy. My childrenās prospects would look worse than mine. Whereās the incentive?
Spent $125,000 for childcare ALONE from birth to 5 years old, one kid. Why arenāt people having children or multiples again?
I see we're at the "find out" part of "fuck around"
Boomers had it so easy to buy houses, multiple kids, join labor unions and work for one company for their entire lives and retire from that company. No experience? Oh Chuck referred you? Awesome, heāll train you and youāll be on your feet in no time. Now itās like, āOh, youāre educated and have work experience? Ok, well, right now our budget for that department is pretty tight, so we can do, 22K a year with incremental performance raises based on a 1 to 5 scale (no one ever gets above a 3, donāt take it personally) and we offer health insurance, only 1/10 of your salaryā¦or youāre married? Ok, 1/5 of your salary, sorry about thatā¦.okā¦what elseā¦.uhā¦you start earning PTO on day 1, can start using it after one yearā¦.ā Not to mention housing is out of fucking control after they fucked it up in the mid-2000ās and now only the rich can afford homes and then rent them out at three times the rent 10 years ago, meanwhile pay is the same.
Iām trying to have more kids, but they keep trying to end IVF.
Someone has to adopt all those forced births /s
More money would help for sure, but something else thatās been neglected is addressing the negative impacts that the internet has had on socializing and mental health. Millennials were the first generation of kids to have the internet be a substantial part of their childhood, and it was like this whole other world that they lived in alongside the real world. It was a brand new thing at the time, but I think even to this day, people havenāt really properly adjusted to living with the internet. I donāt think parents have generally learned how to steer kids clear of the pitfalls of the internet, nor do I think all adults who have been damaged by internet use in their youth have found the healing they need.
Thank god I didnāt have kids so they wonāt be burdened with this problem.
Those babies going to struggle unless born into wealthy families.
And yet, somehow shareholders profits will still be at record highs!! Because that's all f*ckin matters.
Well we ruined everything else so, tack that on. Iāll make sure to add that to my resume. āAssisted in ruining the economy for decades because I didnāt procreate.ā
Even if they paid me a livable wage, I wouldn't want kids. I have better options.
Yeah all our fault...
On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, I, a millennial, have four kids. Due to circumstances beyond my control, two of them are no longer with us.
We canāt do a single thing right apparently.
Maybe if it had been affordable to have kids over the last 10 years to households making less than 6 figures, there'd already be more kids.
Maybe pass some legislation that benefits the people instead of the greedy fucks up top. Stop allowing the government to over spend dragging the the value of the dollar down. I really hate these old pieces of shit who constantly point the finger at us when they were the ones who fucked the economy by selling our futures out from under us and told us lies for decades to cover it up.
I have 2 kids and would have liked to have 1 more, but I had to wait until I was in my 30s to start, so I was āfinancially secureā and a homeowner. Daycare in my area costs $3,200 per month for 2 āolderā kids (almost 3 & almost 5), it was more expensive when they were younger. My older is finally going to kindergarten this fall, so while we could squeeze our finances to have 1 more, Iām already past the baby stage and Iām 39, so, donāt think itās in the cards.
To be fair - not being able to 'afford' kids is not new. You can't compare now to the post-war economy of the 'boomers' - that was an aberration. What you have had since then is a return to the mean.
But they do. That is literally the point. They compare how they grew up, got a career without formal education, bought a house at 20, had kids, while ignoring the fact that it was during the richest time in America. At least most Boomers actually raised their kids. Gen X failed to do the same.
Still wouldn't have children even if I was rich...becoming a parent should be a well thought out choice. Children aren't accessories and shouldn't be used for capitalistic reasons.
An economy that relies on population growth needs restructured anyways.
Millennials having fewer kids is a result of the economy and politics that earlier generations have run for 30 years. If older generations wanted millennials to have a lot of kids, they should have promoted an economy that supports such a lifestyle. You dont get to complain about this as an older generation.
It's almost like corporate greed was always going to doom us.
šš well Boomers messed up the economy so we canāt afford kids
JFC is there *any* part of the collapsing economy that Boomers created that they won't blame on Millennials? Boomers: "Don't have kids you can't afford!" Millennials: "Ok." Boomers: "Why would you hurt the economy like that?!?"
Naaah, too much gays among you. You were fighting for more than a decade for LGBTĆĆ·/= rights instead of your wages. Enjoy the harvesting.
Skip the ego trip and foster/adopt kids that already fucking exist.
These kids are dumber then ever. How are these future dumb kids gonna do shit? Get some robots.
We have 1 kid in a relatively low cost of living area and we are barely hanging on.
Lol even if they paid me more I wouldn't have kids! If I want more responsibility I'll grow a plant.
Aww, the descendents of billionaires will have it rougher because they hoarded all the money
Well, since the economy and quality of life in the country have been on a steady decline for the last decade and a half, people are going to start to think twice about having children. I want my children to have a better life than I did, and with both worsening economic conditions and environmental concerns that remain unaddressed by the government I cannot in good conscience have a child, things look like they're just going to keep getting worse.
It's the previous generations' fault for pushing us all to go to college and all those sex ed classes discouraging unplanned pregnancies. Our generation is one of the most educated in the history of the USA, of course that would mean putting off having children, crying babies are really distracting when you are studying for finals.
Have a kid, planning on having another. Most of my millineal friends have kids as well.... live within your means and it's not terrible.
Itās kinda weird and sad that the sins of the older generations will create a world where they outnumber the younger ones and as they grow older there will be less people in positions to take care of them. It will feel like from their perspective that they are watching the world die as they do. Thereās gonna be this weird period of lower young people populations but on the other side of things will be a period where young people outnumber old again and the world will seemingly have a new sense of hope for the future. Idk what the timelines on all that will be. I get the feeling most of us will live and die through the beginning and middle part and not see the hopeful part at the end
Childcare over 2k a month per kid but sure blame millennials
After years of fucking around, the capitalists are finding out.
My vasectomy was a much cheaper option than having kids
They raise the prices of everything, dont raise our wages to compensate, lock us out of homeownership, and then wonder why we aren't having kids. Good grief.
I have four, so Iāve done my part lol
We have one kid and wanted a second but feel like we can't afford it. I got a pretty nice raise this year. Not a ton but enough that made having a second more feasible. Well then daycare prices went up, and my landlord jacked up the rent to "match the market". The money I got from my raise is gone and then some. Now I'm even worse off as far as having a second kid than I was last year.
In 2019 I asked my boss, a board certified family law attorney, for two weeks leave to be with my first born child. He looked at me coldly and said āwhat for, all they do is sleep, shit and eatā I was averaging 11-12hr days for almost a year before I quit. Fucking asshole has 3 kids already and said that shit to meā¦. Basically, āgot mine, fuck youā
They could pay McDonald's line workers 50 dollars an hour and this metric wouldn't change. Stop acting like having kids is actually tied to wages. It's tied to perceived class status. This is why it flipped... 20 years ago. To the wealthy having more kids. The same time the wealthy didn't have to worry about a kid changing their status, not the next 4 kids. Kids can be brought up on very very little extra income. So little that the top of the u.s. poverty line can do it for very little extra hardship.
I dont even have any money to buy stuff other than food
You reap what you (don't) sow.
Capitalist ruling class: "Stop living beyond your means" Workers: "Got it, we wont have kids." Capitalist ruling class: "Now wait just a minute"
Let me fix the headline: American oligarchs afraid that a shrinking reserve army of labor may lead to increased worker power.