I have a very real problem with grandchildren. I don’t have any. I want some. Hell, I want one, but I have none. I joke that my kids have failed me by not providing me with the grandchildren I want, but it’s not a very funny joke, and my kids don’t find it funny at all. Apparently, I’m not alone.
Fertility rates have been dropping precipitously around the world for decades — in middle-income countries, in some low-income countries, but perhaps most markedly, in rich ones.
Fulfilling my desire to be a grandfather isn’t really much of a reason for my kids to have children, despite all I’ve done for them, but the list of reasons given for this decline in fertility rates in all demographics emits the unpleasant odor of excuses.
At its best, it reflects better educational and career opportunities for women, increasing acceptance of the choice to be child-free, and rising standards of living.
At its worst, though, it reflects a profound failure: of employers and governments to make parenting and work compatible; of our collective ability to solve the climate crisis so that children seem a rational prospect; of our increasingly unequal global economy. In these instances, having fewer children is less a choice than the poignant consequence of a set of unsavory circumstances.
Many young people latch on to these excuses with all their might, but the experience in Denmark suggests it’s just a rationalization to cover up the real problem.
DANES DON’T FACE the horrors of American student debt, our debilitating medical bills or our lack of paid family leave. College is free. Income inequality is low. In short, many of the factors that cause young Americans to delay having families simply aren’t present.
With their basic needs met and an abundance of opportunities at their fingertips, Danes instead must grapple with the promise and pressure of seemingly limitless freedom, which can combine to make children an afterthought, or an unwelcome intrusion on a life that offers rewards and satisfactions of a different kind — an engaging career, esoteric hobbies, exotic holidays.
The excuses all have one common thread; they’re external. They’re all problems outside of the person making them, not to mention problems for which neither they nor their generation are responsible, and so none of it is their fault. And as long as it’s not their fault, they have no responsibility to deal with it and can respond to any complaint by throwing blame elsewhere.
After all, if you’re starving and you can blame Bill Gates, you have no responsibility to figure out how to get food to eat and can just waste away secure in the righteousness of your blamelessness. Of course, you’re dead, but as long as you can blame society and boomers, you’re covered.
But there’s another theme percolating through the excuses, one that manages not to ever reach the surface as it isn’t anything child-bearing aged people want to hear, to think about, to acknowledge. The reason they don’t have children is that they are too immature and narcissistic to put anything ahead of their own self-interest.
Sure, kids are demanding, time-consuming and expensive. We managed. The entirety of humanity managed. We weren’t all rolling in dough from the dawn of time, but we managed. It’s not that it’s constant joy, but it’s more joy than not. More to the point, children bring a purpose to our lives that doesn’t exist when we were children ourselves. We all thought we were the centers of our respective universes when we were young, self-absorbed with our own feelings and dreams.
But then we grew up and realized that there was a bigger world than just us, and it wasn’t just some social imperative to perpetuate the species that drove us to reproduce, or that god, in his infinite wisdom, made the mechanism pleasurable, but that the results gave us a greater purpose than our own childish concerns.
If you trace back each of the excuses to its root, and do so honestly, each reflects the refusal to let go of self-interest for a good outside ourselves.
First, we are taught from puberty to avoid getting pregnant (or getting someone else pregnant), as if it were a disease. We are assured that we have the rest of our lives ahead of us, until suddenly we are 35 and are just starting to think about children and time is already short.
So you’re just too dumb, despite your Ph.D., to figure this out? You’re not 35 “suddenly,” but you couldn’t spend as much time as you obsessed over whether to get the new iPhone to figure out how your biological clock was doing?
Second, having children requires selflessness, a rarity today. It means setting aside the relentless self-absorption, self-promotion and personal-brand building that our society indulges. It requires us to put down our phone and laptop and even our work, and have a tea party with our 3-year-old.
Well no, it doesn’t require you to have a tea party, though it wouldn’t hurt, but it does require some small amount of selflessness. If only you were as good with selflessness as you were with making excuses. Heck, if only excuses could be monetized, in which case you would be fabulously wealthy and could afford to lavish money on those kids. But the truth is you still wouldn’t, because money is only an excuse.
At 34, I finally underwent the [egg freezing] procedure. Last year, I did another round. Ever since then, there’s a number I’ve been playing with as I’ve wondered about whether and when I will use those eggs. According to my back-of-the envelope calculations, I should have $200,000 saved before having a child.
The writer of the article, Anna Louie Sussman, explains in intimate detail her excuses, all of which come down to her caring more about herself than anything else. But that doesn’t stop her from reiterating socially acceptable excuses as if they’re real.
For decades, people with as much good fortune as I have were relatively immune to these anxieties. But many of the difficulties that have long faced working-class women, and especially women of color, are trickling up. These women have worked multiple jobs without stability or benefits, and raised children in communities with underfunded schools or poisoned water; today, middle-class parents, too, are time-starved, squeezed out of good school districts, and anxious about plastic and pollution.
So I asked my children, is this why you have failed in your duty to give me grandchildren? “Nah,” they replied, because I taught them not to lie to me. “We just haven’t met the right person on [name your dating app] yet.” Oh. Too bad one can’t just go to a bar, a party, a class, and, you know, meet someone anymore, but that’s just not done these days.
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When I read someone asserting that “College is free” in Denmark, I regard that as a tipoff that the author is clueless about the world in general.
If I don’t have to pay for it, then free it is!
I married into grandchildren, all girls. Five of them now, four here and one in Brazil. Much like other children they are insufferable brats from ages two to five (in part due to lax upbringing), and thereafter are generally pleasures to be around.
So keep hope alive, SHG!
It’s less that I’ve lost hope than I want to be young enough to teach them to drive a stick before it’s criminalized.
Amen!
I feel sorry for these narrow minded, solipsistic asshats who will never know the joy of seeing a child’s face light up with pure delight at the sight of “Disney on Ice” or marvel at the wonder of getting to feed a giraffe at the zoo.
My son and daughter are two of the major reasons I get out of bed in the morning. They may drive me nuts every day, but they make my life worth living. I was like the idiots given space in the Times until my better half looked me dead in the eyes and said “There’s never a good time to have kids. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.”
As usual, she was right.
I am so very fortunate that a few of my younger friends are kind enough to share with me the pics of their beautiful children. Thank you, Chris.
If it makes you feel any better, they consider you their putative grandfather.
I am honored.
I love this, because I had virtually the exact same conversation with my spouse, with a little of the “Yes there expensive, but people have been managing to afford it for centuries” thrown in.
My wife, bless her heart, had children as a goal first and foremost when we got married, before a career. Then she decided she’d quite like to see something other than a house-in-need-of-cleaning and went to law school. Now she’s the envy of all her peers who waited until they had their career established before having children, only to find out that now they can’t. Go figure.
Some years ago, some unwoke woman CEO made the point to her friends that “no, you can’t have it all. Make a choice.” It was merely a matter of science and logistics, but back then, science and logistics were still real rather than social constructs and reasons to emote one’s misery on social media.
Hope and pray you don’t get your grandkids the way I did.
My stepdaughter ran off with her druggie boy friend and left me and my wife with a 6 and 16 month old boys and 5 and 7 year old girls. Plus 4 cats and a dog.
I was done raising children but I’m back in that business.
Child protective services in AZ get a bad rap but we’ve done OK with them.
I suspect there’s a Heinlein quote to cover that.
Robert A. Heinlein.
“Delusions are often functional. A mother’s opinions about her children’s beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseam, keep her from drowning them at birth.”
Ah the barren grandparent’s lament. Read Hamlet’s soliliquy in light of the “demand” you make of your offspring.
To dream, perchance to hold such precious treasure.
I have four, which is probably too many for a 31 year old. Wouldn’t trade them for anything. It’s hard sometimes, but always worth it.
That second before you open the door after work and you know that 6 small feet is going to come running, with the oldest walking not far behind, and tackle you.
They grow up far too fast.
You have 4 grandchildren at 31? Oskar, something seems awry.
They are someones grandchildren Scott.
Dear Scott,
I hope your wish comes true. I believe it will.
All the best.
Rich
Some day.
I’m sure it will. Have you stocked up on clutch kits for the Healy?
It hasn’t been that long since your were telling us that you bought your kid his first suit, has it?
That was four years ago, and that was my baby.
I’m no particular gift to mankind. God knows, the world does not need another like me. I’ve never seen a baby and said Ahhh!, I always thought Ewww! I’ve never felt the kicking of something in my wife’s belly (or anyone else’s). I don’t think I’ve ever held a baby.
I don’t like me much, and don’t like many people around me. I did not like the pain of growing up, and now that I’m past retirement, the end is looking pretty good. I don’t want some “know better than I kid” telling me I should hang up my keys, or it’s time to go to the home. I hope I pass before my wife so I can go by myself in peace, without the death watch that passes for family caring anymore. I’m not so vein to worry about my legacy or whether I can control others from beyond the grave with hateful, selfish wills.
Though not a deciding point in my fertile years, I look at all the 5hit kids have to go through now – the brainwashing of social wokeness, the isolation of the children, the inability of anyone to get away from the increasing bullying of the “good kids” on line. I look at the unfortunate kids whose role growing up is to be the ping-pong ball batted between dysfunctional former lovers on odd weekends. Someone misread the Bible when Solomon was said to offer to split the baby. Coparenting is dividing the child mentally and physically, and in my opinion, that parental selfishness is indeed child abuse. I look at the horror show that is life in the 21st century, and decided to let this branch of the family tree wither and die.
My wife taught at school, and we laughed that was enough of kids for her. Like grandparents, see the kid, spoil the kid, send them home. Perfect. I do not know the specific reasons she never asked for kids, but I’m happy we found each other and had similar life avoidances.
I recognized that though biologically capable, some folks should not have kids. Count me among them. Fortunately, neither my wife’s parents nor mine ever asked about grandchildren. For that question, they would have never been forgiven. Being grandparents is not a right, and that selfish desire should never be foisted upon one’s kids. Suing for grandparents “rights to be part of the child’s life” as one of my workmates did is yet another horrible thing children go through.
Duty? Did someone mention duty? My duty was to recognize early on that I was not suitable breeding stock, and not spread those defective genes throughout all time. I can go happily to my grave secure in the knowledge none of my kids will be the next mass murderer, corrupt politician, or cult leader.
No doubt you’re right that kids aren’t for everybody, and a wise person would recognize that they’re not parent material. That said, I was also on team “ewww” before I had kids.
One major issue left out of this article is the effects of divorce on adult children wanting to have kids. Family law is horrible and going through that ringer is not worth it to a lot of folks involved anymore.
I assume you mean the adult children of divorced parents are reluctant to have kids because of their experience?
Yes, not saying it’s a causal factor, but I’ve seen it referenced as a corollary factor by many as a reason why they don’t want to marry or procreate.
When divorce became not only socially acceptable, but “beneficial” in the sense that it was better than sticking it out when marriage became difficult, no one cared much about the consequences for the children.
Agree 100%. It’s a sad reality that too many people face. The incentives for divorcing are much higher than they are if you stay married.
I am reminded of the opening sequences in s film called, Idiocracy.