According to U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, nearly half of women (47.6 percent) between the ages of 15 and 44 did not have kids in 2014. This is the highest percentage since 1976, and the percentage is only growing. So, what happened between the Baby Boomer generation and the Millennials? The answer on the surface seems obvious: a world war ending for the Baby Boomers. However, many more reasons can be correlated with why the Millennial demographic refuses to give in to the traditional stereotype of family.
It seems fair to say that many young women, including myself, have gone home and been questioned by their parents: “When are you going to settle down?” “When am I getting grandchildren?” The answer may not be what they want to hear. Women no longer value themselves as baby-making machines. Many younger Millennials are realizing that marriage is less about the loyalty you make to someone you love, and more about a political and legal system set up around religion and tax benefits.
Feasibly, having a larger family isn’t as easy as it once was. Women are getting more opportunities for education and employment, causing less desire for stay-at-home mothers. Women want opportunities that lie outside of providing lineage. As workplace industries are progressing into a more gender-equal environment, women have the option to provide more to society than a nine-month pregnancy leave. As a result, student loans are at an all-time high, and those tax benefits from children aren’t going to do much to feed a family, pay off those loans, and take that vacation to Europe.
Young women feel the pressure to settle down and start a white-picket-fence family the most. With kids comes the pressure to make perfect choices. If the children aren’t raised to a societal standard, often the mother is blamed for neglect and misunderstanding. The disturbing thought of messing that child up is filled with pressure to become the world’s best parent, to impose all of the rights and wrongs that our own mothers taught us. Women aren’t pre-programmed with maternal instincts; we don’t have all the answers to raise the perfect child and handle the chaotic situations presented in almost every chick flick and magazine article flawlessly. We are capable of making mistakes and imposing wrongful ethics onto such impressionable brains. Motherhood consists of a pressure that many women may never be ready to tackle.
The truth is, we shouldn’t be afraid to be selfish if it affects only the individual. If women aren’t willing to give an 18+ year commitment to a child, that should make them confident and serviceable, not uncaring. It’s time we realize that a woman controls her body and what she chooses to produce or not. Pregnancy is pretty terrifying, despite modern medicine. I can’t speak for all of my fellow ladies, but nine months of hormones, hours of labor, and years of a societal contract you don’t always want to sign up for doesn’t seem like an ideal tradeoff for the perfect life spun by the media.
“When you get older, you will feel differently about having children,” my relatives say to me. To that, I say no. I am justified in my right to make my own decisions about my body and my life. Children are not in that equation. I want to travel. I want to be independent. I long to be spontaneous. I do not exist to produce more humans. I exist to live my life the way I choose, whether it's labeled freely or selfishly.
