Posted on 12/23/2024 3:25:16 PM PST by Morgana
People often joke that if they’d known becoming a grandparent was so much fun, they would have done it before having kids. Having grandchildren is widely considered one of life’s great joys, one which, historically, most adults experienced. Today, however, a growing number of people will never have this experience.
Grandparents in America are becoming rarer. In 2014, 60% of people over 50 had at least one grandchild. By 2021, that had fallen to just over half. The historic decline in birth rates means that many who devoted their early lives to raising families will spend their later years watching those families end. The main reason for this is that many millennials, the generation now entering middle age, have chosen not to have kids.
Writing at The New York Times recently, Catherine Pearson gave voice to “the unspoken grief of never becoming a grandparent.” People she interviewed confessed “a deep sense of longing and loss when their children opt out of parenthood, even if they understand at an intellectual level that their children do not ‘owe’ them a family legacy.”
Parents of children who don’t want children find themselves in a difficult spot, especially those who have bought into the expressive individualist idea that children are a choice, and the only reason to have them is to enhance personal happiness. If their children don’t want children, these parents are supposed to be okay with that decision. Apparently, many aren’t.
For example, one would-be grandmother assured Pearson, “This decision was right for my kids,” before adding sadly, “I’m not going to have grandchildren. So that part of my life is just over.” Others who face silent golden years when they expected the patter of little feet are still hoping to convince their adult children to reconsider. One mother said she gently reminds her intentionally childfree daughter that she might not always feel this way—that the woman her daughter will be in ten years “will not recognize the person she is today.”
According to Pearson, she received a largely hostile social media reaction to her article, mostly from millennials. Their “how dare you feel entitled to grandchildren?” reaction puts a “silencing effect” on the whole conversation. In generations past, hopeful grandmas and grandpas would encourage families, but they now simply keep quiet as their children remain unmarried into their thirties, often citing climate change, racism, and school shootings as their reasons to be childless. One 69-year-old mom said her daughter has “made it perfectly clear … that this subject is not to be discussed.”
It’s difficult to imagine a more practical “ideas have consequences” moment than this. The inability of so many to articulate why not having grandkids is a tragedy and to be honest about their grief reveals much about our values. We’ve lost even the language to say what people for most of history took for granted. It is good and normal to want to see your descendants, and it hurts when that hope is dashed.
This moment also illustrates how ideas and their consequences are intergenerational. The view that children are unnecessary burdens or optional accessories did not start with millennials, but it has reached its logical conclusion in that generation. The rapid disappearance and replacement of once-common family relationships, including siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents has made the world lonelier for young and old alike.
Christians should “mourn with those who mourn,” which is what Pearson’s article attempted. The pain of never becoming a grandparent should be acknowledged and legitimized, and parents should not be bullied into unconditionally affirming every choice their grown children make. Kids aren’t products, so no one is “owed” grandkids, and not everyone will or should get married, but some choices are better for society than others. The record number of people in our world choosing to remain barren points to a deep societal sickness.
Christians should also witness to a countercultural way of life, including a positive perspective on children. At least, we can make sure they know they’re not burdens or accessories, that they bring joy, and that we hope—Lord willing—the same joy may one day find them.
None of this by itself will turn our demographic future around. But until it’s once again okay to look forward to seeing our children’s children, there won’t be much of a demographic future in the first place.
I’ll volunteer to walk around the school in a Smokey the Bear hat.
At 21 my wife had severe endometriosis and lost a complete ovary and part of the other by the time she was 22. The scarring ended it for kids. My military career ended any discussions with adoption agencies (at the time they demanded a stable residence).
Our parents kept pressuring us about when they were going to have grandkids. People we worked with asked why no kids. They even went as far as asking "Who's fault was it?"
Eventually I wound up teaching high school and by my count, we had 2,400 kids over the years. They just went home after school.
I don’t think I’ll have grandkids. My one daughter who’s married has issues that will make getting pregnant difficult. They aren’t sure they want to adopt.
My other 2 aren’t married or even dating. I actually don’t see them getting married.
I’m sorry ten18. 🙏💚
Your situation was not by choice. The article is about those who chose not to reproduce. And with so many babies being aborted, adoption is not the option it once was.
I am disappointed some though. I think of all the time I could have spent building neat things an doing what I think would pass for fun. Different times though. Probably different scale of fun. I'm no good at entertaining others anyway. Don't like it.
This is a huge problem. Home school your children or send them to private schools if you can afford it.
My sister does the mom thing of three kids.
I figured out in my teens that I had zero interest in being a parent type.
A lot of reasons but a big one is that I have a few kids inherited physical problems that made life lousy a lot growing up and I would rather not pass any along.
The culture of self-extermination, as I call it, is a profoundly anti-human movement. Consider that when a person has no children, genetic lineages that go back to the dawn of creation are cut off and ended. All so that people can indulge in short-sighted narcissism for a few decades before expiring.
You are right. There are other reasons people are childless. My point was that we don't want to be lumped into the group this article is addressing.
Estrangement from my stepsons due to a breakup has left me bereft of grandchildren. The boys *DO* have kids, but I will never see them.
I found the love of my life, she just never reciprocated and I ended up alone.
Do you think the Lord will forgive me, if what you claim is my sole duty to Him?
Think about what you say and how you say it next time.
No, it takes an insane asylum. There are some men and women who don't have children in order to avoid affecting them with the same disorders they faced growing up, and possibly developed their own.
Having children as pets is delusional, selfish, or psychopathic.
There is no village and never was. Women in particular don't get help. Prisons are full of their offspring and society is ravaged by their offspring's actions.
It was fantasy on a screen, not reality.
This article describes "having a kid for no reason other than supporting the team" - consequences be damned. Sick.
Our fourth was born three hours ago - a beautiful little ginger-haired girl. Grandkids are a true building
See post 8.
“A lot of reasons but a big one is that I have a few kids inherited physical problems that made life lousy a lot growing up and I would rather not pass any along.”
Anytime you have a child it is a crap-shoot. You can have what is considered a perfect baby physically and then later in life psychological problems show up. All you can do is pray for your children pre and post birth.
Totally disagree.
Women having children outside of marriage as is rampant in today’s society has nothing to do with God’s plan for men and women to procreate and populate this world.
The womyn of today who “sleep” with men indiscriminately, then get pregnant, then live their lives as martyrs as “single mothers” while their children suffer are the worst of society, all the while living off the government.
That is NOT what the Bible talks about as being fruitful and multiplying.
Move to Utah.
Um, no thanks. We don’t like special underwear?
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