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I think a big reason millennials seem less interested in having kids that I don't see discussed a lot: Boomers seemed to hate marriage and parenthood (hexbear.net)

submitted 1 week ago by ConcreteHalloween@hexbear.net to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net

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From a pretty early age I decided I didn't want to get married or have kids cuz both my parents seemed utterly miserable. For a long time I found it weird anyone wanted to do it at all, why would you want to be trapped with someone you hate who you get into screaming arguments all the time?

And it's not just me, you see a lot of jokes online about people like playing that one scene from Marriage Story while playing old N64 games for nostalgia.

I think the experience of seeing our own parents be so miserable maybe soured a lot of us on starting families.

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[-] Acute_Engles@hexbear.net 6 points 1 week ago

When you look at AES countries, places that had the best childcare in human history, absolute job security, super low costs of living, then no, it doesn't work like that. The DDR is a perfect example. Everybody who has experienced it misses the childcare and education system of the DDR, they had a lot more women in the workforce than west Germany, raising kids was so much safer and easier and they still had lower birthrates than the west

Makes sense. I would bet the influence of religious and other societal pressures to have a kid are far more influential than economic stability. Personally I can't imagine having any kids before 30, I didn't, and it's still considered very late. How any of these 20-something parents I meet manage I'll never know.

Hexbears have to get it out of their heads that "anti-natalism" is a rightwing stance. In fact, "anti-natalism" is a nazbol dogwhistle to smear queer liberation and free abortion, people like Haz have used it this way for years and it still just gets thrown around here willy nilly, it's sickening.

I personally think the blanket ban on the topic is a relic of when it and childfree were subreddits that, in typical reddit fashion, became cesspits that used the term 'crotch-goblin' and such. I wasn't aware of the nazbol connection as I don't interact with that stuff at all but it is a troubling connection to consider.