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.
Compared to our parents, I think millennials had more autonomy and less social pressure (and less economic mobility) to “settle down and have kids” by a certain age. For me, my parents were part of a religion that expects marriage and children by the couple’s early 20s. My partner’s parents felt they were supposed to have kids by age 30, but weren’t especially interested in raising them with love and care. Between health issues and employment, my parents weren’t able to be as involved and provide enrichment for their kids as much as I know they wanted to.
I’ve got oodles of love and care to give, but this society sucks. I haven’t liked it since I became aware of how it operates; I’m not gonna force some innocent unsuspecting creature to live in this world every day. Ifwhen I’m emotionally ready I’ll explore human adoption, but for now, my unused parenting genes will be used on pets and plants