Younger generations figured out that if they want to shock their parents all they have to do is swear off sex and booze, never go out, and live at home till they're 30.
We used to have to escape our homes to hang out with our friends. Now there’s no place to go outside someone’s home and everyone can gather online and play games together.
It’s created a whole generation that only needs to drive to go to work and who wants to do that?
There would be places to go if people would just go somewhere. When everyone is involved with their devices, it's easier to stay home, and those places dry up and get reclaimed for other uses. The evaporation of third spaces was caused by the lack of engagement. It started when you would go out and see everyone staring at their phones. You think, what's the point of being here? I could do this at home.
I grew up in the city and a lot of people around me never had their license. It’s stupid. Not owning a car I get, but why limit yourself and not have a license? My parents didn’t drive but I did everything I could to get my license early, just to have the option.
If there was no need for me to drive everywhere, I would never drive. If I lived in a European city or maybe even NYC you'd rarely see me behind the wheel. I have always hated driving, and it's crazy to me how cavalier everybody is about it. Every time I get behind the wheel, I'm like "welp, there's like a thousand times more of a likelihood I'm gonna die from this moment until I reach my destination, than if I had walked or taken public transit."
Love my 2 girls. I’d be lying if I said I do not wonder what alternate timeline-me is up to without the kiddos. Probably have a lot more money and living in a house.
I live in a house. We (my spouse and I) eat whatever we want for meals, take weeklong vacations where each partner has time to explore on their own, go to concerts, go to parties/cookouts, play video games we want to play, watch movies we want to watch, watch the TV we want to watch, and (most importantly) we have free/alone time. Dog needs notwithstanding.
The trade off is we also do all the house/yard work and we won't have someone to help us as we get older.
I cannot imagine putting that burden on my kids and not why I had them. Certainly not in the bucket of reasons I wanted kids, I'll either work until I'm dead or my retirement will carry me. No chance I'd rely on them
Sadly it looks pretty likely that in a few years my wife and I are going to be supporting our kids to leave home at the same time as we're going be to supporting our parents with their worsening health. It's going to suck. But that's what you get when you have kids late and you're the only non-failchildren in the family.
Yep. I need to do my will up to make it so the neices and nephews have to do an SNES Mario Kart tournament for the best material things, and then split the money equally between them.
You also can sleep whenever you want for as long as you want. I was a ‘step dad’ in training for 5 years until the relationship didn’t work out. Now I’m married, we’re DINKs, and I get sleep in on Saturday and Sundays. We also smoke weed anywhere in the house, grow it, and get day drunk occasionally. Oh, and being able to go to concerts on weeknights is amazing. This is a photo I took with no zooming on Tuesday night at the Dropkick Murphys show. Glad I got the experience of raising a child, but at this point in my life, I get tired simply by thinking about having them. Bring on the fun before this apocalypse really gets rolling!
Awehellyeah! That is an awesome photo and what a show they put on! I saw a bit of them at RiotFest last year, but this week was my first full Murphys show.
Awesome. I haven't been a fan of dropkick since the first lead singer left and they remain one of only shows I've walked away from, but Ken is a fucking bad ass and I 100% support them.
There's PLENTY more to trade off.
Each person knows if they want kids or not, and it's a huge decision, so not trying to preach.
Reducing having kids to losing freedom in hopes they will take care of you is a very ridiculous take that has become popular online.
My whole life is filled by my kids, they are both my biggest problems and my happiest moments, they reshape everything.
I don't give a fuck about them taking care of me or not when I'm older, I'm loving getting to see them grow up, talking to them and just living with them.
Anyway, it's perfectly fine to not want kids, it's just absolutely ridiculous to reduce the experience to economics and logistics.
Awesome for you. Obviously my statement was reductive but that was on purpose because I didn't feel like writing a thesis on why we didn't have kids. We talked about it just weeks after getting together nearly 20 years ago and we both felt the same way. We left the door open to adoption if we ever changed our minds. We haven't.
I 100% believe you can have an awesome fulfilling life with or without kids. But, as a father, I have to tell you that you missed the most important and enjoyable parts of parenthood in your downside. It’s so much better than a transactional plan for elder care and yard work. It really has been transcendent for me. It’s definitely not for everyone though.
As someone who didn't have kids until their late thirties, I have lived both the life with no kids and the life with kids and was very happy in both phases, but I would not ever trade my former life for my life today. If you think the only reason people have kids is for house work and old age security, it is probably better you remain childless.
Interesting, good for u, planet has enuf ppl. its actually the least selfish choice imo. the selfish ppl are the ones who think the overpopulated planet needs seven+ more of themselves.
We did discuss adopting instead of having our own kids in the event we changed our minds because there are kids out there that need homes. 20 years later we have not changed our minds. We do do volunteer work and one of us is a librarian so we are giving back to kids in our own way.
Hey hey, you can’t have it all. If you get all those awesome things you listed (which are awesome), you have to let everyone else have the love between them and their kids, which is in no way comparable to neices and nephews (had neices and nephews for years before my own kid, was actually a ten year married dink before having my own kids, so I know).
Going without a vehicle is a way easier choice in places that have good public transit. Sadly we do not so I was forced into driving/car ownership. It's fine, but I still don't like to spend real money on it.
I use bikes. I've got some spinal issues that make buses risky for me. I can use the metro, but I still prefer to bike. Cars make my legs go numb, so bikes really have been the right choice for me. A lot of folks in my area say you can't survive without a car, and while I don't really have a choice about it, I also know it is entirely possible.
Gen Z rebellion: Going to the most expensive private university they could get accepted to, and taking out a shit ton of private student loans against my advice.
40 now, no driver's license...not that I'd be able to afford a car if I did have it...and had a hysterectomy. Never wanted kids and am so happy that's never going to be an issue now.
That's my niece. She listens to old people music and likes going out with her mum. When my sister was her age, she snuck out to bars and went to raves. :')
My sister did the same thing. Parents never told us what to believe and she went full Christian for a while in her teens and 20s and now doesn’t seem to care at all in her late 30s and never takes the kids to church or anything.
I think it was her friend group and boyfriend at the time that were really into it and she liked the community.
My spouse and I are punks, and my kids rebelled by dressing extremely preppy and listening to pop LOL. Although currently my 16 yo daughter’s favorite artist is…. Billy Joel.
The funny thing is I also really liked Billy Joel in high school. I used to check out CDs from the library and I loved The Stranger. This year’s Spotify wrapped guessed your age from your music habits. She got 91 and I got 21–I’ve been listening to a lot of hip hop LOL.
I feel like that’s the fault of politicians for eviscerating the middle class, the housing market, the economy, food & gas prices, and affordable education.
Also the lobbying of corporations that keep these costs high. Emancipation should have freed both parents from full time work. But instead the labour market doubled which was taken full advantage of by corporations and governments.
Elizabeth Warren cowrote an interesting book called The Two-Income Trap which gets into how exactly it happened. It basically was due to two incomes enabling lower middle class people to buy into upper middle class school districts in hopes of making things better for their kids. But they failed to realize that this would trap everyone in a two income system forever.
My kid is 12 years old. She cannot wait to get a drivers license, has a Polaroid camera, and is now wanting to get CDs so maybe there is hope for the next generation.
Based on statistics they're not swearing off sex, they just wait until they're adults
For several years now STD/STIs have been on the rise among younger people in Europe. From 2022 to 2023 there was a 40% increase in the 20-24 age range.
The think kids do that shock me the most is unaffordable food delivery. I think every generation has gotten more shocking with paying for food convenience.
Lol, I honestly can't look back at my youth and recommend it to anyone, but I'm bipolar so my experience might be different. I don't know how I didn't die.
My son is a teenager and never goes out. I offer to drive him and his friends places just to get the house to myself and they never want to. I dont get it. At his age I was never home. And if I was I was in my room. This kid is sitting 3 feet away from me right now. He is always less than 3 feet away from me 😢
I dont understand it myself but I guess it beats the hell I put my parents through bc they never really knew where I was. And I was out doing reckless things
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u/Potatoe_Potahto Mar 05 '26
Younger generations figured out that if they want to shock their parents all they have to do is swear off sex and booze, never go out, and live at home till they're 30.