Lindsay
Kids are great — they are our future. But not everyone wants one of their own, ya know? In fact, adults are having fewer children, and it’s due to those troublemaking millennials. Now in their late 20s and 30s, this generational group is forgoing reproduction.
Millennial women are choosing career over children and in 2019, the U.S. birthrate was the lowest it has been in 32 years.
It’s partially connected to the career reasoning: when millennials started entering the workforce, the economy was already reeling from the 2008 recession. Most millennials just don’t have the funds to support a family. And those who have worked their way up to a better salary are now dealing with a second recession.
Illustrator Kate McDonough runs the website Pretty, Pretty Ugly and updates it with her comics that tackle anxiety and bring to light common issues people with anxiety face. A recent comic expertly explained why it’s OK if someone does not want kids.
For people without children “Are you guys thinking of kids?” alone is a mega anxiety trigger. Because they know their answer isn’t going to be one that the other person wants to hear.
And no matter how long childless adults have settled on their decision, people will still try to argue against not having kids.
So, people who are childless by choice feel like they have to explain a very, very personal decision, which then increases their anxiety. 
Nobody knows a person better than themselves, and too often people don’t trust others to make their own life choices.
The truth is, everyone is nurturing in different ways, and you don’t have to raise a child to be a nurturing person.
Yes, that is exactly what you should say because people should be allowed to determine how to live their own lives.
We’ll leave you with this 2016 quote from Jennifer Aniston:
“Here’s where I come out on this topic: we are complete with or without a mate, with or without a child. We get to decide for ourselves what is beautiful when it comes to our bodies. That decision is ours and ours alone. Let’s make that decision for ourselves and for the young women in this world who look to us as examples. Let’s make that decision consciously, outside of the tabloid noise. We don’t need to be married or mothers to be complete. We get to determine our own “happily ever after” for ourselves.”
