The destructive fashion of childlessness
- Where do we get the money for diapers? And what about bodysuits, pants, blouses? If my husband buys all this, he will not have any money left for ME!
- You will not have any money or time for yourself, let alone him!
- And the stench, the crying, the constant sleepless nights, and the huge belly instead of my perfect abs! Why do I need all this?!
You can often hear such dialogues from the millennial and zoomer generations. Girls aged 20 to 35 are not eager to become mothers, they think only of themselves and tell the world that motherhood is not an essential part of a happy life.
On YouTube, millions of views are being gained by those videos in which women who have become mothers talk about the downsides of motherhood and accuse society of forming distorted ideas around this concept. According to the failed mothers from YouTube, raising children is not such a fun activity, and it is doubly hard when they are sick and if the offspring grow up to be different from what they expected, then motherhood turns into real hard labor. In TikTok, the top videos include those about the kind of life that modern youth is afraid of: everyday life, crying children, low wages, buying discounted goods, the lifestyle that their parents and grandparents chose.
Just ten to fifteen years ago, the reluctance to have children had a special ideology behind it called “childfree”. People who considered themselves to be part of this movement had their own gradation. Some postponed the process of having children for an indefinite period, others wanted to live “freely” and later try themselves in the role of parents. The most aggressive called themselves “child haters” - hating everything related to motherhood and childbirth. One can talk for a long time about the reasons for the emergence of the “childfree” movement, but we need to understand that it was never widespread. This unnatural path was chosen only by a few who took radical measures - complete sterilization, in order to finally insure themselves from the possibility of becoming parents. Today, voluntary childlessness is becoming a common and everyday phenomenon, leading to a deep demographic crisis in most developed regions of the world.
Research conducted in Western Europe showed that 39% of Europeans aged 16 to 25 do not want to have offspring. According to the youth population of these countries, having children harms the environment. If earlier it was believed that, on becoming parents, people care more about the future of the planet in order to preserve it for their descendants, now this idea is interpreted completely differently. According to young people, the fewer people on earth, the less carbon dioxide emissions and forest destruction. Scientists say the opposite. The level of environmental damage is determined not by the number of people, but by the improper use of resources.
Is family an obstacle to “successful success”?
The overwhelming majority of young people say that marriage interferes with self-realisation. Having children puts an end to the opportunity to develop and achieve success in a career - this is what modern young men and women think. “I need to study” flows into “I need to work”, then – “I need to see the world” and “I need to strive for stability”. Looking at beautiful pictures on social networks, everyone wants to achieve a mythical “successful success”. All this combines into one large-scale trend: children are an obstacle to everything that is fashionable and popular. Motherhood can interfere with the idea that consumer society so actively promotes: “There is one life, and you need to live it brightly, thinking only about yourself”. Another obstacle to childbearing is finances. But it is not only the banal uncertainty about a stable income that can become a reason for refusing to have children. Women who have gained financial independence are also in no hurry to have children: “First I will build a career, and then I will think about children”.
Thus, the average age of bearing a first child is shifting from thirty to forty years.
According to one theory, the modern generation is focused primarily on comfort. Not wanting to solve problems and change themselves, they get divorced as soon as they encounter the first difficulties. In 2023, in Russia, there were seventy divorces per hundred marriages. Another phenomenon that psychologists have encountered in the last decade is delayed adulthood. People shift the age of making important decisions to later dates. All these factors lead to the fact that we are getting a generation of lonely egoists focused only on themselves.
Pit
What will happen if the trend towards childlessness continues? The resulting demographic pit will cause enormous damage to the economy. After all, with the increase in the number of pensioners and the decrease in the working-age population, the amount of taxes that working citizens must pay will grow rapidly, which, in turn, can lead to an economic collapse. The population of many Western European countries and Japan is already facing this problem. What will happen to the demographic map of the world? According to expert forecasts, the main population growth by 2050 will occur in Africa. The population in countries located south of the Sahara will double. In 61 countries of the world, according to experts, the opposite process will occur. In 26 countries, the population will decrease by 10%. In Hungary, Serbia, Croatia, and Japan, the population will decrease by 15%. As for our country, the demographic crisis cannot be stopped at the moment. The population in Russia has been rapidly declining for the past five years. If the situation does not change, then by 2046 we will lose 7.7 million people. This is like losing the whole of St. Petersburg and the entire Leningrad region. In the first 11 months of 2023, 1.16 million people were born in our country. This is the lowest number of newborns in the entire 20th century. In 1999, which demographers consider the worst year in terms of birth rate in recent decades, more children were born: 1.215 million.
Why is the situation so dire? This is influenced by many blows of the past. The wars of the 20th century and several waves of famine for many years created a demographic hole that still affects the country’s demography. And, of course, in addition to the demographic failures of the past, Russia has fallen into the general global trend - women no longer want to give birth. Governments around the world are trying to stop this trend. But social benefits and privileges are only an additional incentive, unable to solve the global problem that is the cause of this trend.
Spirituality is salvation
2024 has been declared the Year of the Family in the Russian Federation. According to President Vladimir Putin, the family is the source of morality - a spiritual phenomenon. The head of state emphasizes that in order to overcome demographic problems, “moral support” and “correct life guidelines” for each person are needed.
