Why So Many Young People Are Choosing NOT to Have Children

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]I'll be honest, I never even once considered not having children one day.

[00:00:06]I think as a Gen Xer it was just kind of expected. There were some people around me who chose not to have children and it kind of made me go, "Huh." But at the time it wasn't even on my radar to have a choice. I guess I just always assumed that I would be a mom someday. So, when my younger son and his wife tell me that they are not going to have children, then I had to kind of sit with that for a little bit.

[00:00:33]Am I a little disappointed? Yeah, absolutely. Because I'm a little biased, but I think my son is incredibly handsome and I would love to see, you know, little versions of him running around.

[00:00:46]And I see him with his niece and nephew and I know he'd be an incredible dad, but it's not my decision. And I absolutely respect their decision. But it also made me curious. And so, I started digging into why are so many young people making that same choice these days.

[00:01:05]Hi, my name is Lisa and welcome to my channel if you're brand new. And if you're returning, welcome back. So, after doing some research and talking with my son and his wife, I put the reasons into a few different buckets.

[00:01:20]One of them is very practical reasons around expenses. So, with today's housing costs, child care costs, post secondary, putting the kids through school, um losing income when they have to go on parental leave, difficulty with having a work-life balance, these are really big reasons as to why they just don't think it is economically feasible to be able to have kids these days.

[00:01:48]And for many young couples it's not that they don't like children. Uh my my son is a great example. He loves kids. But he just doesn't think that the numbers work. We live in Canada and right now they're really focused on buying a home.

[00:02:02]They're even talking about retirement.

[00:02:05]They're so fixated on getting all of their numbers right so that they're going to be okay down the road and I think that having a child and raising a family would be a huge impact on those financial plans.

[00:02:23]So I think they've just kind of felt that they could only do one or the other and so they've chosen the path without children. They also see that they're going to get their fix >> [laughter] >> with their nieces and nephews and they're going to be the favorite aunt and uncle and they're going to spoil their nieces and nephews ro- rotten.

[00:02:40]There was a a text message that went out to the family and it was a picture of a great big dune buggy type remote car >> [laughter] >> and my son was saying, "Can I Can I get this for my nephew?" You know.

[00:02:54]>> [laughter] >> I thought, "Oh man, this is a recipe for disaster."

[00:02:58]But that's how he sees his role. A second bucket is really all about lifestyle reasons. I mean, my son and his wife are perfect example of this.

[00:03:07]They just don't want kids because it's going to impede on the kind of life that they have planned for themselves. So, for example, they just took backpacks and went to different parts of Asia for 6 months and I stayed in their house and look after their dog and their python.

[00:03:26]They have a python named Monty.

[00:03:28]Very cool.

[00:03:29]But if they had children, they would not be able to do that and they've got major travel plans coming up in the next few years. So, they just know that having children would prevent them from having this kind of lifestyle that they dream about and plan and and this is their priority. And to be honest with you, when I look into the research, so many young people are saying, "When I watch other young families and I see their lack of sleep, um the way that impacts their careers, the way that they are, you know, pulling their hair out, going, 'Oh my goodness, did I make the right decision?'" Cuz their personal time is being taken up, too. And and the hobbies are being impacted.

[00:04:19]And they're just looking at others going through this and saying, "This is just not for me." A third bucket was emotional reasons. A lot of young people were saying they just don't have that parental instinct. And I really relate to that because I know that when I would go to showers, people were fighting over the baby, right?

[00:04:40]And I never felt that way. I would just say, "Oh, adorable. Pass it on, you know." I have to admit, I felt very different about my own kids. I swore that if you blindfolded me and made me hold six or seven kids, I would know exactly who mine is.

[00:04:58]They just seem to fit. They molded to your body, right? And I adored my own children, but I don't adore other people's children.

[00:05:06]>> [laughter] >> So, just being honest, man.

[00:05:09]So, it's not that I like children per se, but I definitely love my own. But I think young people experience that lack of um maternal instinct and they think, "Mm, I'm just not going to be a good parent." They also worry about passing on genetic conditions. They've also had situations in which their family was quite unhealthy, and so they're afraid of passing those kinds of behaviors on and repeating family patterns. Another big concern I've seen is the impact that children might have on a marriage, the stressors that it might bring to a marriage, which they're worried would dissolve their marriage. And so, overall, part of that big choice of am I going to be a parent? comes down to am I suited to being a parent?

[00:06:00]And when they weigh all of that out, and they feel that I'm just not suited to be a good parent, then that's part of their big decision to say, "No, I'm not going to be one."

[00:06:10]A fourth big bucket is what I would call big picture reasons. So, the Gen Z and millennials, they refer to things like global instability, a lack of resources, there's so many people in the world already.

[00:06:25]They are very concerned about climate change, a lot of political instability and uncertainty in the world today.

[00:06:34]And whether people agree with their concerns or not, we do have to acknowledge that this is part of their decision-making process for many young adults today. One of the really interesting points that I found was that I mean, I totally understand the economic strain in having kids, things like child care, um health care, and of course, education costs, things like that.

[00:07:00]They are a huge factor, a huge source of stress for families. So, you could see how it would really impact uh a young couple saying, "Are we going to have kids or not?" But, in countries like Canada and Finland and Sweden and Norway, you know, we have things like universal health care and subsidized child costs. Like so, for in Canada, they adopted recently a $10-a-day child care fee. So, families only have to pay $10 a day to have kids in child care. So, that definitely helps alleviate those stressors. But, here's the thing.

[00:07:42]In Canada and these other countries like Finland and Sweden and Norway, their birth rates are falling as well.

[00:07:50]People there are choosing to not have kids. So, this suggests to me that this is not just about economics. It's about values and lifestyle, the fact that young people have more choices now than ever before.

[00:08:05]And when people have more choices, some choose paths that previous generations would have never even considered. And so, what does this mean for me? Well, I'm sad because I know that my son is going to go through life and not experience something that to me was one of the coolest things on this planet. But, he's going to have experiences that I never had.

[00:08:32]And the bottom line is is he's got to choose. He and his wife have to choose what's best for them. So, I'd like to hear from you. Knowing that so many of our millennial and Gen Z kids are deciding not to have children, what does that mean for families and retirement and society when more people decide not to become parents?

[00:08:56]I'd like to hear your thoughts in the comments. And I hope you enjoyed this video and I hope it was a little thought-provoking. And if you wouldn't mind giving it a couple thumbs up and maybe even subscribing cuz it does help small channels like mine. And in the meantime, have a wonderful day.