44 Percent of Millennials Don’t Have or Want Kids, and How They Killed an Entire Economy

The millennials were always being blamed for killing industries, but they did their big one with the economy. 44 percent of millennials don’t have children and/or don’t want any. This is my Roman Empire. Millennials are the largest generation behind the Baby Boomers, and millennials grew up in a pre-screenager era. “If you can’t afford kids, don’t have them,” we were told, and we listened. We listened to the tune of creating an environment that now needs each American to have two children to re-populate the capitalist society that we were thrown into.

If those 44 percent were to have children when most people did, their children would just be going to college. There’s no wonder we’re sitting on school enrollment cliffs. There’s also a shortage of youth who would’ve applied for jobs, signed up for programming, and or paid taxes. We created this universe, magnifying the flaws of running in a capitalist society.

I’ve met children, I love them, and my mom had a daycare that she ran out of the house. I’ve always known that I never wanted kids. American society doesn’t create an environment conducive to wanting to bring life into this world. Adding the extra layer of a Black life into this world would exhaust me. We don’t have a system supporting the 56 percent of millennials who do have children. There’s no help with healthcare, housing, childcare, food, or education. What would make the government think that having children seems like a great idea when the government is already failing parents from all generations? In fact, our current federal government is regressing with the cut of SNAP, healthcare, education funding, and infrastructure. This is the same government that cuts social security benefits and then blames the taxpayers, as it is projected to be gone by 2032. Someone on TikTok said it best: “Do you know how much you have to abuse a mammal for it not to want to reproduce?” That completely tracks. So many of my friends don’t have children, and their friends don’t.

Now that the courts ruled that the affordable SAVE Student Loan Repayment program is gone, I’ll have to start paying my federal student loans back with an interest of $10 a day until 2051. I just think about how if I did have children and they were just going to college, I would be paying my student loans and their student loans. My current student loan repayment plan is to hope that capitalism crashes at this point because it’s unrealistic.

It’s heartbreaking that the federal administration wants to starve its taxpayers, keep them uneducated, unhoused, and unwell. This entire administration is giving unwell and unhinged, and their push for reproduction has women saying, “Oh well.” Because that’s the appropriate response.