When Is It Our Turn?
Before we get going here, let me just caveat this shit out for you: I am 44 years old, been married twice, have a handful of friends but probably not a ton of close ones, have a metric boatload of acquaintances including many derived from bars, and never had kids. I wanted to have kids with both women, honestly, but my ex- and I only “tried” for a bit and then got divorced, and my wife and I have been dealing with infertility for four or five years now, which yes, that does end up coloring your worldview in many ways. I cannot lie to you about that. At the same time, my dad is 85 and has liver cancer and lives in NYC. My mom is 81, limited mobility, lives (with my dad) in NYC. I’ve floated them probably 10 places to live down here in Texas, which is cheaper, and they’ve punted every one. People get set in their ways, absolutely, but I am sure if a grandbaby was involved, that transaction might have happened by now. I think about some variation of that probably every day or every other day.
My parents pay about $8,000/month in rent (they sold the place I grew up in) just to live in New York and not really take much advantage of the cultural advantages of NYC. Most of the things I’ve floated them would be $2,000/month or max $3,000. So, come at me and bitch and tell me I should move up there and take care of them, and I’ve considered that too. But from a sheer economic number, the north to south transition seems more reasonable, especially on fixed income.
Anyway, that’s my story in a nutshell. So I did want to be a biological dad at some point, and I probably never will, and elements of that process do hurt, and I would not lie to you about that as a reader of this post. It does color some of how I write and think.
There are your caveats. Now let’s get into this.
I would be called a DINK, or Dual Income No Kid, which somehow is now part of the culture wars. DINKs do have more disposable income because, well, kids are expensive. So, last week I was in St. Lucia because, in large part, I’m a DINK and can afford to do stuff like that. Since 2022, I’ve hit up a few DINK trips, including Fiji, which was almost like a COVID-postponed honeymoon.
When you travel to exotic-ish or luxury-ish places as a middle class person, basically the others involved are:
The first and third bullets are the biggest population at these types of resorts/vacations.
Naturally, when you meet someone, one of the biggest currency-establishing questions is, “Do you have kids?” followed by vague details about those kids, including ages and genders. Part of the reason infertility is infuriating in pockets is that you lose this ease of currency, but I like to think I am pretty good at bullshitting with people, even about things I don’t understand.
On these types of trips, including four times this past week in St. Lucia, you meet people with 2–4 adult children, usually 23+, sometimes into their 40s themselves. Usually, and I’d say this is true close to 90% of the time, the adult parents are generally unaware of various things the adult children are doing. I asked an Iowa couple last week about their three sons.
“We don’t even know if they’re dating.”
“We barely even hear from the middle one.”
I hear stuff like this a lot out in the wild. I am sure my mom could have said both of those statements about me at some point.
Part of it is natural “birds might fly from the nest” stuff. But there is something else here, I think.
Part (1), which I’ve thought for years and even before I realized my own sperm was shitty, is that I think we value babies but not really children. Babies are cute (usually) and they represent a major turning point in the narrative of a woman or a couple. So obviously we’re cool with babies. Once a baby is a teenager and is sullen or rebels or talks back or becomes an adult and plays video games and sits in their room, it’s a little bit less cool than having a baby. Bonus here: why do you think so many women struggle with their kids getting older?
Part (2), which I think about more recently in the context of my own life, is the “network effect” of people having 0–1 kids. We already know dating sucks. It’s hard to meet people. Young Men are not really doing great these days, and tons of Internet threads or memes or trends begin around “Why don’t any men over 30 have their shit together?” As we see less marriage, later marriage, etc… we’re gonna see less babies. That’s been a narrative since 2007, if not before. So now, 30 years ago, a woman was surrounded by friends with 2–3 kids. In 10 years, that woman’s daughter is not surrounded by that.
On my last day in St. Lucia, a six-some of British 20-something women showed up at the resort. 2 had boyfriends back home. No kids. 4 not dating. Six-person girls trip. 10 nights. Fucking awesome! But … as that becomes normalized, will some people look at kids and think “Eh, I can take it or leave it?”
I think most people realize by now that people wanting less kids is predominantly economic these days, but there is a health element too. Look at this, for example (it’s from here):
That last part is from Carlyn Beccia, as an aside.
At my most pessimistic, I think we don’t value “family” that much — especially men — and as the genders drift past each other, we will continue to see a crumbling of this particular societal cookie around having kids, the stories we tell ourselves about the importance of kids in our lives, and more.
At my most optimistic, I just hope I’m full of shit and some sense of hope and economic revival can put the cookie back together.
I don’t think we really know yet.