I have to admit that one of the things I find genuinely sad about younger generations is the growing number of people who are choosing not to have children, or who are waiting until their late thirties, forties, or even later to become parents. I understand that life is different now. People have different priorities, financial pressures, career goals, and ideas about what they want their lives to look like. Some people simply don't want children, and I recognize that having children is a deeply personal decision. Still, when I look at it from the perspective of growing older, I can't help but feel a little sad.
People don't stay young forever. Eventually, parents become elderly, spouses die, friends move away or pass away, and families become smaller. The people who surrounded us throughout our younger years may no longer be there. Having children doesn't guarantee that someone will never be lonely or that their children will always be available, but there is something meaningful about having another generation of your family growing alongside you. There is a comfort in knowing that your family continues beyond your own lifetime and that there are younger generations who carry the family forward.
I also think about people who deliberately wait until they are much older to have children. There is nothing inherently wrong with becoming a parent later in life, but I do think there is another side of that decision that deserves consideration. A child whose parents are in their forties or fifties may potentially find themselves dealing with their parents' serious health problems, aging, or death much earlier in their own adulthood. They could still be relatively young when they begin worrying about their parents' health, helping them navigate aging, or grieving their loss. I don't think that's something people should be shamed for, but I do think it is something worth acknowledging when we talk about having children later in life.
That doesn't mean people should have children simply because they expect their children to take care of them. That's not how I see family at all. I come from a cultural perspective where family is more than just a collection of individuals living completely separate lives. There is an expectation of intergenerational connection and responsibility. Parents care for their children, and as the family grows older, those relationships continue. You don't simply stop being someone's child because you became an adult.
That way of looking at family can feel very different from the more individualistic idea that everyone should live entirely independently and that adult children have no responsibility toward their aging parents. To me, family is about being there for one another throughout the different stages of life. It is about watching your children grow up, seeing them become adults, becoming grandparents, and eventually becoming the older generation yourself. There is something beautiful about that continuity.
I don't believe everyone needs to make the same choices I would make. I don't think people who don't want children should be shamed into becoming parents, and I don't think there is one universal timeline that works for everyone. At the same time, I think our society has become so focused on individual independence that we've sometimes lost sight of the value of family as a lifelong, multigenerational connection.
Maybe that's why the decline in having children feels sad to me. It's not simply about babies being born. It's about the possibility of fewer families experiencing that entire cycle together: childhood, parenthood, grandparenthood, and eventually becoming the elders that the next generation looks to. For me, that continuity is something worth preserving, and I think there is still something deeply meaningful about building a family that extends beyond just one generation.
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