Gen Y Wants Careers And Cash – Not Babies
Posted by Babble staff writers at 2:21 PM on September 8, 2009
According to News Ltd and a survey done by Relationships Australia, young women (18-29 year olds) are put off the idea of having kids because they’re too expensive.
Also, they haven’t yet met Mr Right and they don’t want their careers to suffer, apparently. But a whopping 60% of those young women surveyed said they were putting off having babies because of the cost.
However, for slightly older women (Gen Xers, 30-39 year olds), half of those surveyed said the main reason they hadn’t sprogged up yet was because they hadn’t found the right bloke. And only 17% of these ‘old birds’ said their jobs were a priority over having children.
So what are we to make of it all? Well, if you’re The Australian newspaper, you take the survey’s results as a warning to youngsters not to wait for advancing years and rapidly approaching infertility, but to plan on having kids sooner rather than later.
Which is all well and good, but what if the desire hasn’t hit you yet and you’re having too much fun travelling around the world at a moment’s notice – or hell, even going to the shop for some milk spontaneously? What if the idea of kids just isn’t in your orbit? What if, Heaven forfend, it never ends up being on your To Do List, or you never feel ‘ready’? Is it not perhaps irresponsible to be urging women to get pregnant out of fear that one day it may be too late – when they have yet to meet a decent man or feel even remotely like kissing their youth goodbye?
Just a thought.
But what do you reckon? Are you a Gen Yer who’d rather get on with her career and earn some cash than pop one out? Or are you a Gen Xer who didn’t want kids when she was younger and now fears it may be too late? Let us know in the comments boxes below.
I’m on the younger side of Gen Y, right when the cut off point was for it, and I don’t want kids. I’ve been in Scouts, various child care facilities and school, and it just looks like such hard, unnecesssary work. Plus, they’ve been frightening us off with how irresponsible teen mothers are and why we shouldn’t get pregnant. some people don’t feel they change in responsibility as they get older; how can they take charge of a new person’s whole LIFE?
The reason I don’t want kids is because I’d rather be a success in my career and a doting aunty then someone working in a fast food shop serving kebabs with two kids at home and a husband who has a great job because he didn’t want to take paternity leave. Its a woman’s job.