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- Many millennial parents have just two kids, seeing three as a luxury.Experts say it's not just financial and logistical. It's down to changing values, too.Millennial parents who considered having more kids share the roadblocks they came up against.
Victoria Lamson and her husband once entertained the idea of having a third child. Then, they considered the logistics.
Even having their two children was a challenge. To alleviate financial strain, they "intentionally put five years in between" having children, Lamson, 38, told Business Insider.
The couple is raising them in San Francisco, the most expensive US city. They send their 7-year-old son to a nearby parochial school because the public school system in San Francisco is "definitely struggling," Lamson said. When her 2-year-old daughter is old enough, she will attend the same school. Private school costs in the city average $26,000 per child annually. Moving, in order to afford a third child, would also be difficult — both her and her husband's families live nearby.
Plus, she and her husband's careers have undergone many changes. Lamson pivoted from sales to PR, ending her first contract PR role when she gave birth to her second child. She spent part of her maternity leave looking for a new job. Meanwhile, her husband, who works in tech recruiting, has experienced a decline in business with the recent tech layoffs.
"Putting all those factors together, it really just doesn't make sense for us anymore," Lamson said.
Lamson and her husband join other millennials, who are between the ages of 29 and 44, averaging two kids max. Along with the millennials who are having fewer kids or remaining child-free, the generation is often blamed for America's shrinking birth rate.
There isn't one economic or cultural reason as to why so many millennials are two-and-done with having kids. While childcare costs and fertility issues play substantial roles, there has also been a sea change in what an ideal family — and family size — looks like.
Barely making do with two
When it comes to family size, millennials aren't that different from their predecessors. According to a 2020 Pew Research Center Report, millennial women average 2.02 kids. At similar ages, Gen X women had 2.05 kids and boomers 2.07.
Pamela Smock, a professor of sociology at the University of Michigan, said having two kids has been an American ideal since the 1960s. The difference between the generations is that millennials are less likely to have kids than previous generations. In that sense, a young family with two kids is no longer the norm, but, for some, a symbol of luxury.
"People see marriage and childbearing as something to do once they feel economically comfortable," Smock said.
To many, that means not having any debt and being able to afford a mortgage. The average millennial borrower owes $42,000 in student loan debt, part of why it's so difficult for millennials to buy their first homes. Comparatively, 45% of baby boomers bought their first homes between the ages of 25 and 34.
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Work has also changed, Smock said. Gone are the lifelong jobs that require a basic college degree. Millennials are known as the "job-hopping generation," which also impacts their sense of security as costs keep rising.
Stephanie Fornaro, a 40-year-old mom of two in Dallas, has a 20-year-old daughter in college and a 7-year-old son. She had her daughter when she was 20, but delayed having her son until her early 30s.
"Financially, I was in a different season in my life to afford a second child," she said, adding that she divorced a few years after giving birth to her daughter. It was only when she remarried in 2017 that she felt secure enough to have another kid.
Wendie N. Choudary, a sociologist and lecturer at Binghamton University, told BI that in addition to rent or housing costs, millennial parents also have to deal with astronomically high childcare costs, paying an annual average of $11,000 per child.
Fornaro, who founded and runs a national childcare agency, said a third child would have a huge financial impact on her family. To keep up with her job, she would need a full-time nanny — roughly $80,000 a year in Dallas.
Childcare costs are so high that some parents struggle to even have their second child. Katie Waldron, who lives in Long Island, New York, previously told Business Insider that she and her husband want a second child soon, but are considering moving to the UK to be closer to his family and find more affordable childcare services.
"The burden of childcare costs and, equally, the lack of emotional support as we go through our parenting journey make it impossible to have another," she said.
Millennials are having kids later
Economic uncertainty also plays a role in millennials having kids later than past generations, Smock said, thus affecting how many they have. Millennials' median age for first-time parents is 27.3, a significant increase from the 1970s when it was the norm to have kids at 21.
Depending on when they start having kids, timing the third can be tricky. More parents are having kids in their 40s, past the fertility peak at 37 years old. Even if the plan is to have more than two kids, it's not necessarily in the parents' control, Smock said. Not everyone can afford IVF, which can cost $12,000 and require six rounds to achieve success.
Having kids past 35 also increases the chances of conditions like preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, premature birth, or genetic disorders in the fetus. Parents considering a third child in their late 30s or early 40s might not feel the risk is worth it.
Sometimes, a rough pregnancy is enough to deter wanting more kids. Lamson, who had her first child at 31 and second at 36, felt a huge difference in those five years. At 31, she said it was easy to stay very active and exercise four times a week. The second time was more challenging.
"I had really low energy throughout my entire pregnancy," she said. "I struggled with a lot of pain, so even when I would try to just get out and walk, I could only kind of do so for a period of time before I didn't feel all that well."
"I attribute it a lot to age," she said, adding that she ended up going to physical therapy to alleviate some symptoms.
With more choice, parents choose fewer kids
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After World War II, it was normal to get married at 19 and have kids in rapid succession, Smock said. But with more choices, millennials realized "they don't have to follow the path that their parents and grandparents took," she said.
In recent years, there's been an increased online interest in "trad wives" and the merits of large families. However, it hasn't shown much of a dent in what most people want, Julia A. Behrman, an associate professor of sociology at Northwestern University who researches how values shape a person's ideal family size, told BI.
"We are pretty consistently seeing these average ideal family sizes of about 2.5," Behrman said. Most actually plan to have fewer: roughly 1.8 on average among people in their 20s and 30s.
In Behrman's research, she's found that people with more progressive views on gender norms and household labor tend to want fewer kids — often because they are aware of how childrearing disproportionately falls on mothers.
Even if parents want two or more kids, Behrman's research found that it doesn't mean it's their top priority. Other aspects of family life, like financial stability, rank higher.
For the parents who can technically swing three kids, it could mean a notable decline in their quality of life. Fornaro, who grew up as one of eight children and felt neglected because her dad and stepmom struggled to raise them all, doesn't want her kids to experience the same. She said having a third wouldn't just impact how much she could contribute to her kids' college tuition or inheritances. It would also change how much time she gets to spend with them.
"We are a pretty active family," she said. Traveling and going on their boat would be harder with an infant. Taking her son to his extracurriculars — jujitsu, baseball, and football — would also be much harder with a newborn. And with Fornaro's daughter in college, caring for a baby would make it difficult for Fornaro to visit her.
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Lamson even felt a big difference in what she could do after having a second kid. She and her husband took their son to Europe when he was 10 months old because he had an easygoing demeanor. "My daughter doesn't have the same personality; she's a little bit more challenging," Lamson said.
They've opted for more staycations and plan to travel more when their daughter is older. Having a third child would be financially "really limiting" for vacations, not to mention the logistics of wrangling three kids onto a flight.
It's not that millennial parents don't love parenting or a house full of kids. Fornaro fell in love with being a mom after her first child. Lamson wanted a third. They just wanted to give more to their existing family.
"I wanted my kids to have my undivided attention," Fornaro said. "I felt like that was one thing that I didn't get out of my parents."
