Becoming Parents: Why Doesn’t Everyone Want It?

Many people think that children are the meaning of life. But does everyone agree with this statement? According to a study by the NAFI Analytical Center, 46% of Russians surveyed for one reason or another are not going to have a baby¹. Most refer to an unstable financial situation. Someone is lonely and cannot or does not want to look for a partner, and someone is simply not going to give up career prospects.

What is the real reason for this reluctance?

The percentage of women who do not want to have children is higher than the percentage of men. Perhaps the point is that now we have more opportunities to live for ourselves. This social phenomenon is associated not only with the economic turbulence that is characteristic of our time, but also with the desire of people to get the most out of life, as well as the belief that children can become an obstacle to achieving various life goals.

This opinion is especially common among potential mothers. And this is not surprising. For many centuries it was believed that a woman who did not give birth to at least one child was inferior. Now this stereotype is becoming more and more a thing of the past. A woman has the opportunity to support herself, to take care of herself. The presence of a husband is no longer a guarantee of her well-being.

Many people are basically pragmatic. They explain their reluctance by the fact that they will not be able to provide children with a decent standard of living. It should be noted that the very concept of a decent standard of living has changed over the years. Now children are born not in order to secure their old age or to have one more working hand. In a child-centric society, children are more of a luxury than a necessity.

Many cite environmental problems and overpopulation among the reasons. They believe that there are already too many people on the planet.

“Women have the opportunity to choose”

Ekaterina Klochkova, family systems therapist

In each case, the answers to the question “why?” may be different. Let’s try to analyze what influences the situation today.

1. Women’s emancipation

Although the situation with women’s rights is far from ideal, but over the past 100-50 years, opportunities for women’s self-realization, not related to childbearing, have significantly expanded. The relationship between self-esteem and household success has become more shaky and less unconditional. Women have the opportunity to choose what they like and are more suitable, not blindly obeying social pressure.

2.Crisis of the institution of marriage

Marriage with one partner is no longer seen as a project for life, if only because divorce statistics, and simply observing the bad experiences of your acquaintances, can warn impressionable and responsible people against hasty offspring.

3.Mother’s expectations

In parallel with the crisis of the institution of marriage and the emancipation of women in certain social groups, expectations from the mother are rapidly increasing. It should be “good enough”, emotionally accessible, and provide the child with the full satisfaction of his physical and emotional needs in the first years of life.

Those who have ever tried to meet these requirements know how deeply draining it is to try to meet all expectations at the same time. Especially in cases where the family is nuclear. That is, if mom, dad and child live separately from grandmothers and other relatives who are ready to help with the baby.

As soon as a child goes to kindergarten or school, parents begin to be pressured by their ideas about the need to provide him with a quality education and a safe environment for development. All this together requires an enormous strain of all the resources available to the family.

Thus, fantasies about the ideal parental role can delay indefinitely the establishment of offspring or force it to be abandoned altogether. After all, a potential parent is responsible and scrupulous about the appearance of a child. He already has enough knowledge to understand how many resources responsible upbringing will require and how important it is for a child, especially in the first years of life.

Potential parents also understand how deep devotion and austerity will require them to fulfill these duties. Perhaps that is why they do not feel ready for such self-sacrifice at the moment.

¹ https://tass.ru/obschestvo/9598459