I Do Not Want Children; Just A Cat
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I am 36 years old, which means the stork in the sky is about to skip my house for baby deliveries forever. I do not want children; just a cat. I fell in love with cats while staying at an airbnb in Pennsylvania right before the pandemic struck. The owner of the house had the most chill cat ever. I want an abyssinian cat to be specific but my building does not allow animals.
Nowadays where I live in New York City; there are some hipster neighborhoods where you are more likely to see a cat or dog in a baby carriage than you would a human being. My generation is partially failing the “reproduction commandment”. You know that social regulation where it was believed that thou shall multiply the earth.
Some millennials including myself are choosing not to have kids. According to the Center of Disease Control And Prevention births have declined one percent for the year 2019. Also women are now having children in their 40’s rather than in their 20’s and 30’s. According to the CDC birth rates have increased by two percent for women ages 40–44.
When I was growing up in the 90’s and early millennium in the upper Manhattan side of New York City; children were a badge of honor, a sign of mental health and stability. Every school day morning, thousands of mothers would walk their children to class; lining them up like ducks in a row.
Back in the 90’s in my neighborhood which is called Washington Heights in New York City; rent was free via welfare for many residents. Many WAHI inhabitants were receiving full government assistance for both food and housing.
Fast forward 20 years which is now the year of 2021, welfare is drying up and the rent is quadruple the price it was just 2 decades ago. Another factor of the era we now live in that has changed is the standard of living conditions. Millennials are interested in buying homes and cars for themselves rather than being forever indebted in rental payments. Perhaps as we enter our fourth decade of living; having settled in our homes we might even entertain the concept of child bearing.
This generation also has a greater understanding of genetic testing and markers than our parents did. Genetic markers are worth its weight in gold because it allows each prospective family to be informed of hereditary…
