Millennials Are Unlearning Anti-Family Indoctrination

The millennial generation, born between 1981 and 1996, was largely raised by baby boomer parents. After slow but steady drops in recent decades, the total fertility rate of the United States is currently estimated at 1.786 births per woman – well below replacement levels. Sociologists, civic planners, and lab coat-clad concerned experts across the board have warned that if this trend continues or worsens, we can expect economic recession and untold devastating consequences.

But there seems to be a confounding lack of urgency to remedy this problem. In fact, more often than not, the mainstream media commentariat condemns building large families – or even reproducing at all – as a selfish, even shameful act. Having children, they say, multiplies your carbon footprint, thereby accelerating apocalyptic climate disaster. That’s not even to mention the risk of passing down generational trauma and pesky familial baggage. And besides, who would want to bring children into a world like this?

On the bright side, there is evidence to suggest that millennials are beginning to break out of the relentless anti-family indoctrination that has been blaring into their psyche like elevator muzak since they gained sentience.

I’m not presenting statistical evidence to support this claim. I am instead inviting you to peer into the realm of the subconscious. The artistic output of the millennial generation reveals more truth than a double-blind study ever could.

Matty Healy, frontman for the British alternative rock band The 1975 (and ex-fling of Taylor Swift), has a habit of pushing boundaries. The 35-year-old singer has earned a weathered reputation with “problematic” jokes, controversial lyrics (“Jesus save us, modernity has failed us”), and provocative on-stage theatrics (most notably, doing pushups in front of videos of Ben Shapiro).

In The 1975’s 2018 album A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships, Healy risked alienating a portion of his female-skewed listeners. On the track “Sincerity Is Scary,” Healy sarcastically quips, “Keep on putting off conceiving, it’s only you that you’re deceiving, / ‘Oh, don’t have a child, don’t cramp your style.’”

Healy is poking fun at his generation’s flippant attitude toward having children. Worth mentioning here is a line from The 1975’s debut album regarding the pressures of growing up: “What you sitting 'round here for, and why you sad? / 'Cause everybody's pushing out babies now.”

These are self-deprecating remarks, not pointed attacks. That means it’s more likely to resonate with people who relate to Healy’s experience.

British pop star Charli XCX has been romantically involved with Healy’s childhood friend and bandmate George Daniel since 2022. The couple went from “Instagram-official” to getting engaged in November 2023.

Charli is responsible for instigating the viral green-tinged BRAT craze that defined the summer of 2024. Her album’s staggering success is largely owed to navel-gazing reflections on the struggles of fame, romanticized depictions of recreational ketamine use, and smudged eyeliner.

However, BRAT closes on a shockingly vulnerable note: It appears Charli wants to create some brats of her own. On the track “I think about it all the time,” Charli, now in a committed relationship, shares the sudden realization that motherhood might be more fulfilling than her career: “I think about it all the time / That I might run out of time / But I finally met my baby / And a baby might be mine.”

This 32-year-old Grammy nominee is asking herself the same hard-hitting questions many single millennial women grapple with daily: “Would it give my life a new purpose? Would it make me miss all my freedom?”

Later in the song, she even toys with the idea of going off birth control: “I'm so scared I'm missin' out on something ... Should I stop my birth control? / 'Cause my career feels so small in the existential scheme of it all.”

Starting a family is becoming a more attractive prospect for her than pining after streams and awards.

Charli has made her mark on the world through music. But she knows better than anyone that popularity is fleeting. Starting a family is becoming a more attractive prospect for her than pining after streams and awards. She thinks about it all the time. Many of her listeners sit at a similar stage in life, feeling equally hopeless and confused.

It’s vitally important for them to hear their anxieties about the future vocalized through an artistic medium, rather than a professional commentator’s harsh exhortation to “hurry up before it’s too late.” Art disarms us and, at its best, compels us to contemplate uncomfortable truths.

There is a message of hope to be found here. Millennials are rummaging through all the garbage they were taught since childhood, especially the idea that a dead-end job ought to provide them with a sense of purpose in the world. They haven’t quite hit that “eureka” moment yet – and that’s okay. The gears are turning.

As frustrating as it can be to observe from the sidelines, I’d encourage those who know better to avoid shoving smelling salts under the nostrils of their dazed liberal friends. Perhaps in the coming years, we’ll see more millennials put down the birth control pill and pick up the white pill.

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