I asked an older couple in the process of becoming members of our church if they enjoyed being grandparents. The wife assured me it was the best part of their life, saying, “The reason you have kids is so you can have grandkids.”
But if recent statistics are accurate, this opinion isn’t widely shared among today’s parents.
Earlier this year, Pew Research reported that only 20 percent of parents say it’s very important to them that their kids have children as adults. Another 34 percent say it’s somewhat important, and a whopping 46 percent say it’s not at all important. Only 53 percent of parents say it’s very (21 percent) or somewhat (32 percent) important that their children get married as adults.
Compare this to the 98 percent of parents who say it’s very important (88 percent) or somewhat important (10 percent) that their kids grow up to be financially independent and have careers they enjoy.
How did financial and career success replace family life at the top of parents’ wish lists for their kids? And do these social values actually provide the fulfillment and happiness they promise?
Changing Concept of ‘Good Life’
Considered in historical context, the suddenness of the change is jarring. Between 1890 and 1980, the average age of an American woman’s first marriage ranged between 20 and 22. In 1990 it rose to 23.9, in 2000 to 25.1, in 2010 to 26.1, and in 2020 to 28.6. Marriage used to be seen as an important early step into adulthood. But now it’s often viewed as the last step—after completing college and starting a career. Delayed marriages partially explain why the average number of children a woman has in her reproductive years has dropped to 1.78, well below the replacement level of 2.1.
How did financial and career success replace family life at the top of parents’ wish lists for their kids?
While there are a variety of cultural forces shaping people’s choices around marriage and children, I’m most intrigued by the way Western culture has convinced multiple generations that life’s highest value is personal autonomy, as measured by financial independence. From that perspective, family commitments will naturally be viewed as obstacles to overcome—if not completely avoid—because they hinder the good life.
That’s how Seth Rogen sees it. In his recent conversation with Kelly Clarkson, the actor made it clear he doesn’t want to exchange his personal freedom for something that isn’t fun. Rogan said, “Me and my wife spend a lot of time talking about how much fun stuff we can do because we don’t have kids.”
Epicurus would be proud.
His myth—that happiness is found in self-expressive, self-focused pleasure—paints an enticing picture of the kind of life available to DINKs (dual income, no kids) that those tied down by family commitments can only dream of. With the skyrocketing costs of student loans and the daunting price of childcare, it’s unsurprising many young adults have soured on taking on parental responsibilities. What’s surprising is that their parents have too.
I see this happen with my own peers. A friend’s 22-year-old son wanted to marry his 20-year-old girlfriend. Even though both sets of parents loved the pair, they were inclined to tell them to wait. Why? Was it because the young couple wasn’t mature enough to make such an important commitment? No. Everyone agreed they’d both demonstrated the requisite personal and spiritual maturity. Both sets of parents simply thought they should wait until they earned their degrees and established their careers. Marriage could follow.
Like every parent, my friends wanted the best for their kid. But their advice revealed they’d subscribed, at least in part, to the modern vision of the good life: career success and financial independence before marriage and children. Ultimately, my friends were persuaded to support the marriage. And now they have two beautiful grandchildren that no one would trade for all the career accomplishments or financial successes in the world.
What Data Shows About Happiness
The idea that marriage and children are obstacles to personal happiness fits nicely with our modern intuition. But what if the data reveals the opposite is true?
The 2022 American Family Survey shows 33 percent of married mothers aged 18–55 report they’re “completely satisfied” with their lives, while only 15 percent of childless women in the same age range make the same claim. This is in line with the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the longest scientific study on happiness ever conducted. Their findings show “the good life” is found in relationships, including marriage and family. Other studies show marriage is of far greater importance to personal happiness than a career.
If parents wish for their adult children to be happy, the data suggests they should encourage them to prioritize marriage and children over financial independence and career advancement, when given the choice.
Unhealthy Codependency
Although less quantifiable, my personal observation is that unhealthy codependency is another factor behind why increasing numbers of parents don’t value their children starting their own families when they become adults.
As the average number of children per family has declined, parents increasingly have more time to focus on each child. They serve as companions, chefs, housecleaners, chauffeurs, coaches, cheerleaders, vacation planners, and banks, so children in middle and upper-class families sometimes fail to assume responsibility for their own lives because their parents assume too much. Codependency may be one of the reasons today’s 16-year-olds aren’t in a hurry to obtain their driver’s licenses and 22-year-olds aren’t rushing to get married and start families of their own. They’re more dependent on and emotionally enmeshed with their parents than previous generations, so the prospect of “leaving and cleaving” is less appealing to Gen Z (and their parents).
Add to the mix increased divorce rates, the rise of single-parent homes, and the general cultural obsession with youthfulness, and we can easily see how parents are tempted to meet their own personal and psychological needs by clinging to relational dependence on their children, even if they’d be happy for them to be a bit more financially independent. Would you want to help your best friend leave you?
Challenge for the Church
Laurie Santos, a professor of psychology at Yale who teaches the school’s most popular class—“Psychology and the Good Life”—told the New York Times, “Our intuitions about what will make us happy, like winning the lottery and getting a good grade—are totally wrong.” One of those common (but wrong) intuitions is that happiness depends more on financial independence and career success than marriage and family.
Our intuitions about what will make us happy, like winning the lottery and getting a good grade—are totally wrong.
Christians must actively push back against these cultural intuitions and scripts about “the good life,” because Jesus offers deeper happiness than Epicurus. The biblical vision is that, whether single or married, whether several children or none, abundant life isn’t found in self-expression or self-fulfillment but in self-denial and self-sacrifice. For many (but of course not all) people, denial and sacrifice comes in the context of family. God’s first command to the first humans, made in his image, wasn’t to travel and do “fun stuff” but to be fruitful and multiply (Gen. 1:28). Fruitfulness through marriage and family—though certainly not the only way to be fruitful—is a key part of God’s creation mandate and his good design for human flourishing.
Will it be easy for Christian young adults (and parents of adult kids) to adopt a different script than the prevailing Western cultural script about the good life? No. But be encouraged: a growing body of research confirms what the Bible teaches. Ironically, in the name of happiness, parents are directing their adult children to a life that has less of it. Perhaps they should listen to their God-given desire for grandkids.
The Gospel Coalition