Why Millennial Women Are Saying “Not Yet” to Motherhood

Talaya Murphy
Jul 29
3 min read

For generations, the expectation was simple: grow up, get married, have kids. That was the playbook—especially for women. But times have changed, and so have we. The world we live in today is drastically different from the one our grandmothers, great-grandmothers, and even mothers navigated. The declining birth rate? It’s not a mystery. It’s a reflection of our reality.

Let’s be real: it’s not the 1950s anymore.

Women are no longer expected to only be homemakers. We’re educated, employed, and—let’s be honest—often the breadwinners or higher earners in our households. Some of us are doing it completely alone. Despite all that progress, we’re still operating under outdated policies and cultural expectations that don’t reflect the world we actually live in.

The Cost of Living Is Out of Control

We’re told to have children and “figure it out,” but how?

The value of the dollar isn’t what it used to be. Rent alone in NYC can be over $2,000 for a one-bedroom apartment. And that doesn’t include electricity, Wi-Fi, phone bills, groceries, diapers, baby wipes, formula, or the mental load of new parenthood.

I had a C-section, which meant eight weeks of recovery. In New York, I qualified for short-term disability—but that only paid me $300 a week. That’s $1,200 a month. Show me a one-bedroom apartment in NYC for $1,200. I’ll wait.

Paid Family Leave helped, yes, but it kicks in after short-term disability ends. By then, many families are already financially underwater. You're playing catch-up with bills, borrowing from savings, or worse—going into debt just to survive one of the most physically and emotionally intense periods of your life.

The System Isn’t Built for Us

We say we value families, but our policies say otherwise. Maternity leave is a patchwork mess. For many, it’s unpaid or severely underpaid. For others, it’s a countdown to when they’ll be forced back to work just as they’re figuring out how to be a parent.

If you're breastfeeding or pumping, balancing work with your baby’s needs becomes a full-time mental and logistical juggling act.

I was fortunate to stay home until my daughter was almost four months old, thanks to a combination of short-term disability, Paid Family Leave, and using up all my personal time. I was even luckier to return to a remote job.

But not everyone has that privilege—especially if your employer insists on in-office work just to:

Micromanage
Babysit productivity
Justify a real estate lease they regret

The Truth Behind the Declining Birth Rate

People aren’t just opting out of parenthood because they want to. They’re making informed, responsible decisions based on their realities. They’re waiting for stability—housing, income, mental health, safety. They’re waiting until they feel emotionally and financially secure enough to raise a child.

Or they’re choosing not to have children at all—and it’s not just about money or timing.

Many people cite climate anxiety, political instability, and societal pressure as reasons they don’t feel safe bringing children into this world. And they’re not wrong for that.

According to the CDC, the U.S. fertility rate dropped to just 1.599 children per woman in 2024—the lowest since record-keeping began and well below the replacement rate of 2.1.

Globally, climate anxiety is real: one survey found that nearly 60% of young people are deeply worried about climate change, and 40% say they hesitate to have children because of it.

What Needs to Change

Until we overhaul the way this country supports families—with equitable leave, better wages, affordable childcare, and real flexibility—the birth rate will continue to drop.

Not because women are “selfish” or society has “lost its values,” but because people are doing the math and realizing this system isn’t sustainable.

We deserve better. Our kids deserve better. Maybe the real issue isn’t the falling birth rate—it’s the fact that we’re still expecting people to build families in a world that makes it nearly impossible to do so.