Is Instagram Making You Put Off Having Kids?
Having kids is hard work. At least this is what I’m told.
People say they’re putting off having kids for financial reasons. Many first want a house and a career. This is also what we’re seeing in the data. However, much of the concerns I’m hearing from people have nothing to do with money or career. In my personal experience, what troubles people the most, both pre-kids and post, is the change in lifestyle.
As my friends started having kids, I started hearing (quite a bit) of the challenges of having kids. Rarely was it about financial struggles or work conflicts. Many young parents around me like to emphasize the benefits of waiting, of not rushing to take the plunge. This always reminded me of my past life as a lawyer, when almost every lawyer I ran into exclaimed how being a lawyer is a terrible profession.
Then my wife got pregnant (our 5/31 due date is fast approaching), and suddenly we found ourselves in even more conversations where everyone asked us whether we’re ready (whatever that means). Not for the financial strain or potential career implications. But whether we’re ready for the change in lifestyle.
Swapping happy hours for sleep deprivation, date nights for play dates, and jogging for stroller walks. It seems these are the things I should be stressing about, apparently.
How did we get here?
I recently read The Lessons of History by Ariel and Will Durant. Highly recommended for anyone wanting to explore ideas on the human condition and gain a deeper understanding of recurring themes and events in human history.
Specifically in chapter 4, ‘Morals and History’, it’s mentioned that in the era of cave dwellers, children may have been perceived as a burden, demanding resources and care while contributing little to the tribe's survival.
Then, with the advent of agriculture, children became assets as integral members of the (newly formed) ‘family unit’, placing the kids as farm workers ensuring the family's sustenance.
As the industrial revolution emerged and urban metropolises began to rise, the traditional family unit experienced a shift. Children were no longer seen as contributing members of the family workforce but rather as expensive dependents.
Instead of working on the family farm, “men, women, and children left home and family, authority and unity, to work as individuals, individually paid”.
Around the early 20th century, and development of humanistic psychology, the idea of having kids as a path to self-actualization began to emerge. Parents found fulfillment and personal growth through raising the next generation (quite the journey we’ve made).
In recent years, however, I’d say a culture of self-centeredness has taken root, leading many to perceive the cons of parenthood as outweighing the pros. I don’t believe such self-centeredness is necessarily good or bad, but simply a behavior pattern we’re witnessing.
This shift in perspective has resulted in individuals postponing or even forgoing having children, prioritizing their personal ambitions and desires above the experience of raising a family.
Instagram culture.
The pervasive presence of Instagram (and other similar apps) in our daily lives has given rise to a unique set of challenges, most notably FOMO and mental health concerns. Users are bombarded with a constant stream of curated highlight reels, showcasing the seemingly perfect lives of others, which often spark feelings of missing out and envy.
The business model of such apps has placed us into an endless cycle of sensational content creation with (one of many) extreme examples such as people renting (grounded) private jets just to take pictures in them.
All this exposure feeds into a culture of social comparison, where individuals, sometimes even unconsciously, measure their self-worth against others' (often staged) achievements and experiences, leading to anxiety and depression.
These effects are not unique to Instagram, but span a broader cultural phenomenon spreading in the recent decade. And while many believe a lot of the negative effects only impact teenagers, today we also know that adults on Instagram are more prone to social comparison and face problems with social anxiety, self-esteem, and mood.
There’s something about parenthood which is not instagramable. Fleeting moments of joy packed with emotions which we’re not especially good at verbalizing, all make it hard to communicate our experiences to others.
Having a baby that demands your full attention could also make you less interested in constantly representing to others what you’re going through. Perhaps that is why we’re not seeing much of the positive effects of parenthood represented on Instagram.
It seems no one is renting babies to pose with during a staged day at the park.
By mainly sharing a few types of experiences on social media (young, single, self-centered), we’re discounting the potential joys of parenthood. We’re standardizing a certain perspective over society.
Joys?
Let’s not sugarcoat it. Parenthood is hard work. But that work has its benefits. Raising a kid could summon the opportunity to notice things about the world which we often overlook. It gives us an excuse to try and watch the world as our children do, without judgment.
Derek Sivers published a wonderful post about traveling with kids where he writes:
“Your child has no prejudices. This is my favorite part. I often go to places I’m biased against. Seeing them through my child’s unbiased perception, and interacting with the people as such, helps me connect, which then helps me expire my old opinions. I wish I could take him with me everywhere, like glasses.”
We can view the journey of parenthood as an instrument for self-improvement. By engaging in this process, we can repair and clean certain aspects of our own personalities. This new, enduring habit (one which we can’t drop) encourages us to stay mindful of our behavior and fosters personal growth.
One might think that parents mostly share their struggles simply because they’re exhausted and need the release. It could also be that many parents simply aren’t capable of verbalizing their experience. And, perhaps, describing the experience of parenthood is even beyond common words and phrases.
Unfortunately, most of us resist treating parenthood as exciting. We’re used to excitement having a component of risk. We’ve conditioned ourselves to favor exhilarating and stimulating experiences. But, regardless of how ‘into it’ you are, it seems that we can’t really appreciate parenthood through the same lens of Instagram Reels and TikTok dance routines.
In our quest for constant excitement, we may be overlooking the value of the mundane, the everyday tasks that parenthood brings. The simple acts of maintaining, and cleaning, both in the physical and emotional sense, can be just as valuable as those adrenaline-pumping adventures.
Parenthood is a unique opportunity to practice patience, resilience, and empathy, and to pass these qualities on to the next generation. As we find ourselves immersed in the ordinary moments, we might just discover that there is a different kind of fulfillment in the quiet, steady work of raising a kid.
"Because the thing about repairing, maintaining, and cleaning is it's not an adventure. There's no way to do it so wrong, you might die. It's just work. And the bottom line is some people are okay going to work. And some people, well, some people would rather die. Each of us gets to choose." Dr. Wong - Rick and Morty
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If this post resonated with you or you have a different viewpoint, I'd love for you to hit the like button and/or share your thoughts in the comments below—your engagement means a lot to me, and I'm always eager to hear diverse perspectives and engage in meaningful conversations
Wow, the renting of grounded jets trend is awfully telling of the times, and I liked your joke about nobody renting babies yet to stage a shot. But if you think about it, that’s actually not so far from what has been true in the past. There’s been the cultural expectation in America that getting married and having kids is just what you should do, and anything else is appears strange. As a result, many people have “staged” the picture of normal family lives to fit in, without actually fully choosing the role of parenting. The upside of the waning assumption that everyone should parent, is that maybe a higher percentage of parents will consciously make the choice, a trend that can only have overall positive effects on the next generation. I love the intentionality amd thoughtfulness you’re demonstrating in your approach to becoming a dad. I have 2 grown kids and a teenager, and all I can say is that, in the best of ways, the version of me who decided to have kids did not survive 30 years of parenting. And what else should life be about but allowing something real, living, and true to shape you?