Should You Want Your Children to Get Married and Have Children?

An argument for a norm

Photo by James X on Unsplash

A recent Atlantic article discussed the latest Pew research on parenting which found that only 39% of those surveyed would say that “society is better off if people make marriage and having children a priority.” Which makes sense given our historically low fertility rate. The majority of Americans simply do not value marriage and children, a fact I’ve touched on before with the phenomenon of “fur babies.”

Further Pew research mentioned in the article shows that most parents don’t think it’s “important” that their kids pursue marriage or having children. On the other hand, 88% of parents believe that it is “extremely” or “very” important for their kids to have “jobs or careers they enjoy.” At the end of the article, the author, Stephanie H. Murray, gives some anecdotal evidence to support the Pew research, citing examples from a variety of parents she knows who pretty much all believe that it’s important that “their children achieve financial independence and find a job or career they enjoy.”

But most significantly, these parents believed that their role was “not to tell their kids how to lead a good life, but to help them figure out what sort of life they want and how to achieve it.” The article ends with Murray musing, “This retreat from parental authority isn’t wishy-washy indifference but a clear-eyed embrace of reality. After all, the same economic shifts that have made it easier for people to leave a marriage, or to forgo the whole institution, have made it easier for adult children to ignore their parents’ wishes, or to build a life without their parents in it.”

Which raises an important question, one I’ve had among good friends who have disagreed with me: What should parental expectations be?

Given the fact that some children will grow up to live single lives and that some who marry will not be able to have children, should we avoid talking about marriage and children as their expected future? Are we setting up a false idol of family? Would it be better to not tell them “how to lead a good life, but to help them figure out what sort of life they want and how to achieve it?”