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199 lines
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[1]Opinion|There’s a Link Between Therapy Culture and Childlessness
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https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/opinion/
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therapy-estrangement-childless-millennials.html
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[8]1651
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You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When
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A pair of figures peer over a body of water in which is reflected the figure of
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a parent and child.
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Credit...Dadu Shin
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[9]Skip to content[10]Skip to site index
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[11]
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[12]OpinionGuest Essay
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There’s a Link Between Therapy Culture and Childlessness
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Credit...Dadu Shin
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[20]1651
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Michal Leibowitz
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By Michal Leibowitz
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Ms. Leibowitz is a staff editor for Times Opinion.
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• May 30, 2025
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They mess you up, your mum and dad.
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They may not mean to, but they do.
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They fill you with the faults they had
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And add some extra, just for you.
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How many times had I read [21]a version of these lines or heard them recited?
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The opening stanza of Philip Larkin’s poem “This Be the Verse” is a favorite of
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fictional [22]shrinks and [23]wise folk. I can say the words by heart. But it
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was only last year, my stomach already stretching with new life, that I reread
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the poem and found myself focusing on the third stanza, which offers the
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logical conclusion of the earlier two:
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Man hands on misery to man.
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It deepens like a coastal shelf.
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Get out as early as you can,
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And don’t have any kids yourself.
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There are few decisions more fraught for members of my generations — the cusp
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of millennial and Gen Z — than whether or not to become a parent. In 2023 the
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U.S. fertility rate fell to a record low. Some of the decline can be explained
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by [24]a delay in having children or a decrease in the number of children,
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rather than people forgoing child rearing entirely. But it still seems [25]
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increasingly likely that millennials will have the highest rate of
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childlessness of any generational cohort in American history.
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There are plenty of plausible explanations for the trend. People aren’t having
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kids because it’s too expensive. They’re not having kids because they can’t
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find the right partner. They’re not having kids because they want to prioritize
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their careers, because of climate change, because the idea of bringing a child
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onto this broken planet is too depressing. They’re swearing off parenthood
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because of the [26]overturning of Roe v. Wade or because they’re perennially
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commitmentphobic or because popular culture has made motherhood seem [27]so
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daunting, its burdens so deeply unpleasant, that you have to have a touch of
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masochism to even consider it. Maybe women, in particular, are having fewer
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children simply because they can.
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I suspect there’s some truth in all of these explanations. But I think there’s
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another reason, too, one that’s often been overlooked. Over the past few
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decades, Americans have redefined “harm,” “abuse,” “neglect” and “trauma,”
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expanding those categories to include emotional and relational struggles that
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were previously considered unavoidable parts of life. Adult children seem
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increasingly likely to publicly, even righteously, cut off contact with a
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parent, sometimes citing emotional, physical or sexual abuse they experienced
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in childhood and sometimes things like clashing values, [28]parental toxicity
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or feeling misunderstood or unsupported.
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This cultural shift has contributed to a new, nearly impossible standard for
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parenting. Not only must parents provide shelter, food, safety and love, but
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we, their children, also expect them to get us started on successful careers
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and even to hold themselves accountable for our mental health and happiness
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well into our adult years.
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So I want to suggest that there’s another reason my generation dreads
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parenthood: We’ve held our own parents to unreachable standards, standards that
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deep down, maybe, we know we ourselves would struggle to meet.
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I: They Mess You Up
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I turned 14 in 2010, right when self-harm rates for U.S. girls began [29]
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ticking up. I was part of a generation of teenage girls who came of age with
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the internet — with Tumblr, blogs, Snapchat and YouTube. With smartphones. With
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the compelling urge to self-punish or annihilate.
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References:
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[1] https://www.nytimes.com/section/opinion
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[2] https://www.nytimes.com/
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[3] https://www.nytimes.com/
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[8] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/opinion/therapy-estrangement-childless-millennials.html
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[9] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/opinion/therapy-estrangement-childless-millennials.html#site-content
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[15] https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/articles/24318293692180
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[20] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/opinion/therapy-estrangement-childless-millennials.html
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[21] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48419/this-be-the-verse
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[22] https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&sca_esv=730791857161bc9a&rls=en&sxsrf=ADLYWILA4pJA-6CEJoh4xqs72FtgJIJWsQ:1735773599376&q=therapist+austerlitz+succession&udm=7&fbs=AEQNm0Aa4sjWe7Rqy32pFwRj0UkWd8nbOJfsBGGB5IQQO6L3JyJJclJuzBPl12qJyPx7ESIf1S9KobXMZccIxNeT1A6IHPsOrb2ailWCtrbH230590Qqo_gr3WbK8_b8jln9piI4WsQXYzjWUxHnj2ThOaNp-6yTa8icx87qAZPKBvcGnuSdAwy48glHDioP4Tiz-OaaZCZJDfkWGm9ybQ0VBnye0yPhLw&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwirn7TG1NWKAxX3JTQIHbscDtgQtKgLegQIGBAB&biw=1000&bih=886&dpr=2#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:f8752983,vid:OXipqo14VyY,st:0
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[23] https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&sca_esv=730791857161bc9a&rls=en&sxsrf=ADLYWIIzM3C6w-3BgMNesOMFxnIPr4UqSQ:1735773643039&q=this+be+the+verse+ted+lasso&udm=7&fbs=AEQNm0Aa4sjWe7Rqy32pFwRj0UkWwAFG7ranuZ26H8lR7pf_8AzBs6lnFFuPH6eU3OV27QLdrv7xAgNCyLdE47ea9xYrum71RBqtM2WCrFpEPdkQQSMW_9Ax_gFEn0J_HL-N4u79eZY_XjE_8W6eM0exMezM_gxd-9unzo5Y3EKgC-mcki7jqdxIUdAWV2ac7fdlRJDMShSTsGdfH4qPIBWx_K_KlUPk2Q&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiVlZ3b1NWKAxXVDTQIHcM0Mq8QtKgLegQIHBAB&biw=1000&bih=886&dpr=2#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:f16250ed,vid:agld0a0JWB4,st:0
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[24] https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2018/10/31/americas-fertility-rate-continues-its-deep-decline?utm_medium=cpc.adword.pd&utm_source=google&ppccampaignID=17210591673&ppcadID=&utm_campaign=a.22brand_pmax&utm_content=conversion.direct-response.anonymous&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwmrqzBhAoEiwAXVpgok5N1YRwrhtysJOLNrDdXLZg8KMOqw3OCtuxi6XyUejmfO2ZhX8aYBoCDQgQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
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[25] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/11/03/millennials-only-children/
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[26] https://apnews.com/article/abortion-tubal-ligations-tying-tubes-dobbs-roe-jama-2ec56d7f2707db083e513bdc74a5016d
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[27] https://www.vox.com/features/23979357/millennials-motherhood-dread-parenting-birthrate-women-policy
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[28] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277306594_Disconnection_and_Decision-making_Adult_Children_Explain_Their_Reasons_for_Estranging_from_Parents
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[29] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/03/teen-childhood-smartphone-use-mental-health-effects/677722/
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