‘Fear of missing out’ drives parents to have children: Study
- Study: FOMO one of main reasons that regretful parents have children
- About 7% say they wouldn’t have children if they could do it over again
- Researchers: Include parental regret in reproductive counseling services
Sad boy listening to his parents fighting ,screaming at each other
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(NewsNation) — Among regretful parents, fear of missing out is a key motivator for having children, according to a study.
About one in every 14 parents ( about 7%) in the U.S. say they wouldn’t have children if they could do it over again, according to a Rutgers study.
One of the main reasons that regretful parents have children in the first place may be fear of missing out, more colloquially known as “FOMO.”
Parental regret is even higher in parts of Europe — 8% in Germany and 13.6% in Poland.
Parents, specifically mothers, are “supposed to love their children unconditionally from conception to eternity,” researchers wrote.
Researchers collected narratives from Reddit’s /r/childfree subreddit from parents who were allowed to freely express regret about having children. It has cataloged 85 such testimonies between 2011 and 2021.
Three discourses emerged: parenting as heaven; parenting as hell and parenting as (the only) choice.
Researchers examined how the discourses interacted to guide decision-making about having children. What they found was a new, previously unconsidered, driver: FOMO.
Researchers added that with access to abortion in the U.S. increasingly restricted, the potential for parental regret should be included in reproductive counseling services.
