I don’t want to leapfrog the importance of the Millennials and the wedding market because we think it’s going to be important, but I must comment on another phenomenon that I observed over this past weekend.
A little background…My husband and I will soon be empty nest Baby Boomers and we are considering where we want to settle after the last child has left for college. We have already lived the “country/suburban” lifestyle in the NY Metro area and have a New England mountain/lake home where we will live for the majority of the year, but where to settle for winter and “mud season”?? We are thinking we would like to be close to a city, preferably New York, in an affordable area with some degree of charm. Since prices in Brooklyn and Hoboken are reaching into the clouds, we decided to take a look at Jersey City. We had heard a lot about gentrifying brownstones, high rises with hotel amenities and quasi-affordability. What we had not heard about was HOW YOUNG the area is and HOW OLD we seemed by comparison! It was great to see so many young people – we certainly don’t want to live solely among senior citizens – but we didn’t see ANYONE our age the whole afternoon. (Until we stopped to eat a mid afternoon prix fixe meal at a dockside restaurant…where we realized that we were taking advantage of the “Early Bird Special.” UGH! We are our parents!!)
But I digress… In light of the opportunity to observe clusters of Millennials firsthand, we sat for several hours just watching the crowds walk by. It was like a laboratory reinforcing all the trends we’ve been watching at AIM over the past several years. Here are a few of my observations:
1. Everyone was about 25 years old (and at most early 30’s)
2. The crowd was quite diverse in terms of ethnicity and couple/combinations
3. The coffee bars were packed
4. Over half of the young people were pushing baby carriages with very young babies
So is the baby thing a new trend? Is the Recession over and now it’s time to start a family? Jersey City sits squarely across the Hudson River from Lower Manhattan and Wall Street. We have been hearing for over a year that the financial industry is back and strong, so maybe this baby thing is not a national trend. I’d like to hear from some people in other parts of the country. What do you think?
-Robin A @ Albing International Marketing
Click here to see what Pew Research has to say about this Trend.
i don't know that your experience in particular would be reason enough to think that there is a "baby thing" starting among Millennials. a lot of new parents tend to lose their identity in "being Mommy and Daddy", so it wouldn't surprise me at all to see a lot of new, young Millennial parents moving into the same area, to be around more people like themselves.
ReplyDeletebut still, you may be right. the recession hit some areas harder than others. Louisiana, for example, wasn't so severely affected, and in fact, most of my married peers have a child that is now 2 - 3 years old. it's funny you should bring this up, because just yesterday i was thinking about how weird it seems, being in the minority for being young, married, and not having a child yet. off the top of my head, i can only think of one married couple around our age that i know (a coworker & his wife) that doesn't have a toddler.
I would have to say where I live, both my husband and I might be considered a minority. We both have just one child and most of the families in the area have at least two children. A couple of friends of mine actually are under the age of 35 and have at least 4 children all under the age of 6. I feel that it seems like families nowadays are starting out young and couples are having more than one child often before they hit 30. I guess even with the recession and all the economic challenges facing many people today it does not necessarily deter them from either delaying starting a family or limiting their family size.
ReplyDeleteI am a married mom of 2.I have a 4 year old daughter and a 1 year old son.Both were planned babies.My husband and I were married young and together for years and with a 2 year engagement before starting out.I honestly find that around us and many people I know are around our age and have 3 or more kids and a few of the girls to different father's. I see many people having kids early in life and honestly some of the things I hear are honestly about how they don't have medical coverage and ones that do don't properly take birth control and precautions. It's sad really because several of these people can barely afford themselves let alone the children they have already but they almost somewhat brag that they need assistance and feel entitled to have things handed to them. Some of them never even planned to have these children.Several have help and assistance from family.My husband and I choose are path because it was right for us and he made enough so we could sustain having children. We also have parents that are older and we weren't sure how long they'd be around. We however do things on are own financially as well as with our children. Many people I know have help in both aspects.Everyone of the people I know though with more then 2 kids is struggling (Which in this economy who wouldn't be). So, I think in some area's it's so common and people really don't consider the cost, or really care enough at the moment.We live in the suburbs and most our neighbors are older then us.Our street a lone we are the youngest couple everyone else is in their mid 30's and up and it's the same on most the streets near us.In other area's you'll see situations like you mentioned of "clusters" of young parents in similar financial and number of children area's.I also don't think in the 20's is that suprising but higher numbers of teen pregnancies are more of an issue especially with shows like 16 and pregnant and teen mom.It's just bad all around in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteI never really thought of myself as being young and having kids. I just turned 28 and am a month away from my 2nd child. Our group of friends all started having kids around the same age (26ish), and there are only a few left unmarried, and only one married couple that is childless, although they are doting "parents" to their animals. My husband and I were together (either dating or married) for 7 years before we had our first child in 09. I think we would have waited a year or two more to start having kids except for a medical necessity to start sooner. I don't think we would have waited much more than a couple of years because we didn't want to be old when we had kids and we both felt that we were ready to settle down. Even now I think of new parents as young if they're younger than 24, and old if they are older than 30. Late 20's you're old enough to have learned some things about life, but you're not so old that you've forgotten what it's like to be young.
ReplyDeleteIt does seem like the mid to upper 20s is the new "cool" age to have your kiddos. I'm 29 and my husband and I are currently expecting our first baby. We waited until we felt ready but I was still a nice, healthy age to have a relatively uncomplicated pregnancy (fingers crossed!).
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