The Demand For Grandchildren

It's a narrative.

If you’re talking about parents telling their kids, “Isn’t it time you knocked up Becky here?”, I think you probably need to break this concept into two related sub-concepts:

1. How often does this really happen?

2. Why are older people (or not so old) seemingly desperate for grandkids?

As for (1), I don’t think it happens as much as you want to believe. It’s a trope in general. I think there are some people who put overt pressure on their kids to have their own kids by a certain date or cut-off, yes. That absolutely does exist. I know a lot about infertility by now — more than I ever thought I would — and general infertility rates in the U.S. are 15–30%, give or take. As a result, probably 70% of people who think “Oh, grandkids could someday be an option” don’t even have to apply pressure. It just happens eventually. It might take a few years, but it happens.

There are horror stories in this realm, though. Here’s a take from Slate, whereby a woman says climate change is a reason not to have kids, and her mother bursts out crying on the street.

An Indian couple also sued their son for not giving them a grandkid six years after his wedding.

And there is even a 2005 academic paper, from The Journal of Public Economics, whereby we discuss the connection between paying for your kid’s down payment on a home and expecting grandchildren as part of that payment.

So yes, it’s all out there — but I don’t think it happens as much as people want to believe, no.

As for (2) — why do some people want grandkids so badly? I can give you a couple of different reasons that I’ve seen: