"When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things." Saint Paul wrote these wise words around 55 AD, urging people to avoid childish fixations and embrace the serious, demanding duties of adulthood. I wonder what Paul would make of modern America, where the average 29-year-old earning $80,000 a year in New York or Miami trades spiritual maturity for SpongeBob SquarePants collectibles.
Consumer culture long ago recognized that apostle-grade maturity is poisonous to profit. The math is simple. An adult devoted to intergenerational sacrifice and self-restraint spends his cash on mortgages, baby food, life insurance, and perhaps a pair of orthopedic shoes. An adult clinging to the psychological cradle spends disposable income on vinyl figurines and $25 treats designed to mask a sense of dread.
The financial figures tell a sobering story. As Business Insider recently reported, market data shows that households without a child accounted for well over half of all toy sales this year. Grown men and women, many already saddled with debt, line up to buy miniature sports cars and trading cards of athletes. When pressed about these purchases, the buyers reach for the language of modern self-help.
The inner-child narrative, borrowed from Carl Jung and mangled by decades of putrid pop psychology, offers a convenient way to avoid accountability. A Millennial splurging $135 on a plastic action figure claims to be healing childhood trauma stemming from a denied Christmas request in 1999. It's an easy rationalization that recasts impulsivity and indulgence as a necessary act of psychological restoration. The logical endgame of this endless extension of adolescence and arrested development is to replace sons and daughters with domesticated carnivores.
Walk through any affluent neighborhood today, and you’ll see an absurd cultural inversion. The strollers rolling down the sidewalk contain fewer infants and more French Bulldogs with respiratory distress and pampered tabby cats dressed in tailored cashmere sweaters. Adults in their prime reproductive years have explicitly rejected the unglamorous work of raising a child.
Many aggressively rationalize the economics of this swap. Raising a child to adulthood costs several hundred thousand dollars. It offers no guaranteed return on emotional investment. A Golden Retriever demands only premium salmon-based kibble, occasional vet visits, and a steady supply of squeaky rubber ducks. The dog will never argue about politics. It’ll never demand a new iPhone.
Corporations have adapted with speed. Developers build luxury apartment complexes featuring dog spas and agility parks while banning tricycles from the courtyard. More companies offer paid bereavement leave for a hamster's passing. They recognize that accommodating an employee mourning a rodent is far cheaper than accommodating one taking parental leave to raise a future citizen.
Growing up requires accepting inconvenience. It means watching your hairline retreat while your hearing and patience follow suit. Maturity is, in many ways, inseparable from varying degrees of mental anguish. Choosing to not only conceive but invest in a child demands a level of faith in the future. Investing in a pedigree cat requires only a credit card.