Despite the media attention on younger college-age millennials, Generation Y is also made up of 22 million parents and that number is growing by 9,000 per day.
Time released a poll Thursday of millennial parents and found that are more concerned with issues like health, self-expression, and many run their families like “mini-democracies,” seeking a consensus from both the parents and their children.
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Generation Y still have some conservative leaning values, more millennials have a parent out of the work force, raising the children than Generation X or the Baby Boomers–23 percent vs. 17 percent and 22 percent, respectively.
Part of the reason may be that a higher percentage of millennial moms–80 percent–said it’s important to be “the perfect mom,” according to a report by the Baby-Center in February.
Also, 42 percent of millennial parents felt it was very or extremely important for a child to be raised by a married couple rather than one that just cohabit. That’s a lower number than previous generations, but higher than one would believe based off of popular culture.
When it comes to parenting advice, millennials, like all generations, go to their parents, but they’re also twice as likely to refer to apps, social media, and search engines for advice.
Helicopter parenting is also not as big of a thing for millennial parents, who much rather follow the ideas of what their children want to do over putting them in different lessons, sport teams, and dance classes.
This follows a trend for the last several years, a 2013 study by FutureCast reported that 61 percent of millennial parents believe that “kids need more unstructured playtime.”
Millennials also aired their frustrations with raising children in an age of social media.
Nearly 10 percent of millennials said that social media posts by other parents make them feel like an inadequate parents, and amazingly nearly 20 percent have never posted a single picture of their children on the internet at all.
And, while many find that websites like Facebook have some major drawbacks, including online fights over things like vaccines and breastfeeding, many people stay online–because it’s easier than sending baby photos.
