WASHINGTON — Your parents, who have spent every waking moment for the past 20 years preparing for the end of humanity, once again asked when you’re planning on giving them grandchildren, multiple sources confirmed.
“Pandemics, droughts, and wildfires are just the beginning of the end. We’re one shower away from going to war for water and I don’t think I’d be a responsible parent to bring a kid into this hellscape,” you said while cleaning out your cat’s litter box. “The planet is just going to keep getting warmer and in like ten years it’ll be too hot to go outside without instantly bursting into flames. I’m barely able to afford running my air conditioner as it is, I can’t fathom the thought of my child literally melting on the street!”
Your mother, although understanding of your concerns, does not know why that’s stopping you from starting a family.
“The world has been ending long before you were born and look; you turned out fine,” your mother said as she put away her groceries from Costco. “Sure, there weren’t shootings at schools, or concerts, or movie theaters back then but there’s always something going on. Remember Y2K!? It’s no reason to abstain from having children. We deserve some grandbabies! I know you’re working three jobs, seven days a week but the gift of new life is worth so much more than paying off your little student loans.”
Experts have been studying the recent trend in tension between aging parents and their adult children.
“There is a clear correlation between the rapid decline in our national birth rate and an increase in rocky relationships with parents,” said Yale professor Dr. Sandra Callie. “Parents are having trouble accepting a reality where their kids are riddled with chronic anxiety brought on by social media, mass shootings, and the climate crisis. To them, their kids are just soft, weak, little wussies. This is a belief every generation carries about the younger generation-spanning back to the dawn of time. There’s an old saying that’s popular amongst my colleagues and it’s that ‘Parents just don’t understand.’”
At press time, your grandfather was complaining at dinner about your mother forcing him to start recycling over the last three years only to recently discover most of it ends up in the ocean.