Jaimee Rogers:
Oh, welcome back. It’s great to have your company. A new study has found a growing number of Gen Z Australians don’t want children because they’re anxious about climate change and what the future holds. So it’s prompted a broader debate about how much fear and uncertainty young people are being exposed to and whether we’re asking children to carry the weight of problems far beyond their control. Well, joining me now is child and adolescent psychologist, Clare Rowe. Clare, thank you for coming in. This is something that I think… They’re still young, obviously Gen Z, but how much does this tell you about the mindset of this generation that they don’t want to have children out of fear of climate change, but also the future of what it holds?
Clare Rowe:
Yeah. I mean, I think it’s incredibly sad, isn’t it? I mean, the fact that so many young people in this study from ages of 16 up to 25 said they would seriously consider not having children. There was a huge study a few years ago that showed about 75% of children asked then said that their future, “Was frightening to them.” And just amazing that it would override such, I think, a biological instinct to reproduce, but they legitimately are and younger and younger children are saying, “No, we cannot have children for ethical reasons. We’re not going to bring them into a world that’s going to end.” Planetary collapse is what they’re learning about. So it’s incredibly sad, but also concerning is another reason why the fertility rate might be going down.
Jaimee Rogers:
I know. And that should be sending off alarm signals to everyone in Canberra. But do you worry that for this younger generation, and I know with our children, we’ve spoken about it previously, that they’re being burdened with these massive global problems that they really have little control over when they should be more concerned with things like making friends and going and playing sport and being a kid. And instead, they’re worried about such enormous issues.
Clare Rowe:
Yeah. I’ve looked at this for the last 18 months through the IPA and it’s not just your typical 15-year-old that wants to go and protest and take the day off school. It’s six, seven, eight-year-olds who I’m seeing clinically as a psychologist who really have this perspective in life like they may not make it to adulthood. And so if… We’ve gone way beyond teaching them about the values of environmental stewardship and I don’t mind that, save water, pick up rubbish, that’s fine. But we have moved into this domain and it does come from our curriculum and the education system of teaching kids about the responsibility that they play. So then you’ve got kids who are compulsively coming home trying not to eat meat, turning off lights. I don’t want to use the family karma. And then of course, simultaneously, they’re learning that whatever they do, it’s not making a difference. And that’s where the helplessness and the mental health problems come in.
Jaimee Rogers:
You wrote an interesting article in today’s AFR where you talk about punishment is now seen as trauma. So where did we get to in society where we stopped asking that consequences might actually teach a child something and instead it’s all about it’s making you feel bad and it becomes a trauma. So in the end, you’re not really doing punishments because of the fear of the trauma it’s causing.
Clare Rowe:
Yeah. And this came from a very elite private school whose students had some behaviours that absolutely warranted consequences, but the focus in the end was not on the student’s behaviour. It was actually the response from the parents who said, no, this is psychologically damaging, this punishment and took them for human rights, nonsense and all of this stuff. So yeah, my article was basically saying, we need to remember that our job as parents and as schools is not to make kids happy all the time. And we all want that catchword resilient kids, right? But we don’t give resilience to kids. Kids have to build resilience and that comes through discomfort and that’s the whole point. They have to learn that I can do hard things and I can survive it and I can cope, but I can come out the other end having learned a few things. And so if we don’t do that, yeah we’re going to have kids with really low independence and resiliency.
Jaimee Rogers:
It’s a frightening thing. Although I did think when I was reading that article, I can sometimes be tough and I don’t know if I’d want my kids sleeping out in a tent on their own as a form of punishment, but they’re each their own. Clare, thank you so much for joining me tonight.
This transcript of Clare Rowe speaking on The Jaimee Rogers Show Sky News Australia from 28 June 2026 has been edited for clarity.
