Generation Z includes people born between 1996 and 2007, making their current age range from about 18 to 29 years old as of 2025. This generation is known as the first "digital natives," having grown up with the internet and smartphones.
Two recent articles are worth considering.
Ross Douthat wrote an article in the New York Times entitled, “Kirk Remade Campus Conservatism.” One of the things he points out is that Charlie Kirk was uniquely effective at leading young men to being invigorated not just by personality but by ideas. We call that ideology. Kirk was able to convey convictions from his heart to a generation of young men. And one of his messages to young men was “Get married, have children, and enjoy life.”
Brandon Goldman of The Spectator, points out that Generation Z is involved in a gender war in his piece “How Gen Z gender wars are reshaping America.”
The point being made in the article by Brandon Goldman is that there is a gender divide in generation Z, the likes of which America has never seen before. There’s some documentation in this article that I think you’re going to find really, really interesting. There is a radical divide among young men and young women in generation Z. And wow, is this a story.
A recent poll was taken by NBC News about the patterns of young men and young women in America when it came to voting. And there was an incredible movement among young men towards Donald Trump, and an incredible movement of young women in this generation towards Kamala Harris. And it’s not because one’s a male candidate, and one’s a female candidate. Their ideas are what separates men and women in generation Z. Generation Z young men, are increasingly conservative. Generation Z women are far more liberal.
Gen Z men who backed Trump in 2024 rated having children at the top of a list of choices of how to define personal success. Gen Z women who backed Harris rated it second to last.
When it came to life’s priorities, generation Z young men put having children number one. Young women put it dead last. Full stop.
At what point in human history have young men ranked having children number one, and young women ranked it dead last? Never.
There has been no civilization, most historians will say, in which young men ranked getting married and having children higher than young women. This is an astounding reversal. In most civilizations, young women move quite naturally into the expectation of marriage, due to their God-given maternal instincts. They had that expectation for themselves and the expectation of motherhood and that in the proper sequence.
In worldview terms, I can’t think of anything more explosive than this. When young men are putting having children at number one, what does that tell you about this group of young men? Young men aged 18 to 29, want normalcy. They want family. They’re conservative not only in terms of putting on a MAGA hat, they’re conservative in that they want to conserve human life, human dignity, and the essential function of the family. I find that very encouraging about young men and very frightening about this generation of young women.
What does this say about young women, age 18-29? It says that 2nd wave feminism has reached its logical conclusion—the generational degradation of marriage and motherhood, the exact opposite of the biblical model.
As Christians, and Adventists, this ought to have our attention. This is a wake-up call. Feminism is at war with the organic family and the family of God, simultaneously. Ordaining woman, a canard of Seventh-day Adlibs, pushes the church farther away from God’s Word and His will for human flourishing.
The split could not be starker. For young men on the right, family is still the gold standard, the fulfillment of adulthood and the marker of purpose. For young women on the left, children barely register, buried beneath goals like career, financial independence and self-fulfillment.”
According to historians, throughout human history, girls moving into marriage and motherhood is not news. Most civilizations have depended upon that. The big challenge for most civilizations has been motivating young men to move into marriage and into responsible fatherhood. But now we’re being told that this group of young men puts having children as a life goal. Number one. That just is spectacularly interesting. And when it came to young women—nearly last.
Young women in generation Z are increasingly liberal and they are increasingly self-focused, while young men are becoming increasingly more family oriented, and conservative.
Of course, this doesn’t mean all of them. Thankfully, in your families and in your church, there are some wonderful young women in this generation who have the priority of marriage and family and are following a biblical set of priorities.
And yet it should be very troubling to us because we have to ask the question, how in the world does a civilizational pattern like this get reversed? How in the world do we reach the point where we are told the majority of young women who voted for Kamala Harris rank having children way down on the list of life’s priorities? I believe there are several reasons, plus television,
Feminism — Feminism has pervaded our culture for five decades, undermining biblical distinctions. This blurring of the lines between genders has devalued motherhood and elevated social equity, leading ultimately to the unraveling of gender itself.
Abortion — Along with sexual ‘freedom’ abortion has been celebrated by progressives as an emblem of liberation. Abortion is now a major plank in a political party, and celebrated by liberal Christians as proof of non-theocratic liberty.
Education — High schools and Universities have taught liberal curriculums for decades. Most colleges and universities are epicenters for cultural Marxism, and left–wing agendas at war with biblical principles for human flourishing. Many young women have been programmed in these institutions to devalue marriage and motherhood as oppressive while regarding independence and ‘equality’ as the epitome of their happiness. And they are increasingly miserable as a result.
Let me just point out that that explains in large part the fall off in the birth rate. It explains the delay of marriage and it explains the decline in the birth rate. It explains why demographers are saying we are facing a demographic cliff when it comes to population.
In the 1970s so many liberals decried a population explosion. They were afraid of overpopulation. Well, guess what? The big problem going forward is not having too many babies, but far too few.
Several countries, like Japan, South Korea and Italy are facing a threat to their civilizational existence. In just a matter of decades, there aren’t going to be people to work, there aren’t going to be people to serve. America is headed the same direction with a replacement rate of 1.6 (2.1 is needed for a nation to maintain their population). There're not going to be people available for emergency calls, or many common tasks. We’re really looking at a cultural crisis here.
And this article at The Spectator makes that point.
As a nation creeps towards cultural liberalism, you get confused on the fundamental societal building block, the family. Then comes the LGBTQ revolution, the abortion revolution, and the entire tidal wave of lifestyle liberalism in the United States and elsewhere.
It couldn’t happen if people stood up and said “No.” It looks like young Gen Z men are starting to do just that.
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“And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:28).