Millennial parents feel the call of suburbia

Throughout the 2010s Millennials emerged – blossomed, even – as tech-savvy knowledge workers favouring digs in the inner city. But they’re now discovering that kids change everything.

All of a sudden, pristine and minimalist apartments in fashionable Bondi and St Kilda are made ingloriously messy by kids’ paraphernalia. The suburbs beckon.

They are the children of the Baby Boomers. In the late 1990s they were known as Generation Dotcom. Later, in the early 2000s, they were known as Generation Y because they followed Generation X. And then, around the time of the GFC, this same generation underwent a metamorphosis and emerged as the Millennials.

In my ordered world of consistently defined 18-year-long generations starting with the Baby Boomers (1946-1964) and continuing with Gen-Xers (1965-1983), the ensuing Millennials embrace the years 1984 to 2002.

In the early years, Millennials were famous for their inclination to remain in the parental home as young adults. While some interpreted this as a failure to launch, others argued that the cost of living, and of university education, now required a far longer period of nurturing.

Throughout the 2010s Millennials emerged – blossomed, even – as tech-savvy knowledge workers favouring digs in the inner city. In the minds of many Millennials, drab suburbia could not compete with exciting apartmentia close to the city centre. In the inner city, they finessed a new lifeform and culture that would fuse to become part of the hipster lifestyle.

This well-worn pathway works well in the twenties and early thirties, indeed all the way from singledom to coupledom, but its central tenet (namely the cultural value of proximity to the city centre) is questioned the minute a baby comes into the equation. You see, Australians go through a kind of gateway in their late thirties – precisely where first-wave Millennials are today – when they are partnered and have children. All of a sudden, their pristine and minimalist apartments in fashionable Bondi and St Kilda are made ingloriously messy by kids’ paraphernalia.

And it is in this moment, at this time in the lifecycle, that a spiritual awakening takes place. In the quietness of the night a siren call of the suburbs speaks sweetly, quietly, seductively to Millennial parents. It speaks of a new way of living and of truly wicked concepts like a two-car garage and a four-by-two (four bedroom, two bathroom) home on a quarter-acre block with a front garden, a back yard and a Zoom room. Oh look, there’s even an alfresco space where once there existed a back veranda.

This siren call promises a new way of living: not a dreary place in drab suburbia but rather a “forever home” in a place where a family can grow. Perhaps a makeover of a 1950s property (let’s call it “mid-century”, it sounds arty) to create a swish “lifestyle home”.

Are Millennials on the cusp of switching to a home among the gum trees? Picture: istock

Is it possible that the generation that has so celebrated inner-city living is now, in 2024, on the cusp of switching to a home among the gum trees as they pass the age of 40 on their way to the peak family stage of the lifecycle? The world looks different with kids. Plus, the allure of the inner city is far less compelling in a post-pandemic world where the pain of commuting is lessened by working from home.

In the last census (2021) the oldest Millennials were 37, too young for many to have yet contemplated the shift to outer suburbia. But from now on, we may well see them reimagine their lives. Of course, many willremain in the inner city – but don’t underestimate what might eventually be called “The Toddler Effect”.