When it comes to embarking on the journey of parenthood, lots of millennials are saying, "Meh. No, thanks."

According to data from the Urban Institute, birth rates among 20-something women declined 15% between 2007 and 2012. Additional research from the Pew Research Center reflects a longer-term trend of women eschewing parenthood as the number of U.S. women who choose to forego motherhood altogether has doubled since 1970.

This trend is fascinating, in part because there's long been a taboo associated with people (particularly, women) choosing to opt out of parenthood. Women who choose not to have kids have been referred to as "shallow" and "self-absorbed," and even the pope has said the decision not to procreate is fundamentally "selfish."

In an effort to find out why so many young people are really deciding against parenthood, we solicited dozens of responses from our audience via Tumblr and Google Forms. The responses we received from people of all sexes and identities reveal that there are myriad reasons why people are opting out of parenthood — and all of them are equally valid.

If you thought that measles episode of The Brady Bunch was hilarious and that measles is just such a cute old-timey virus, then you’ll be happy to hear: Measles is back! Thanks to the efforts of down-home anti-vaxxer folk, we’re now officially living in a world that has more cases of measles since 1992. Nostalgia for the ’90s is out of control! We should have resurrected Nirvana, not measles. RIght?

When people ask her if she has children, Münter, who is 44, has a prepared answer: “No, my husband and I are child-free by choice.” Saying child-free, she argues, doesn’t imply you are deprived, as the more standard “childless” might. And by letting them know it isn’t a sad topic to be avoided, she says, “it opens up the door for them to ask: ‘Oh, that’s interesting, why did you choose not to?’” Münter wants to move the awkward topic of overpopulation into the mainstream. “The more we talk about it, the more comfortable people will feel talking about it and then, maybe, things will change.”

For too long, she feels, the issue has been swept under the rug. “We can talk about emissions and climate change, but talking about population gets such an emotional reaction.”

The last thing she wants to do is make parents feel guilty, or to shut them out of the conversation. Procreation, after all, is natural. And if you have two children, you are only replacing their parents, rather than adding extras. But if you’re not yet a parent and can’t suppress your parental instincts, says Münter, “my ask is that you consider adopting one of the 153m orphan children that are already on the planet and need a home. Or, if you are dead set on having your own, my hope would be that you just have one and then if you want more, adopt.” Ultimately, she says, “your kids and your kid’s kids will be the ones who benefit from humans deciding to slow down our rate of growth. It will slow down climate change, ocean acidification, cutting down the wild places.”

Activist conservative group One Million Moms is taking aim at Burger King for using what it calls the "d-word" in a commercial promoting the non-meat Impossible Whopper.

In the ad, a group of people taste-test the plant-based patty that has been a hit for the fast-food company. With a mouthful of food, one man says...

Bullying is a key driver of suicidal behaviour among young people across the world, according to new research warning the problem is worse than previously feared.

An international study by scientists in Britain, China and the US looked at data from 220,000 adolescents aged between 12 and 15 from 83 countries.

The study found more than one in eight youngsters across the world had suicidal behaviours, with bullying strongly associated to suicide attempts.

Bullied boys were more likely to attempt suicide than bullied girls.

The parents of an 18-month-old boy who died in September from malnourishment have been arrested by Florida police on charges of manslaughter and child neglect.

On Sept. 27, around 4 a.m., Sheila O'Leary nursed the child briefly and, she told authorities, became worried when he began breathing shallowly, the Florida Fort Myers News-Press reported. Rather than call for help, though, the O'Learys went to sleep.

In March 2018, two parents in Australia took their daughter to the hospital after she had a seizure. Once there, doctors found that the girl was severely malnourished and had rickets, a condition in which children's bones are softer and weaker because they are deficient in vitamin D, according to the Mayo Clinic.

In December, the parents pleaded guilty to causing danger or serious injury to their baby, acknowledging that they fed their daughter a vegan diet that included tofu, rice milk, vegetables, fruit, and oats, the Australian Broadcasting Company reported on Thursday.

Doctors said the girl's bones didn't develop properly because of her nutrient deficiencies, and a foster-care provider who met the 19-month-old said she looked just 3 months old because of her condition and had no teeth, according to the ABC report.

CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta explains the details of a new study linking social media use to mental health issues in teens.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has suggested people should "poop every other day" as a way to save the planet.

His comment came in answer to a journalist who asked him how to combine agricultural development and protecting the environment.

Mr Bolsonaro recently came under fire after official data showed an increase in deforestation in the Amazon.

He then sacked the head of the agency that reported the increase, accusing it of lying about the problem's scale.

During a speech on Monday addressing the recent mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, President Trump call for an end to — or substantial reduction of — the "glorification" of violence in "gruesome and grisly" video game culture. While some are quick to blame video games for real-life acts of violence, experts say there is no such link.

"When it comes to actual serious criminal violence, there's virtually no evidence that video games matter," James Ivory, professor and research director at Virginia Tech, told CBS News.

Ivory has researched the social and psychological dimensions of media, particularly the content and effects of video games. He says he's determined that a lot of things influence violent crime — but the media we consume is not one of them.

Parenting expert Jane Evans says that grandparents should receive verbal consent from their grandchildren before giving physical affection, such as hugging or kissing.

Evans made the remarks during Wednesday's broadcast of British daytime show "This Morning."

What are the details?

Evans, who appeared on the show to speak with hosts Ruth Langsford and Eamonn Holmes, said that grandparents asking consent to show physical affection can only benefit young children, encouraging them to "take control of their own bodies from a young age."

Do you remember the good old days when we had "12 years to save the planet"?

Now it seems, there's a growing consensus that the next 18 months will be critical in dealing with the global heating crisis, among other environmental challenges.

Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that to keep the rise in global temperatures below 1.5C this century, emissions of carbon dioxide would have to be cut by 45% by 2030.

But today, observers recognise that the decisive, political steps to enable the cuts in carbon to take place will have to happen before the end of next year.

The idea that 2020 is a firm deadline was eloquently addressed by one of the world's top climate scientists, speaking back in 2017.

Dear How to Do It,

An occasional time-waster of mine is to go into random text-only chat rooms and spin a fantasy for a willing woman. It’s fun and creative and everyone has a low-commitment good time (I hope). Recently, someone online asked if I would do a “losing her virginity” scene with her. I said sure, and I took her through a very sweet and consent-filled fantasy where she got to direct the action and feel like a star. At the end of it, she confided in me that she is actually 16 and really a virgin and also, would I want to meet up to do this for real? I of course said that I didn’t think this was a great idea but that she would make a great partner for someone someday. (I am well over 16.) But now I’m conflicted and totally gun-shy about going back online. I know, of course, that whoever is on the other side of the chat could be a boy/girl or a nonbinary/furry person of any age or orientation, but this definitely made me uneasy. Did I do a wrong thing? Is there a better way to proceed? Or should I just be happy she had a nice experience in her own home with a faraway guy who hopefully gave her a template for how it could go when she finally finds herself ready to have sex?

Dear Care and Feeding,

My husband and I want to have our first kid soon. Before we start trying, we need to figure out how to handle my mother.

We aren’t close at all. I maintain a polite relationship with her to minimize guilt trips and dramatics that arise when I keep the much-greater distance I would prefer. She’s learned that there will probably be a kid eventually, and she’s become obsessed with moving near me and being “Grandma’s Babysitting Service.” I’ve tried telling her that wouldn’t work for us, but she says, “You have no idea how hard it will be, especially after the second” or “Why have babies if you’re going to dump them at some day care?” or “You can’t afford good child care.”

We can afford day care, and while it’s expensive, more importantly, it’s not my mother. She was a big believer in corporal punishment and severe “Tiger Mom” parenting methods. I would never leave a kid with her unattended for even a few minutes.

We have major differences in values, and she thinks it’s her responsibility that her grandchildren participate in her religion (she embraces its most judgmental and hateful aspects), which is unacceptable to my husband and me. I don’t want her “help” raising my child, and I don’t want to deal with her guilt trips, unsolicited advice, and other intrusions into the happy and stable life I’ve built for myself.

She claims all her friends live near their grandbabies and take care of them when the parents have to go to work, and that it’s not fair that she might not get to do the same. She has started looking at homes in our area (where she knows no one but us), and, as she can’t afford to live in the city, she’s started telling us to move to the suburbs and get a house with enough room for her to live with us. This is not happening. Is there a way to handle this short of full estrangement while she’s living in a fantasy world and not my metro area?

Supplements send an estimated 23,000 people to the hospital each year in the United States, and a new study suggests children and young adults comprise a significant number of these visits. Even more alarming, supplements for weight loss, muscle gain, and sexual function were some of the biggest culprits for adolescent supplement-related hospitalizations, according to a new retrospective study in Journal of Adolescent Health.

Researchers looked at adverse event reports in a Food & Drug Administration (FDA) database that were filed between January 2005 and April 2005 and found 1,392 adverse event reports related to supplement use in young people (from babies to 25 year-olds).

The researchers zeroed in on 977 reports where a single supplement was deemed responsible for causing a person's hospital visit.