When twenty-one-year-old actress Millie Bobby Brown posted a simple message—”And then there were 3″—this summer, she wasn’t just announcing her journey into motherhood. She was quietly revolutionizing it. My friend Sarah, a twenty-three-year-old teacher, texted me immediately: “Did you see? They adopted. I’ve been thinking about that path too.” That moment crystallized something profound happening among young people today. Brown and her husband Jake Bongiovi, twenty-two, chose adoption as their first step into parenthood—not as a backup plan, but as their plan. In an era when celebrity pregnancy announcements typically dominate tabloid covers with bump watches and gender reveals, this couple’s decision represents something far more significant: a generational reimagining of what building a family can look like. Their choice isn’t just personal—it’s cultural, and it’s resonating deeply with their peers who are questioning every traditional milestone they’ve inherited.
The announcement arrived in August 2025 through a joint Instagram post, characteristically understated for a generation that has mastered the art of saying everything while revealing little. No hospital photos, no elaborate photoshoot, no breathless explanations. Just a family of three where there had been two. The simplicity spoke volumes about how differently this generation approaches life’s most profound moments—with intention, yes, but also with a radical redefinition of what those moments should look like.
What makes Brown and Bongiovi’s decision particularly striking isn’t merely the choice itself, but the timing. At ages when previous generations of celebrities were still establishing their careers and identities, this couple has already married, built a partnership, and expanded their family through adoption. They’re not waiting for some predetermined “right time” that previous generations insisted upon. They’re creating their own timeline, and in doing so, they’re offering their generation a new narrative about what’s possible.
Dismantling Old Narratives
The broader cultural implications cannot be overstated. For decades, adoption in celebrity circles has been framed as either a humanitarian gesture by established stars or a secondary option after fertility challenges. Brown and Bongiovi’s approach dismantles both narratives. By choosing adoption as their primary path to parenthood at the beginning of their family-building journey, they’re sending an unmistakable message: adoption isn’t an alternative. It’s simply another beautiful way to become parents.
This shift reflects deeper changes in how Gen Z conceptualizes family itself. Unlike previous generations who often viewed family building through a biological imperative, today’s young adults are approaching parenthood with a more expansive philosophy. They’ve grown up in an era of diverse family structures—blended families, same-sex parents, single parents by choice, co-parenting arrangements—and they don’t carry the same assumptions about what makes a “real” family. Blood relation is one possibility among many, not the default setting.
The cultural conversation around adoption has transformed dramatically even within the past decade. What was once shrouded in secrecy and complicated emotional narratives has become, for many young people, simply another path to creating family. Social media has played a crucial role in this evolution, with adoptive families sharing their stories openly, demystifying the process, and showcasing the profound bonds that form regardless of biological connection. Brown and Bongiovi are both products of this shift and accelerators of it, using their massive platform to normalize what previous generations might have hidden.
A Modern Love Story
Their relationship itself has followed a distinctly modern trajectory that speaks to their generation’s values. The couple met on Instagram in the summer of 2021, developing a friendship before romance—a progression that contradicts the whirlwind celebrity romance narrative but aligns perfectly with Gen Z’s more cautious, intentional approach to relationships. They went Instagram-official in November 2021, announced their engagement in April 2023 with coordinating posts, and married in an intimate ceremony on May 24, 2024, with only close family present. Brown confirmed the marriage publicly in June, casually wearing “Wifey” shorts in a post that treated this major life milestone with refreshing nonchalance.
Even their proposal story carries the hallmarks of their generation’s blend of adventure and authenticity. Bongiovi proposed during a scuba diving trip in February 2024, hiding the ring in a shell underwater. When the ring slipped off Brown’s finger and sank, he dove dangerously deep to retrieve it—a moment that’s both cinematically romantic and genuinely human, complete with the possibility of things going wonderfully wrong. It’s the kind of story that resonates precisely because it isn’t perfect; it’s real.
The speed with which they’ve moved through these milestones might seem rushed by conventional standards, but it reflects a fundamental difference in how Gen Z approaches life planning. Having witnessed economic instability, global pandemics, and climate uncertainty, many young people have abandoned the idea of waiting for ideal conditions that may never arrive. They’re making bold choices now, building the lives they want rather than the lives they’ve been told they should want. Brown and Bongiovi’s decision to adopt so young embodies this philosophy: why wait when you know what you want?
The Power of Visibility
Their choice also highlights an important evolution in how celebrities use their influence. Previous generations of stars often kept their personal lives—particularly matters involving children—heavily guarded. Brown and Bongiovi have found a middle ground, sharing enough to normalize their choices without exploiting their child’s privacy. Their announcement was informative without being invasive, celebratory without being performative. This balance reflects their generation’s more sophisticated understanding of public life, one that recognizes the power of visibility while respecting boundaries.
The response to their announcement has been illuminating. While some older commentators questioned their age and readiness, their peers largely celebrated the decision with genuine enthusiasm. Comments poured in from young people expressing that Brown and Bongiovi’s choice had opened their minds to adoption, had validated their own non-traditional family aspirations, or had simply made them feel seen in their desire to forge their own paths. This generational divide in response underscores how fundamentally differently Gen Z views family building.
There’s also something profoundly hopeful about their choice in our current cultural moment. At a time when reproductive rights are under siege, when fertility is increasingly medicalized and commodified, and when the pressures around biological parenthood have never been more intense, Brown and Bongiovi have quietly stepped outside the entire conversation. Their decision suggests that perhaps the answer to our fraught debates about reproduction isn’t to fight harder within existing frameworks, but to expand our vision of what family creation can encompass.
Accelerating Cultural Change
The adoption community has long advocated for this exact perspective shift—viewing adoption not as a consolation prize but as a valid, valued, first-choice option for building families. When celebrities with platforms as massive as Brown’s embrace this narrative, it accelerates cultural change in measurable ways. Adoption agencies have noted increased inquiries from younger prospective parents in recent years, a trend that coincides with more visible representation of diverse family-building paths.
What Brown and Bongiovi have done, perhaps without fully intending to, is provide their generation with a new template. They’ve shown that you don’t have to wait until your thirties or forties to adopt. You don’t have to exhaust biological options first. You don’t have to frame it as charity or rescue. You can simply decide that adoption is how you want to build your family, and you can do it on your own timeline, guided by your own values rather than societal expectations.
Their story also invites us to reconsider what we mean by “readiness” for parenthood. Traditional markers—career establishment, homeownership, a certain age threshold—are increasingly irrelevant or unattainable for many young people. Brown and Bongiovi are redefining readiness in terms that matter more: emotional maturity, partnership strength, clear intention, and genuine desire to parent. By those measures, they may be more prepared than many people twice their age who drift into parenthood because it’s “time.”
Reimagining Life’s Milestones
As Gen Z continues to come of age, we’re witnessing a wholesale reimagining of life’s major milestones. Marriage looks different—smaller, more personal, less about spectacle. Careers are more fluid and portfolio-based. Home ownership is often delayed or reconceived. And now, with couples like Brown and Bongiovi leading the way, family building itself is being transformed. The question isn’t whether you have biological children, but what kind of family you want to create and how you want to create it.
This isn’t to suggest that biological parenthood is diminished or that traditional paths are wrong. Rather, Brown and Bongiovi’s choice expands the menu of acceptable options, particularly for their generation. They’re demonstrating that there isn’t one right way to become a family, and that choosing a less traveled path doesn’t make you alternative—it makes you intentional.
The ripple effects of their decision will likely be felt for years. Young people watching this unfold aren’t just seeing a celebrity adoption; they’re witnessing permission to dream differently about their own futures. They’re learning that family building can begin with love and choice rather than biology and timing. They’re seeing that you can honor tradition while creating something entirely new.
Building a Blueprint for a Generation
In the end, Brown and Bongiovi’s story isn’t really about adoption, though that’s the mechanism. It’s about agency—the radical act of deciding for yourself what your life will look like, regardless of what you’ve been told is normal or expected. It’s about building the family you want rather than the family you think you should have. And it’s about using your platform not to perform your life, but to quietly expand what others believe is possible for theirs.
When that text came through from my friend Sarah this summer, she wasn’t just reacting to a celebrity announcement. She was recognizing herself in a new narrative about what young adulthood can encompass. That’s the true power of what Brown and Bongiovi have done. They haven’t just built their family. They’ve helped build a blueprint for an entire generation rethinking what family means.
