Especially when the status-quo for most people is to get a job, buy a house, get married, have kids, etc etc etc...
Especially if you have lots of other interests, are artistic, physically active... the list of things that can take up your time are endless.
The problem with astronomy is that you can usually only do it at night and most people work during the day, so sleep is very important.
In the years surrounding my build and initial operation of ASIGN Observatory, I shamelessly and gratuitously self-promoted it. Once it was up and running, I had quite a few groups of people through, ten at a time, usually kids groups. Home schoolers, church groups and school groups, as well as a couple of VIP's and other interested parties. ASIGN was advertised and featured in Better homes and Gardens on TV, the news, several radio stations, the papers, several magazines and countless websites. My main aim was to interest and make available, astronomy to those whom it was out of reach. Especially the younger generation. It went very well for a while.
All of a sudden - nothing.
No interest. No visits. No groups. No phone calls. I don't know what happened. I tried promoting again through social media and hitting up the press again, but it just fell in a heap.
I've had to surrender to this lack of interest. Society seems to have not time for things greater than themselves. Perhaps it's just a season. So far it has been a few years.
So, with that I have accepted that the public is generally not interested and I will continue to operate it until perhaps one day there is renewed public interest. For the moment it is two storeys of storage for my house while I renovate. I have three kids and a full time job, so astronomy has been put on the back-burner while I get the building done around the house. My new shed/workshop is nearly finished and then I can move my large projects in there to finish them. The plan is that with my declining physical health, I can scale back my hobbies and creations to smaller, more manageable crafts that only take up days or weeks, not years.
Once that's all done and the kids are independent enough that I can leave them to it - then the observatory is going to get some serious Baz time.
Below are some of the things that have been taking up my time, besides kids and work.
