> Many of my acquaintances simply cannot afford the costs of multiple children.
I can't speak for your friends. But I think that when someone says "can't afford" what they really mean is "I'd rather spend that money on something else".
Some people literally can't afford children. But those in the middle class (or better) in the US certainly can. It would just take money away from other parts of their lifestyle: the home the live in; the car they drive; ability to vacation; newest phone model, etc.
Generally, the more money you make in the US, the fewer kids you have. So, for most, it's hard to argue that they can't "afford" children. They can't afford children while maintaining their same lifestyle. And that will generally always be true (except for the truly rich).
> I think that when someone says "can't afford" what they really mean is "I'd rather spend that money on something else".
No, what many of us mean is that "We can't afford to give a child the kind of support and resources and opportunities that a responsible parent knows it is their job to provide."
Many of us grew up poor, and saw people around us who didn't make it out. Many of them are still poor bordering on destitute, some are in prison, a couple I know are dead. Until I can *reasonably guarantee* that I'm not putting my kid in that position, I'm not going to have a kid.
Yes, this is the spirit of what I mean. For many it is wanting to guarantee some level of comfort and support for the kids long term AND have plans to not be a burden yourself financially.
> We can't afford to give a child the kind of support and resources and opportunities that a responsible parent knows it is their job to provide.
that's a lot of subjective terminology delivered as absolute truth. If I disagree with you on the amount of resources, let's say I think it's 10% of what you think, does that make me an irresponsible parent? If I double the resource expenditure for marginal improvement, does that make me more responsible?
Your argument is simply not clearly defined. A lot of people may feel that way, I'd argue if it's not clearly defined they're probably wrong. The kind of support and resources a child needs are nutritious food, decent clothing and a mold and leak free dwelling. Those are the only things that cost money. Then, you have to teach them things and make them play a lot. Don't abuse them. All of those are free, unless you treat your life like a corporation that needs to maximize monetary return, then you'll consider the opportunity cost to talking to your kids. I'd say if that's how you approach it you'll damage your kids no matter how much money you throw at them.
I have kids, they have good clothes, they eat nutritious food, definitely above average on the nutrition front, they live in a dry, clean, comfortable dwelling with me, and they keep themselves entertained. I'd say in total their expenses cost me less than 500 bucks a month. They don't live in a dysfunctional environment, they learn faster than their peers, they are in good health, they're free to pursue their interests and hone their talents and they are well entertained. Kids aren't that expensive. You grew up poor, I grew up poor. My problem wasn't resources, it was the priorities of my parents, and when I look at the world, in almost every circumstance I see the same thing. You'd have to go to Somalia to find real prominent examples of kids being fucked over by lack of resources, in almost every other case it's the priorities of parents.
I do. I tailor my life around my family, not my work. I have a wife who does the same. You just have to find a way to not be a cog in someone else's machine while still delivering value to others. Don't work for or with people who expect family hostile arrangements or you won't have a family. You will belong to someone who doesn't care about you instead of belonging to yourself and those you love.
Half the people in this thread make six figures a year, they can't afford to care for their family on a single income? What kind of lifestyle are they living? I make less than them, but I also work a lot less, and I do just fine.
> My problem wasn't resources, it was the priorities of my parents, and when I look at the world, in almost every circumstance I see the same thing. You'd have to go to Somalia to find real prominent examples of kids being fucked over by lack of resources, in almost every other case it's the priorities of parents.
This is a hell of a view, and seems to me like you're just assuming your family's circumstances are the norm. My single-parent mother always prioritized us first. We still had days where we went to sleep hungry.
Perhaps your argument is correct. And my use of afford is unjustified.
However, if parents have a certain lifestyle they want to make possible for their children like: paying for daycare/aftercare so your spouse can keep their career, helping pay for college, having sufficient retirement to not burden them, etc the costs are clearly becoming untenable for middle class families.
I don't know if it is "rational" (for some sense of that word): kids will excel if they are, simply, loved. Sure, going to great schools is nice. But having a supportive home is way more important than those expensive things.
But I went to subsidized Catholic schools through junior high. Then a public high school. Then a "state" university -- where we had "in-state" tuition that was reasonable.
My dad was an auto worker. My mom was a nurse that ended up with a career in administration as I got older. (He was also an alcoholic and may parents divorced -- but that's a longer story.)
I would have thought that great (or perhaps at least very good) schooling was a bit orthogonal to whether they were public or private. At least I feel that I went to great public schools, but lived in a city where some people went to terrible public schools.
That said, I think most people want better for their children; certainly my blue-collar parents cajoled me via all their means to go to school so that I wouldn't be forced into the jobs those with a poor education must subsist on. I will say that I just don't have it in me to put a child through what I was put through; the pressure was more than I was really able to withstand, but fundamentally I agree with their reasoning, especially as someone with some physical disability, careers that require a lot of physicality are closed to me. That said, it's not a cycle I have any desire to perpetuate.
> I would have thought that great (or perhaps at least very good) schooling was a bit orthogonal to whether they were public or private.
Actually, I guess that is true. I grew up in a blue collar area with pretty bad (or maybe just "average") schools. So I do (erroneously) relate public schools with being bad :)
I certainly would want more for my kids if I had them. But I (and most people) do have more than my parents did.
> But I (and most people) do have more than my parents did.
Are you a baby boomer? Because this is not true for my generation, the millennials[0]
I mostly think generational "conflict" is foolish (I mean, I get to inherit from the wealthiest generation in the history of the world, so it's not all bad I guess?), but it is worth considering that people who have come of age and lived through different periods of history will be shaped differently and have different views of the world. If those views lead them to believe that having children is not desirable, than so it is; I don't know that there's really much to be done in the end anyway.
I'll hazard a guess that you're Gen X based on our brief conversation here, which I believe was actually the first US generation to see themselves worse off on their parents than average, but I think the difference is almost negligible? Certainly it's bit of an in-between generation, squeezed by the bulges of the Boomers and their echo generation, the Millennials, and I'm honestly not too up on the dynamics there.
I know that some charts show that the newer generations might not be doing as well as previous. And maybe I'm too optimistic. But I think it is hard to argue that -- even if our "wealth" is lower on some chart -- our world is much better. The web didn't even exist when I was a kid. Medical tech continues to advance. Pollution (of the non-CO2 kind) is down. Crime is (generally) down -- though it does fluctuate. We're not dying in wars. And so on.
Plus our lives are different enough now (marry later, etc) that it isn't easy to compare 1:1. Houses are bigger and have more bathrooms. We have way more entertainment at our disposal. We tend to work in offices rather than manual labor. And so on.
Finally, as you said, Millenials will be the ones inheriting all that Boomer wealth.
So I'm pretty sure at the end of the day, when you add it all up, the newer generations are continuing to continually have better lives than those before them. (But I can't prove it, so feel free to ignore me :)
Well, I’ll take the other end of it, and feel free to ignore me as well because the pessimistic take is depressing.
The web didn’t exist, but then neither did social media, which apparently is driving record teenage depression and anxiety (and I’d guess it isn’t limited to teenagers either). You could actually disconnect from your work since you didn’t have PagerDuty ever ready to call you in. I loved the web of the 90’s to mid 00’s as well, but what we have today is not that.
People don’t just marry later, they marry less (and as we’ve noted, have fewer children). You can choose to see this how you wish, but generally the pro-natalists see it as a bad thing; another sign of increased social fragmentation.
Houses are bigger yes, but that means less affordable; homelessness is rising.
The real kicker for me though is the falling life expectancy in the US. It’s literally been attributed to “deaths of despair”; drug overdoses, suicide, and other misadventure. That’s despite the advances in medicine.
Cancer rates are increasing (I literally found out yesterday that my sister has a growth that may be cancerous; she’s got a biopsy scheduled, and a woman who I dated died of cancer before she turned 40). Reasons are unclear but record rates of obesity can’t help. On that one at least we may have turned the corner with some really revolutionary drugs that are quite expensive now but I do believe will come down in price.
I don’t really want to do the pollution/CO2 thing because I’ve had enough already. Suffice it to say it’s hard for me to be an optimist.
> Global cases of early onset cancer increased from 1.82 million in 1990 to 3.26 million in 2019, while cancer deaths of adults in their 40s, 30s or younger grew by 27%. More than a million under-50s a year are now dying of cancer, the research reveals.
Those whom I know who talk about not being able to “afford
children” mean that they wouldn’t be able to give those children the lifestyle and financial security that they deem acceptable. They don’t want to compromise and give their children less future comforts and safety than they currently enjoy, so they don’t dare have children on those terms. And often they have a nagging natural need to have children, so the discussion and reasoning is always tinged in a deep sadness.
A luxury lifestyle is cheaper than a child. The last estimates I’ve seen are around $300K (and that was before the recent bouts of inflation) to raise a kid and that didn’t include college. So that’s like a Lamborghini, right? Or a lot of fancy vacations. And that’s just one kid; you might get some economies of scale with more, but the marginal costs are there too.
I'm sure it depends on how you do things. I think the housing square footage and vehicle requirements a lot of people say they require seem way too high to me. But I suppose there are some regulatory requirements that must be met these days - I was looking at an old station wagon with some buddies and noted that it had what I called the "unrestrained child tub" in the back. I bet you could fit six kids in there easy since there were no seat belts at all. Obviously that wouldn't fly today. Nowadays, it's "I need an SUV with a 3rd row for the kids".
And houses today are also probably a lot bigger than they need to be; often justified as a requirement for families. I don't think it's really necessary, but I seem to be an outlier with my 950 square foot house.
I imagine you've made more pragmatic choices, but I think there is also an element of luck; a lot of people get bankrupted by medical needs, and each kid is a reverse lottery ticket there. Speaking as someone who was once a kid with a lot of medical needs that didn't always get addressed, I can tell you that that does happen sometimes. And I needed to go to school; with my medical issues, the trades or military or whatever was never an option, so someone had to pay for that.
I guess all I can say is "shit's tough"; sometimes you get lucky, but I never seem to.
4 kids, typical tech salary ladder career / upper middle class lifestyle, my marginal costs are maaaaybe another $40k year in total ... and I get about a $25k tax break for having them.
In other words, you're spending more than half the median US household income on raising children. I think this is more a statement about your wealth than the affordability of children.
I can't speak for your friends. But I think that when someone says "can't afford" what they really mean is "I'd rather spend that money on something else".
Some people literally can't afford children. But those in the middle class (or better) in the US certainly can. It would just take money away from other parts of their lifestyle: the home the live in; the car they drive; ability to vacation; newest phone model, etc.
Generally, the more money you make in the US, the fewer kids you have. So, for most, it's hard to argue that they can't "afford" children. They can't afford children while maintaining their same lifestyle. And that will generally always be true (except for the truly rich).
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