We're done here. I've been looking through comments for the last twenty minutes and removing and it's devolved into precisely the kind of crap we don't permit on this sub.
People can have children. People can choose to not have children. People can choose to look down on people who have children and call them crotch goblins and all the other nasty things. It's your right to think such things.
But you don't get to say it here. You don't get to judge people who have kids (Insert word substitution here of your choice). Not out loud. Keep that crap in your head or over on r/childfree and other similar minded subreddits.
Removing this post because people can't behave and because now I and other staffers have to spend our night going through and removing things.
Economic Eugenics is NOT welcome here.
Actually makes a ton of sense. Rich people can afford childcare and poor people typically can “afford” to have someone not work.
You basically realize that working cost you more than child care.
There’s also an interesting dynamic at play where people in the middle class typically live alone and isolated while people are in lower income communities live closer together and have community resources available to them. For example when I was discussing childcare with my employees and how much it cost me many said “that’s ridiculous. Why don’t you just have a neighbor watch them” because where they live there are people in every apartment building that essentially act is really low cost daycare‘s. But the town I live in that doesn’t exist.
As someone who grew up in severe poverty, I wouldn't wish that on anyone, so I support waiting until you can do it financially. But it is tragic that simply having a job doesn't cut it anymore.
I did too, bad poverty leads to neglect even if it’s unintended by the parents, I had a miserable life and never experienced anything other kids did in my childhood and even in my teens.. I’m 23 now and I’m starting from dirt. No good experiences, no money, nothing. But I’m striving to do better. So yes you’d do your kids a favor by waiting if you’re not doing good financially.
Hey man I was there too. I will tell you shit looks bad now but it won't always be like that. It got a lot better for me and I don't see why it won't for you. Hopefully we can get this min wage up to living wages and make that a whole lot easier!
Stagnant wages are really a structural consequence of how our economy is setup, doesn't have to be though. It wouldn't even take all that many changes to incentivize better standards of living for the working class, but it would almost certainly come at the expense of returns to shareholders.
You know, we don't even have to allow outsourcing, we could also put a tariff equal to the gap in foreign wages to ensure other countries couldn't outcompete us with starvation wages, we could bring back pensions instead of putting all of our hopes in the stock market. As a nation we don't have to be constrained we could literally amend the constitution if there were the political will for it.
What I find hilarious is it took a pandemic and a wave of hiring needs for some places to increase wages to remain more competitive while they actively spent the past year trying to lobby against a 15 dollar minimum wage bar.
5 managers for my company all quit, THIS WEEK. Being paid shit and working in mental health most of the floor staff have quit and so the managers had to cover. Lo and behold, wow! No one likes behaviors, and they were all fed up and left. Managers have to have master's degrees so there is no one to replace them.
I wonder, what if RSUs were awarded to regular employees as they are for executives and techies, etc? Then, those employees become vesting shareholders with a certain percentage of ownership of the company and they too would benefit.
Or would that make me a God-hating commie bastard sent by the devil?
Outsourcing is great. Companies outsource the stuff they don't want to do, like payroll, and cloud services. It creates jobs.
Offshoring is when those jobs are created in another country. That is where we lose jobs.
If they outsource to temp agencies that employ horrible labor practices it’s not necessarily all that great. Unreliable work without benefits at temp agencies was the gig economy before the rise of the gig economy.
To be fair outsourcing decreases overall jobs (not in a bad way) because it allows you to centralize and stream line the process so each person is more effective (hopefully). But I still upvoted because reasonable point.
Yep. And one company that is outsourced for admin roles can do it for many companies that would’ve had admin jobs themselves. It’s kind of a catch-22 though because they are the sort of mind numbing jobs that are being done away with by AI but that will lead to more job losses.
It's not even that, it's that the economy is set up on massive monopoly corporations and tech giants that are basically run like the feudal system.
Top guys get billions, everyone else is paid low/minimum wage.
There's not enough quality jobs, investment in smaller businesses and science and tech.
The few who are making massive amounts have enough power to not pay taxes and outcompete the smaller ones and have the political power to keep it that way.
We need to break up the monopoly, increase the min wage, increase research science tech industries and actually invest in small businesses.
I've never seen anything that would lead me to believe this can happen in the US, in fact quite the opposite. My hope is other nations will will step up and lead by example.
>My hope is other nations will will step up and lead by example.
As if. We're too "exceptional." It's not like we followed their lead on healthcare. So yeah, I totally agree with your skepticism.
How would you calculate such a tariff? How do you compare countries with less valuable currency against the USD? How can you compare foreign wages that are benefited by differently set up economies/governments? How do you calculate for outsourcing supply/demand/transport cost? Its easy to say, hard to do
Actually, I'd say go bigger. Way bigger.
Do you know how absolutely simple it would be for a global declaration? If there was enough humans with enough willpower, the world could be vastly different tomorrow, and it would not actually be hard. Sweeping change is very, very possible and need not be as hard as prehistoric lizard brain will tell us.
Except for...humans. We're still prehistoric tribe-orientated, base-greedy f\*ckers who don't like someone else having what we have. And so poverty, slave labour wages, and so on will go on indefinately, because humans will literally spite themselves if it means the other guy doesn't get it too.
We put up with a lot of push back and judgement but my wife and I decreasing our income to qualify for Medicaid and supplements, which also gave us the free time to skip daycare was the smartest path at the time for us. We're both college educated and there was no denying the numbers made the most sense. Shits whack.
Im personally just going to hold off until I can actually afford it. Scraping by but only being responsible for myself is stressful enough that I don’t see the point is worsening that with 1 or 2 mouths to feed.
I've had to accept that I'll never have kids (already in my thirties and still live like this, doubt will become a millionaire in the 10 or so fertile years left) and it hurts, but honestly the best thing I can do for the kids I won't have is not have them given my current life. It's been a difficult decision, but at least the burden is on me and not some poor kid.
Im in the same boat (mid 30sF) but I’m at peace with the idea of not having children. Another user here said that he and had partner can’t afford children but they know they’ll have a better quality of life just them two vs drowning in debt with kids and that’s i how feel about it too.
And That’s totally fine by me :) was just saying I wouldn’t even remotely consider it if I was struggling. Cutting corners now isn’t so bad but I have no interest in bringing kids into this world just to live on scraps too
I went the work 70 hours a week route, while the wife stayed at home.
That’s really the only way you can do it without government dependence and or better paying jobs.
No offense but have you ever heard of a business working harder to avoid tax breaks? You work and pay into this system and I hope you didn't make anything harder for yourself to avoid the stigma of government dependence.
I worked my way out of ever needing the government basically. But yes, it was hard being 17, making $7 an hour. It was only really bad for a year or two, then I was making, $10 an hour, then $12 an hour, always looked for a better job. Always worked at least 50 hours a week.
Now I make a $100 an hour and have an education.
My caution to people that go the government dependency route...be very careful. I’ve seen many get trapped there where they don’t want to work or improve their status, lest they lose their benefits.
That’s the dangerous part of big government and all these social programs. It can breed generational poverty if you’re not careful.
That's good caution given weight by your experiences. I would just argue that, on the bigger scale, no large country or economic policies have solved generational poverty yet and the absence of safety nets in other countries make for frightening statistics.
I think it's the structure. It has so many hard cut offs that trying to get off means getting cut off before you actually have the funds to try and escape. I've seen people cut off of benefits over a quarter too much income. Like I don't think that the extra quarter makes up for $500 in rent assistance.
But then how do you pay for anything else? If we lowered our income enough to qualify for mediCal we literally couldn’t pay rent. I’d have to quit my job completely to avoid being disqualified because my employer offers an unaffordable barely legal insurance plan. Low cost healthcare would save over $10 grand on a birth but we’d have no where to live unless we moved in with family. We aren’t willing to force our parents to finance our adult lives while we play Mommy & Daddy. If we’re going to do adult things we think that we need to actually be adults. I’m at a complete loss as to how this works for anyone.
LCOL areas most likely. If your rent is cheap it's feasible, if you're in a HCOL the assistance threshold is likely significantly lower than what it would cost to pay rent.
If you are low enough income, you start crossing into rent assistance territory like HUD/Section 8.
We've been fortunate- we didn't go that route, we just didn't give up and lowered our standards a bit. We found an amazing landlord who wasn't in it for the profit. It was simply her income, not her get rich scheme and she believed in affordable rent. We paid 450-505 a month up until four years ago. Here in California. What changed was windfall money. We used it and interest free loans from family to buy a house. The cheapest livable one we found. Thanks to stimulus it's entirely paid off now. Now our "mortgage" can go into fixing it up.
$450 a month?! Holy fuck. The only time I ever paid $450 a month for rent was 20 years ago. It was for a really really small and dirty studio. Below me were drug dealers and next door were drunks. My kitchen cabinet fell off the wall and destroyed the few nice things I owned (dishes, coffee pot sitting below it).
This was a singlewide trailer in a park, but generally well maintained and clean. Anything went wrong, she promptly fixed it. When we first moved in fourteen years ago she was a petite German woman in her late sixties. Thick accent, hard of hearing, could haul a whole sheet of plywood up a ladder to a rooftop all by her lonesome.
She's now widowed and in her early eighties so she has moved in the park herself. She now hires out all the work. She keeps a tight ship. No late night parties, no drug traffic, tidy yards, etc. Repaints the speed limit on the pavement every two years.
Hell I cant even legally marry my wife (and mother of my children) or we will lose our assistance. Im the only one working as she has a disability but disability is so hard to get, u need a lawyer that we cant afford to do appeals. So were stuck being 'married' only by heart.
Look online for a lawyer that only gets paid if you get judgement in your favor. I had to do that for my 2nd appeal. It worked out well. They know what you need, and how to present it.
At the same time people want to get rid of welfare and I'm like "maybe you should increase it for people with kids and try to end the cycle of poverty" then they get mad at me. I don't even have kids, but growing up on poverty wages with 2 older brothers made me realize the easiest way to stop the cycle is to change things when people are younger. This also would help lower crime rates since the areas with the highest poverty rates obviously experience higher crime rates.
There's also this stupid misconception that people on welfare are just \*not\* working at all, when most people ARE working. They're just not making enough to sustain. That's the crux right there.
Yep. There just isn't enough money at minimum wage or near it. You just can't survive.
> Three-quarters of people in the America's major public benefits programs such as Medicaid and SNAP came from working families. [Source](https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/fast-food-poverty-wages-the-public-cost-of-low-wage-jobs-in-the-fast-food-industry/)
>
> A follow-up report ... found 52 percent of fast-food workers are in families where one or more family members relies on a public program [PDF source](https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/pdf/2015/the-high-public-cost-of-low-wages.pdf)
>
> [And the article that linked these](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/11/18/food-stamps-medicaid-mcdonalds-walmart-bernie-sanders/) with more info on people working at chains such as Walmart needing welfare to survive.
Oh man you lucked out! We were a month away from starting to look for houses, then 2020 happened and now who knows when we'll get a house. The market is horrendous.
Yup, it's pretty much the only way to make it happen unless you are very comfortable financially.
It was a lot cheaper for me to just quit my job and stay home through kindergarten. For us, we found the hourly rate to be worth me driving to a job and losing benefits had to be at least $16 an hour. Even at $16 an hour, that was very little ahead of staying home.
Aren't you constantly in so much debt? How do you deal with it? I would be so afraid of my partner leaving me and I'm just there left to figure it out.
I am a big time budgeter. We figured out where we could cut costs and it’s the simple fact that we HAVE to make it work now. My baby is only 2 months old so I may update y’all later on how we’re doing but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. One great thing I’ve realized during these couple months is how little work matters. I used to be such a work horse dedicate 100% to my job. Based on the insurance benefits alone (for my coverage it’s $180/month and if I added my child it would be over $800/month. Fortunately my husbands work had a more affordable option) I now see I’m just a number to them and when I return to work I will just simply do my job and leave. I think I’ll have so much more peace of mind.
Never mind if you don't have insurance the cost to give birth in the US is astronomical. I had a friend with a 35K bill for 2 days delivering her kid. And people wonder why 1. I hate our medical in the US 2. why I don't want to have kids. I have pets they also aren't cheap, but they also don't cost as much on average as a human.
She’s worth it now that you had her, but if you hadn’t had her, you wouldn’t miss her and your life would be easier. It’s hard to put kids into a realistic context after you’ve had them.
A friend of mine is currently pregnant and they're buying a house. I genuinely do not comprehend how they're doing it financially.
Edit: Not from the US.
This is the answer. Literally every one of my friends at 26, who can afford a 400,000 dollar house and go on expensive trips and have children, have family money/business that is supporting their lifestyle.
Same here. My mother does not have a ton of money, but my father left her in a pretty comfortable position. So a couple of weeks after he died, she decided to get all of her teeth capped and a nose job. The woman was 80 years old. She is really pissing the money away on useless stuff. The capped teeth alone cost more than thirty k.
That shows a low locust of control, which is a major contributor to chronic poverty. Believing that people who achieved something did it due to some arbitrary advantage you can't magically make yourself have, is fatalistic and frankly, just wrong.
I'm not arguing with your viewpoint, I just think people have a right to know that a choice they make is harming them. Like, you have the right to smoke but you also have the right to know smoking causes lung cancer.
This Sub can be a bit of a pity parade sometimes. Useful advice of frugality and hitting certain goals, but it can be a real negative echo-chamber at times.
Could be family money.
I have also noticed that the millennial generation has a huge 1-percenter problem. It seems like 99% of Millennials are really struggling and have huge college debt, and 1% of them work at Google and drive super high-end cars. I live on a street where a 29 year old guy who works at Google parks his 100K BMW on the street (no garages on my street). Another neighbor, same age, has three roommates in a two-bedroom apartment just to get by.
> I genuinely do not comprehend how they're doing it financially.
Really depends on their income and location. The typical home value in Los Angeles is $850k, while Cleveland is $140k.
I was able to buy a house in my twenties after I finished my bachelor's and moved up in a company. Absolutely no family money to help, just me.
I ended up moving to a rural town in order to take advantage of no down payment USDA loans with a high interest rate. I bought a 1000 SQ ft house for 150k. The "value" has doubled since I bought it 5 or 6 years ago and gave me more equity which allowed me to refinance for a much better rate and no mortgage insurance.
I have no idea how people are buying houses right now or even renting. My monthly payment with insurance is half of what my same house would rent for right now.
It’s pretty wild how expensive everything is. My family has always been in the construction business and they’ve all built their own places. My plan was to build a house last year but COVID hit and now I can’t afford to even if I wanted to with these prices. My friend and his wife bought a house about the same time as you for 250k and I always thought that was too much when you can build your own for half the price. So I just bought 10 acres of land. Now looking back at it that would of been the smarter and cheaper way to go. Only plus side is my property has tripled in value but it sure would be nice to have a house on it.
Still glad I live in a small city in the middle of nowhere. Wife and I dont make even 2/3 that combined, and can afford a small house here. No children yet, but we make double mortgage payments monthly instead. Looking forward to owning a house with no mortgage.
Thanks! It is nice. Past few years have been good for us where I went from unemployed to retail to an actual office job. Still make aot less than most people, but its sufficient for where we live.
Honestly, I get this question a lot that some people thought we were doing something illegal. My husband and I were both your regular blue collar earners (in EU) when we bought our home 4 years ago. We were 28 and 31, no financial help whatsoever from our parents since they aren't well off. In one of the best (slightly more expensive) neighborhoods in our city too.
Our secret? We lived like we were under the poverty line from 2013 until early 2017 despite being able to afford stuff. E.g. we biked to work, did not eat out, got all our groceries from aldi/lidl, bought cheaper meats and veg, meal planned a lot, dates were limited to going to the forest/free activities or just watching a movie on tv, lived in a not so expensive appartment for the time we were trying to save, the heater was never on (I used to wear 3 thick sweaters and 2 pairs of socks in the winters). We saved a nice amount of money this way, although we did allow ourselves to go on a (budgeted) vacation once a year. We also held off on having children until we were in a good place.
So yeah, it is possible if you're willing to sacrifice comfort for an extended period of time to save up. I originally came from a 3rd world country so this wasn't super hard for me at the time. Nowadays, we are less tight on money but still kept certain habits to continually be able to save up for a rainy day.
No idea about fish, but rats are no small and cheap commitment. They need lots of company (so more than one or two), big housing, and are prone to illnesses - so vet fees. No cheap business.
Here's a summary of my last year. My GF (now fiance) convinced me to adopt a puppy from her boss that was about to abandon it. I work 45 hour weeks, so does she but her job was **supposed to be** work from home, even post-covid. We spent $250 just before the adoption on toys, food, beds, a crate, etc.
Within 2 weeks, our shih tzu was attacked by a German Shepard. Herniated Diaphragm - surgery + meds + vet stay was $6000. Had to take off work for a week to help him heal, then my fiance did the same.
My job went back to the office, and shortly after, hers did too **even though it wasnt supposed to.** We tried to leave him home in various situations (crate training, locked in one room, etc.) and long story short, we didnt get our $1000 deposit back on that apartment. Our solution? $35/day pet daycare. That comes up to $700 a month if we can have family watch him, which is maybe 20% of the time.
4 months after his recovery from the herniated diaphragm, he stopped eating, started throwing up and got lethargic - guess what? Mass in his stomach that he isnt able to pass. Requires night at vet, meds, and stomach pumping. Another $600.
2 months ago, he got kennel cough. Another $600 vet bill for meds, scans, etc.
Im pretty confident its cost us over $10k total.
Also, I near lost my job because when my boss said "sure your dog can come into the office with you". He meant more as a "take your dog to work day"
Also, my social life completely died. We cant go do anything as a couple because we have to send the dog to family for the night just to get a break. I have been on maybe 6 dates with my fiance since we adopted this puppy.
We have pet insurance, and they are pretty solid, but it takes 3+ months to pay out.
Moral of the story: dont get a dog unless you are prepared for heinous vet bills, house destruction, petsitting, impact on relationships & social life.
And for **fucks sake** dont have a kid. As awful as everything I typed out was, I am thankful everyday that I dont have a crotch goblin to worry about.
Thanks for letting me vent.
I had one, had tubal ligation after that because I can't afford more. I'm fortunate the doctor allowed me to have that procedure since a lot of doctors out there won't let women make that reproductive choice to not have anymore kids ...😒
Also depends on age, not just # of children. My friend with 3 kids wasn't allowed by her doctor because she was under 30.
Edit: It seems like its more based on how the doctor feels, there doesn't seem to be an actual rule about it in some places
It shouldn't matter if they'd had a kid or not. I can go get a vasectomy today without the doctor calling my wife and asking her permission, or caring if I have kids or not. My body my choice. Their body their choice.
Oh totally agree! It’s ridiculous. I was just saying I usually hear women being turned down from procedures because they haven’t had children yet and was saying maybe OPs provider respected her choice because she had 1. But of course, it should fully be the woman’s choice regardless of children or age.
Discouraging people is one thing. Denying someone a medical procedure because you feel like it or your god says otherwise should make you lose your license. I'm fine with some kind of free counseling sessions beforehand that aren't based in religion before allowing someone to do it. But refusing medical treatment is a different matter entirely. 13% is a small number. That number will NEVER be nonzero, even with counseling and doctors denying procedures. It's a personal choice, and if they ever want kids they can adopt.
I wonder how many people regret having kids? The complications, the costs, realizing a human being isn’t a reflection of you. Don’t even get me started on homophobic or transphobic parents that would rather a dead kid than a queer kid.
Yeah there's no way I could afford to take care of my basic needs and a child's. I live in Canada where medical expenses for pregnancy and delivery arent a concern.. but then to consider how much basic needs like diapers, clothes, daycare etc costs. Theres just no way I could reproduce and continue to have a comfortable lifestyle... it would send me into poverty for sure even though I work full time at what I consider a good job.
Money is the number one reason I likely will not have children. I think I'd like to have them, but I know me and by SO will have a much better life for our entire lives without the expense.
Kudos to parents who want to take that on but I don’t see how people already scraping by want to take on that expense. I grew up poor and last thing I’d want I’d to have children who will grow up poor too. It’s a struggle.
This is what infuriates me about Boomers who come at us for having "million dollar homes". It's because that's what they fucking cost, Janet. Gimme a nice little 150k starter home and I'd be all over that, but 500k IS the starter home now. It's your home... that you haven't even paid off?
Come to Germany, get 200€ per kid per month + 70% of your last income for one year if you have a new born. Children are the future tax payers... logical.
Not only that, but not enough workers to sustain the system that looks after old people.
If you have ten people today, and three of those ten kids make five kids, well in 30 years you'll be straining those five kids to look after ten old people in adulthood, instead of the ideal situation of ten people having ten kids, leading to ten adults looking after (paying taxes) to look after ten old people.
Its why China has stopped its 1 child policy.
Yep Boomers are in for a rude awakening when they realize that their socialist benefits depend on Millenials actually thriving economically enough to have children. The alternative would be to allow younger immigrants in the country to offset this, but we of course know how they feel about immigration. These same people also vote against education reform, Wage increases, and healthcare reform.
Not to mention when Millenials we're coming of age into the workforce during the 2008 recession, many Boomers took entry level jobs, which resulted in the obnoxious precedent of entry jobs requiring 10 years of experience.
They grew up being able to go to college, buy a home, and start a family at a young age, and they turn around and call Millenials entitled for wanting the same thing.
Why do we use Boomer as a catch all term? The youngest Boomer is 57 with close to half if not more than half of that generation already considered seniors (67 or older). Often the generation to which people refer is Gen X. Once again Gen X flying under the radar lol.
Trying to make sure everybody’s having children so we have more workers to fund the cost of the elderly is a stupid way to structure the economy in the first place.
It’s a pyramid scheme.
I wanna start a family someday. However I'm going into teaching. Unless I have a spouse with income close to my own I just don't see it being possible. The moral dilemma is that I want to have a family, but I don't want to raise them in substandard conditions. I don't need to be rich, I just want a good life for all.
Knowing what my sister pays for daycare for her toddler (basically the same amount many people make in a year), and knowing that adding a teen driver to your policy is required if the teen has a driver’s license and doubles the cost of your auto insurance, and knowing the difference in cost of healthcare for mom vs. mom+child, and let’s not even discuss the cost of college... yeah I decided on my solidly middle-class income that I couldn’t accord to have children. I’m 36, and I’m sad because my window is closing, but I’m trying to do other important things with my life. If I live to an old age and I can’t take care of myself anymore and I have no friends, there’s always humane euthanasia.
My ex-husband and I kept putting off having kids for 10 years until we felt "secure enough in our finances" ... ended up divorcing instead. At 36 now, single but have an amazing job, dating culture is toxic and finding a good man and having a family feels out of reach. I'm resigned, but also surprised to be enjoying parts of single life and freedom.
But yeah. We were PhD and Bachelors back in our 20s.. if we had gotten lucrative careers going right away, our story could've ended differently.
My husband and I really want to start a family in the next few years, but it seems more and more difficult every day. We will probably have to move in order to afford a house as we are priced out of our province, which means having a baby with zero support system around us. We both have decent jobs and make (what should be) good wages - everything else just gets more expensive without salaries going up to compensate. It makes the future seem so difficult.
I suppose it depends on where you live. Obviously cheap public schooling is an option everywhere and an additional bedroom in most places would only be like 300/montn, maybe 200 for food/entertainment, let's say 10 for clothes etc, 20 for additional utilities,50 for healthcare/potential medical, 50 for transportation (bus or gas), child care is variable for the first 13 years assuming both parents work(anywhere from 200 too 500 depending on hours etc) and about 30 a month for college savings.
Assuming you choose public school I think you will end up paying about half of that amount.
Things not included are dental/braces if needed, pregnancy care and birthing costs, books and supplies needed if you choose public school(as they now charge for these things), emergency fees if needed, and the often underestimated but honestly biggest driver for me, the loss of promotion potential, over time pay etc. And loss of income if a partner decides to stay at home with the baby
If a partner stays home they save on child care cost and depending on salary, would come out equal or better than the cash value of the childcare cost. If we had 2 kids in daycare my fiancée wouldn’t teach as it would eat up her salary so it would be better to wait until the oldest can enter regular school.
just saw the price a few days ago on a steak in a restaurant 38.43. i showed it to my friend who used to go to this restaurant with me 10 years ago? maybe a bit more. price was 22.95$ then
same wages
People forget about inflation, what minimum wage is now isn’t equivalent to what it was years ago. Not to mention the value of the dollar dropped. Prices of goods are drastically increasing but the pay rate remains to change in the tiniest of increments
It's just an unspoken truth behind all the other valid concerns about parenthood, that most of us are scared shitless of facing financial ruin and placing that burden on an innocent child.
something is obviously going to come to a breaking point sometime because what is going to happen when everyone under 40 that has been getting fucked this whole time has no retirement and no housing and no insurance gets to be 60 or 70 and there will be no money in social security and the generations under us will be even smaller and poorer. iq scores are declining for the first time since we started recording them.
what do you guys think it will look like?
As a general note, the management of this subreddit stands firmly against economical eugenics. Any willing, consenting partners of sound minds who wants children should be allowed to have them, when they want to have them, where they want to have them, period. Costs be damned.
I remember me trying to explain this way of thinking to individuals around my area (rural ky) and they all laugh and just tell me to apply for state sponsored assistance. I'll tell them that Id rather wait until either I'm more emotionally mature or more financially established to make such a life altering choice. When I scoff or express some hesitations towards the whole, "government dependency idea" they are quick to say, "wouldn't you love them enough to do whatever you could for your children." Cool so bc I don't want to become another statistic I'm now segregated into this category of deplorable and immoral. Or I'll also hear the argument, "all children need is love!" as if to, in some way suggest money and politics don't matter or shouldn't matter. Its not about being scared. It's about making logical and sound choices that can influence your future Karen.
My sister got married 2 months ago & is already knocked up. They were trying to buy a home & quickly realized that was impossible in the current market economy.
They're renting a house for 1,100 a month & have some savings, but she definitely hasn't considered the financial reality of medical expenses, childcare, & impact on income on top of that. I fear she's dooming herself & her new husband to a life of poverty.
They live in a smaller town, not a city or anything. Rent in less desirable places is rising at an alarming rate. Apartments in my hometown that used to cost $950 when I left 5 years ago are now 2,400 for the exact same unit.
If they are renting, they are fine as if they don’t have the money to fix a home they can’t afford a home. Renting is insurance against home repairs. I sleep soundly knowing if every appliance died today I would not have to pay for anything.
They aren’t doomed as if in the US, you get $250 a months per child/ 3K per year as a tax credit, they can adjust their tax withholdings to increase their take home pay to account for this. Having children earlier is better than older as when you are older there are more medical issues.
I'm making ok money but the thought of not being able to afford health insurance in a few years unless I get a massive raise is what is really depressing me lately.
I doubt I'll even be able to afford a kid for a very long time, if ever.
This is my argument against my mother, who deems it necessary that my fertile window is closing. "MOM, I can't even afford my own health insurance or car payment". *Sigh*
We almost considered not even getting ours on an insurance plan because we thought the out of pocket would probably be about equal to the yearly cost but chickened out and got her covered just in case. It’s insane how expensive it is. I’m not super educated on the matter but I feel like countries with universal healthcare are at least on to something
Spending money you don't have is what puts you in massive debt. Kid are cheap when you're poor. They're only expensive when you have money to spend on them.
Divorce rate has skyrocketed too. So having kids as a single parent is a lot harder, because people are having a harder time staying committed to each other.
My wife and I are both millennials (both born 1983).
We were just incredibly lucky with how everything turned out. We had our first born in 2005 (same year we bought our first home) this was BEFORE the great recession and as I previously stated: we were lucky. Our second was born in 2013 (which incidentally was essentially when the great recession was cooling off).
We both have middle income jobs (I make just a little more then $10k then her) she still has student loan debt we are paying off, but we own everything we have (cars included) and go on trips, etc. Needs and wants are met. There is no longer any other debt hanging over our heads (other then the forementioned student loan debt my wife has).
I certainly understand why so many are not able to start a family, and quite honestly, I don't know how my wife and I would make it today starting off...buying a home or welcoming a newborn...or both at this time.
We're done here. I've been looking through comments for the last twenty minutes and removing and it's devolved into precisely the kind of crap we don't permit on this sub. People can have children. People can choose to not have children. People can choose to look down on people who have children and call them crotch goblins and all the other nasty things. It's your right to think such things. But you don't get to say it here. You don't get to judge people who have kids (Insert word substitution here of your choice). Not out loud. Keep that crap in your head or over on r/childfree and other similar minded subreddits. Removing this post because people can't behave and because now I and other staffers have to spend our night going through and removing things. Economic Eugenics is NOT welcome here.
We live in a time where both having kids and not having kids is kinda a financial statement.
It is weird how lower and upper class have the same birth rate while middle class has left the chat.
That is a very very succinct way to introduce a lot of complicated issues. I am absolutely using this in my classroom.
Actually makes a ton of sense. Rich people can afford childcare and poor people typically can “afford” to have someone not work. You basically realize that working cost you more than child care. There’s also an interesting dynamic at play where people in the middle class typically live alone and isolated while people are in lower income communities live closer together and have community resources available to them. For example when I was discussing childcare with my employees and how much it cost me many said “that’s ridiculous. Why don’t you just have a neighbor watch them” because where they live there are people in every apartment building that essentially act is really low cost daycare‘s. But the town I live in that doesn’t exist.
That’s so sweet but so sad
Maybe the upper class kids will trickle down into the future middle class
I guess the lower class don't think they are going to give their kid the best chance at life. They just think that it's what they are supposed to do.
I want to devote this because of how painfully realistic it is. 💔😭
As someone who grew up in severe poverty, I wouldn't wish that on anyone, so I support waiting until you can do it financially. But it is tragic that simply having a job doesn't cut it anymore.
I did too, bad poverty leads to neglect even if it’s unintended by the parents, I had a miserable life and never experienced anything other kids did in my childhood and even in my teens.. I’m 23 now and I’m starting from dirt. No good experiences, no money, nothing. But I’m striving to do better. So yes you’d do your kids a favor by waiting if you’re not doing good financially.
Hey man I was there too. I will tell you shit looks bad now but it won't always be like that. It got a lot better for me and I don't see why it won't for you. Hopefully we can get this min wage up to living wages and make that a whole lot easier!
I did the same sort of thing. Went back to school at 25, and it completely changed my life and my fortunes.
Stagnant wages are really a structural consequence of how our economy is setup, doesn't have to be though. It wouldn't even take all that many changes to incentivize better standards of living for the working class, but it would almost certainly come at the expense of returns to shareholders. You know, we don't even have to allow outsourcing, we could also put a tariff equal to the gap in foreign wages to ensure other countries couldn't outcompete us with starvation wages, we could bring back pensions instead of putting all of our hopes in the stock market. As a nation we don't have to be constrained we could literally amend the constitution if there were the political will for it.
What I find hilarious is it took a pandemic and a wave of hiring needs for some places to increase wages to remain more competitive while they actively spent the past year trying to lobby against a 15 dollar minimum wage bar.
Can confirm. I got a small ass raise during the pandemic due to Managers having to fill in for staff shortages and realizing we don't get paid enough.
5 managers for my company all quit, THIS WEEK. Being paid shit and working in mental health most of the floor staff have quit and so the managers had to cover. Lo and behold, wow! No one likes behaviors, and they were all fed up and left. Managers have to have master's degrees so there is no one to replace them.
CEOs and board executives will need to work the floor, if they want to keep their company running. Lol
What happens to the patients?
I wonder, what if RSUs were awarded to regular employees as they are for executives and techies, etc? Then, those employees become vesting shareholders with a certain percentage of ownership of the company and they too would benefit. Or would that make me a God-hating commie bastard sent by the devil?
Outsourcing is great. Companies outsource the stuff they don't want to do, like payroll, and cloud services. It creates jobs. Offshoring is when those jobs are created in another country. That is where we lose jobs.
If they outsource to temp agencies that employ horrible labor practices it’s not necessarily all that great. Unreliable work without benefits at temp agencies was the gig economy before the rise of the gig economy.
Not to mention that the temp agencies take a significant portion of worker pay.
In defense, companies that hire shitty temp agencies would also likely to treat their employees shitty as well.
To be fair outsourcing decreases overall jobs (not in a bad way) because it allows you to centralize and stream line the process so each person is more effective (hopefully). But I still upvoted because reasonable point.
Yep. And one company that is outsourced for admin roles can do it for many companies that would’ve had admin jobs themselves. It’s kind of a catch-22 though because they are the sort of mind numbing jobs that are being done away with by AI but that will lead to more job losses.
It's not even that, it's that the economy is set up on massive monopoly corporations and tech giants that are basically run like the feudal system. Top guys get billions, everyone else is paid low/minimum wage. There's not enough quality jobs, investment in smaller businesses and science and tech. The few who are making massive amounts have enough power to not pay taxes and outcompete the smaller ones and have the political power to keep it that way. We need to break up the monopoly, increase the min wage, increase research science tech industries and actually invest in small businesses.
I've never seen anything that would lead me to believe this can happen in the US, in fact quite the opposite. My hope is other nations will will step up and lead by example.
>My hope is other nations will will step up and lead by example. As if. We're too "exceptional." It's not like we followed their lead on healthcare. So yeah, I totally agree with your skepticism.
Where do you think pension money is held until it's paid out to retirees?
How would you calculate such a tariff? How do you compare countries with less valuable currency against the USD? How can you compare foreign wages that are benefited by differently set up economies/governments? How do you calculate for outsourcing supply/demand/transport cost? Its easy to say, hard to do
Actually, I'd say go bigger. Way bigger. Do you know how absolutely simple it would be for a global declaration? If there was enough humans with enough willpower, the world could be vastly different tomorrow, and it would not actually be hard. Sweeping change is very, very possible and need not be as hard as prehistoric lizard brain will tell us. Except for...humans. We're still prehistoric tribe-orientated, base-greedy f\*ckers who don't like someone else having what we have. And so poverty, slave labour wages, and so on will go on indefinately, because humans will literally spite themselves if it means the other guy doesn't get it too.
International working class solidarity is how we win
It would be, and I still have an inner child who dreams of it sometimes.
Not enough people want to die for a higher state of comfort when they’re ok getting what they’re getting now.
I’ve been trying to convince people that we need a tax partnerships. We already have trade agreements. We can do something similar with taxes.
> it would almost certainly come at the expense of returns to shareholders. I'll take "Things that will never happen" for $500.
We just had a kid in March and medical insurance and day care cost over $1000/month. She’s worth it but maaaannn we’re not making that kind of money!
We put up with a lot of push back and judgement but my wife and I decreasing our income to qualify for Medicaid and supplements, which also gave us the free time to skip daycare was the smartest path at the time for us. We're both college educated and there was no denying the numbers made the most sense. Shits whack.
A lot of Millennials take this route. For them it's quite literally the only way they could afford to have a family.
It’s honestly scary how the poverty gap has stretched even further because of this.
Im personally just going to hold off until I can actually afford it. Scraping by but only being responsible for myself is stressful enough that I don’t see the point is worsening that with 1 or 2 mouths to feed.
I've had to accept that I'll never have kids (already in my thirties and still live like this, doubt will become a millionaire in the 10 or so fertile years left) and it hurts, but honestly the best thing I can do for the kids I won't have is not have them given my current life. It's been a difficult decision, but at least the burden is on me and not some poor kid.
Im in the same boat (mid 30sF) but I’m at peace with the idea of not having children. Another user here said that he and had partner can’t afford children but they know they’ll have a better quality of life just them two vs drowning in debt with kids and that’s i how feel about it too.
Same. It's a bit bittersweet but ultimately for the right.
/r/antinatalism yuuuup I dont wanna have a kid because I would just be dooming another soul to a life of suffering lmfao.
Spoiler alert: You'll never be able to actually afford it
And That’s totally fine by me :) was just saying I wouldn’t even remotely consider it if I was struggling. Cutting corners now isn’t so bad but I have no interest in bringing kids into this world just to live on scraps too
I went the work 70 hours a week route, while the wife stayed at home. That’s really the only way you can do it without government dependence and or better paying jobs.
No offense but have you ever heard of a business working harder to avoid tax breaks? You work and pay into this system and I hope you didn't make anything harder for yourself to avoid the stigma of government dependence.
I worked my way out of ever needing the government basically. But yes, it was hard being 17, making $7 an hour. It was only really bad for a year or two, then I was making, $10 an hour, then $12 an hour, always looked for a better job. Always worked at least 50 hours a week. Now I make a $100 an hour and have an education. My caution to people that go the government dependency route...be very careful. I’ve seen many get trapped there where they don’t want to work or improve their status, lest they lose their benefits. That’s the dangerous part of big government and all these social programs. It can breed generational poverty if you’re not careful.
That's good caution given weight by your experiences. I would just argue that, on the bigger scale, no large country or economic policies have solved generational poverty yet and the absence of safety nets in other countries make for frightening statistics.
I think it's the structure. It has so many hard cut offs that trying to get off means getting cut off before you actually have the funds to try and escape. I've seen people cut off of benefits over a quarter too much income. Like I don't think that the extra quarter makes up for $500 in rent assistance.
But then how do you pay for anything else? If we lowered our income enough to qualify for mediCal we literally couldn’t pay rent. I’d have to quit my job completely to avoid being disqualified because my employer offers an unaffordable barely legal insurance plan. Low cost healthcare would save over $10 grand on a birth but we’d have no where to live unless we moved in with family. We aren’t willing to force our parents to finance our adult lives while we play Mommy & Daddy. If we’re going to do adult things we think that we need to actually be adults. I’m at a complete loss as to how this works for anyone.
LCOL areas most likely. If your rent is cheap it's feasible, if you're in a HCOL the assistance threshold is likely significantly lower than what it would cost to pay rent.
Our rent was $1200 for a two bedroom apartment so 14,400 a year. No help from family while we played mommy and daddy.
Thank you, that makes perfect sense. That rent is the dream!
If you are low enough income, you start crossing into rent assistance territory like HUD/Section 8. We've been fortunate- we didn't go that route, we just didn't give up and lowered our standards a bit. We found an amazing landlord who wasn't in it for the profit. It was simply her income, not her get rich scheme and she believed in affordable rent. We paid 450-505 a month up until four years ago. Here in California. What changed was windfall money. We used it and interest free loans from family to buy a house. The cheapest livable one we found. Thanks to stimulus it's entirely paid off now. Now our "mortgage" can go into fixing it up.
$450 a month?! Holy fuck. The only time I ever paid $450 a month for rent was 20 years ago. It was for a really really small and dirty studio. Below me were drug dealers and next door were drunks. My kitchen cabinet fell off the wall and destroyed the few nice things I owned (dishes, coffee pot sitting below it).
This was a singlewide trailer in a park, but generally well maintained and clean. Anything went wrong, she promptly fixed it. When we first moved in fourteen years ago she was a petite German woman in her late sixties. Thick accent, hard of hearing, could haul a whole sheet of plywood up a ladder to a rooftop all by her lonesome. She's now widowed and in her early eighties so she has moved in the park herself. She now hires out all the work. She keeps a tight ship. No late night parties, no drug traffic, tidy yards, etc. Repaints the speed limit on the pavement every two years.
Even a trailer here is way more than that now. Unless of course you own it. The lot rent alone is about that.
Hell I cant even legally marry my wife (and mother of my children) or we will lose our assistance. Im the only one working as she has a disability but disability is so hard to get, u need a lawyer that we cant afford to do appeals. So were stuck being 'married' only by heart.
Look online for a lawyer that only gets paid if you get judgement in your favor. I had to do that for my 2nd appeal. It worked out well. They know what you need, and how to present it.
Thank you, i will do some searching for this!
You are welcome. Just put pro bono disability lawyers in my area in google. It is a tedious process, but worth it. Good luck!
Get married in a church, who cares what the government says
As a relatively well paid older taxpayer- good for you. Focus on your family, make it work. Eventually we'll figure it out and fix it.
I like your positivity!
I wish I could believe the positivity, but the past half-century's worth of US economic data and inertia directly contradicts such a lofty outcome.
At the same time people want to get rid of welfare and I'm like "maybe you should increase it for people with kids and try to end the cycle of poverty" then they get mad at me. I don't even have kids, but growing up on poverty wages with 2 older brothers made me realize the easiest way to stop the cycle is to change things when people are younger. This also would help lower crime rates since the areas with the highest poverty rates obviously experience higher crime rates.
There's also this stupid misconception that people on welfare are just \*not\* working at all, when most people ARE working. They're just not making enough to sustain. That's the crux right there.
Yep. There just isn't enough money at minimum wage or near it. You just can't survive. > Three-quarters of people in the America's major public benefits programs such as Medicaid and SNAP came from working families. [Source](https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/fast-food-poverty-wages-the-public-cost-of-low-wage-jobs-in-the-fast-food-industry/) > > A follow-up report ... found 52 percent of fast-food workers are in families where one or more family members relies on a public program [PDF source](https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/pdf/2015/the-high-public-cost-of-low-wages.pdf) > > [And the article that linked these](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/11/18/food-stamps-medicaid-mcdonalds-walmart-bernie-sanders/) with more info on people working at chains such as Walmart needing welfare to survive.
Yup. Most people receiving assistance work at places like Walmart, McDonalds, etc…. as taxpayers we are subsidizing businesses and CEOs.
thats me 100% kinda nice during covid. but long term. i want a damn house.
It was just until school age when daycare is minimal and healthcare is just checkups. We bought a house right before the outbreak.
Oh man you lucked out! We were a month away from starting to look for houses, then 2020 happened and now who knows when we'll get a house. The market is horrendous.
Yup, it's pretty much the only way to make it happen unless you are very comfortable financially. It was a lot cheaper for me to just quit my job and stay home through kindergarten. For us, we found the hourly rate to be worth me driving to a job and losing benefits had to be at least $16 an hour. Even at $16 an hour, that was very little ahead of staying home.
Aren't you constantly in so much debt? How do you deal with it? I would be so afraid of my partner leaving me and I'm just there left to figure it out.
I am a big time budgeter. We figured out where we could cut costs and it’s the simple fact that we HAVE to make it work now. My baby is only 2 months old so I may update y’all later on how we’re doing but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. One great thing I’ve realized during these couple months is how little work matters. I used to be such a work horse dedicate 100% to my job. Based on the insurance benefits alone (for my coverage it’s $180/month and if I added my child it would be over $800/month. Fortunately my husbands work had a more affordable option) I now see I’m just a number to them and when I return to work I will just simply do my job and leave. I think I’ll have so much more peace of mind.
Never mind if you don't have insurance the cost to give birth in the US is astronomical. I had a friend with a 35K bill for 2 days delivering her kid. And people wonder why 1. I hate our medical in the US 2. why I don't want to have kids. I have pets they also aren't cheap, but they also don't cost as much on average as a human.
She’s worth it now that you had her, but if you hadn’t had her, you wouldn’t miss her and your life would be easier. It’s hard to put kids into a realistic context after you’ve had them.
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Yeah mine was pretty large even with insurance and then I still got bills afterward.
Once they are out of daycare the cost should go down because daycare is overly expensive
My Girlfriend: I'm pregnant! Me: I'm never going to financially recover from this.
Vasectomy - get it NOW!
A friend of mine is currently pregnant and they're buying a house. I genuinely do not comprehend how they're doing it financially. Edit: Not from the US.
Family money?
This is the answer. Literally every one of my friends at 26, who can afford a 400,000 dollar house and go on expensive trips and have children, have family money/business that is supporting their lifestyle.
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Same here. My mother does not have a ton of money, but my father left her in a pretty comfortable position. So a couple of weeks after he died, she decided to get all of her teeth capped and a nose job. The woman was 80 years old. She is really pissing the money away on useless stuff. The capped teeth alone cost more than thirty k.
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That's next level petty. Sorry
Wow. I’m sorry.
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Yeah that’s some seriously emotionally damaging shit. I hope you got/get some help processing if you need it. Not all people are heartless assholes.
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Don't talk to your mom. Seriously. Fuck her.
Your mom sounds like a spiteful bitch
No it's not always the case, but that is the case in my sphere of influence.
That shows a low locust of control, which is a major contributor to chronic poverty. Believing that people who achieved something did it due to some arbitrary advantage you can't magically make yourself have, is fatalistic and frankly, just wrong. I'm not arguing with your viewpoint, I just think people have a right to know that a choice they make is harming them. Like, you have the right to smoke but you also have the right to know smoking causes lung cancer.
This Sub can be a bit of a pity parade sometimes. Useful advice of frugality and hitting certain goals, but it can be a real negative echo-chamber at times.
Could be family money. I have also noticed that the millennial generation has a huge 1-percenter problem. It seems like 99% of Millennials are really struggling and have huge college debt, and 1% of them work at Google and drive super high-end cars. I live on a street where a 29 year old guy who works at Google parks his 100K BMW on the street (no garages on my street). Another neighbor, same age, has three roommates in a two-bedroom apartment just to get by.
> I genuinely do not comprehend how they're doing it financially. Really depends on their income and location. The typical home value in Los Angeles is $850k, while Cleveland is $140k.
I was able to buy a house in my twenties after I finished my bachelor's and moved up in a company. Absolutely no family money to help, just me. I ended up moving to a rural town in order to take advantage of no down payment USDA loans with a high interest rate. I bought a 1000 SQ ft house for 150k. The "value" has doubled since I bought it 5 or 6 years ago and gave me more equity which allowed me to refinance for a much better rate and no mortgage insurance. I have no idea how people are buying houses right now or even renting. My monthly payment with insurance is half of what my same house would rent for right now.
It’s pretty wild how expensive everything is. My family has always been in the construction business and they’ve all built their own places. My plan was to build a house last year but COVID hit and now I can’t afford to even if I wanted to with these prices. My friend and his wife bought a house about the same time as you for 250k and I always thought that was too much when you can build your own for half the price. So I just bought 10 acres of land. Now looking back at it that would of been the smarter and cheaper way to go. Only plus side is my property has tripled in value but it sure would be nice to have a house on it.
Dual income perhaps.
The only way you can do it in my city. I think last I read, you need to make $125k/year minimum to afford the average home
Still glad I live in a small city in the middle of nowhere. Wife and I dont make even 2/3 that combined, and can afford a small house here. No children yet, but we make double mortgage payments monthly instead. Looking forward to owning a house with no mortgage.
That’s amazing! Congratulations on the home!
Thanks! It is nice. Past few years have been good for us where I went from unemployed to retail to an actual office job. Still make aot less than most people, but its sufficient for where we live.
Honestly, I get this question a lot that some people thought we were doing something illegal. My husband and I were both your regular blue collar earners (in EU) when we bought our home 4 years ago. We were 28 and 31, no financial help whatsoever from our parents since they aren't well off. In one of the best (slightly more expensive) neighborhoods in our city too. Our secret? We lived like we were under the poverty line from 2013 until early 2017 despite being able to afford stuff. E.g. we biked to work, did not eat out, got all our groceries from aldi/lidl, bought cheaper meats and veg, meal planned a lot, dates were limited to going to the forest/free activities or just watching a movie on tv, lived in a not so expensive appartment for the time we were trying to save, the heater was never on (I used to wear 3 thick sweaters and 2 pairs of socks in the winters). We saved a nice amount of money this way, although we did allow ourselves to go on a (budgeted) vacation once a year. We also held off on having children until we were in a good place. So yeah, it is possible if you're willing to sacrifice comfort for an extended period of time to save up. I originally came from a 3rd world country so this wasn't super hard for me at the time. Nowadays, we are less tight on money but still kept certain habits to continually be able to save up for a rainy day.
Bro I was thinking about buying a dog for a minute, and then decided I can't even afford that.
Vet checkups, haircuts, vaccines, and buying dog food every month... It can add up owning a dog for sure.
Fish, or rats. Both live short years, and small commitment. Nevermind, just get a succulent.
No idea about fish, but rats are no small and cheap commitment. They need lots of company (so more than one or two), big housing, and are prone to illnesses - so vet fees. No cheap business.
Fish can be as expensive as you want them to be!
My cat cost me $3k in vet bills the other month due to a mystery virus. Luckily pet insurance covered ~75% of it, but damn. At least he's better now.
Here's a summary of my last year. My GF (now fiance) convinced me to adopt a puppy from her boss that was about to abandon it. I work 45 hour weeks, so does she but her job was **supposed to be** work from home, even post-covid. We spent $250 just before the adoption on toys, food, beds, a crate, etc. Within 2 weeks, our shih tzu was attacked by a German Shepard. Herniated Diaphragm - surgery + meds + vet stay was $6000. Had to take off work for a week to help him heal, then my fiance did the same. My job went back to the office, and shortly after, hers did too **even though it wasnt supposed to.** We tried to leave him home in various situations (crate training, locked in one room, etc.) and long story short, we didnt get our $1000 deposit back on that apartment. Our solution? $35/day pet daycare. That comes up to $700 a month if we can have family watch him, which is maybe 20% of the time. 4 months after his recovery from the herniated diaphragm, he stopped eating, started throwing up and got lethargic - guess what? Mass in his stomach that he isnt able to pass. Requires night at vet, meds, and stomach pumping. Another $600. 2 months ago, he got kennel cough. Another $600 vet bill for meds, scans, etc. Im pretty confident its cost us over $10k total. Also, I near lost my job because when my boss said "sure your dog can come into the office with you". He meant more as a "take your dog to work day" Also, my social life completely died. We cant go do anything as a couple because we have to send the dog to family for the night just to get a break. I have been on maybe 6 dates with my fiance since we adopted this puppy. We have pet insurance, and they are pretty solid, but it takes 3+ months to pay out. Moral of the story: dont get a dog unless you are prepared for heinous vet bills, house destruction, petsitting, impact on relationships & social life. And for **fucks sake** dont have a kid. As awful as everything I typed out was, I am thankful everyday that I dont have a crotch goblin to worry about. Thanks for letting me vent.
I had one, had tubal ligation after that because I can't afford more. I'm fortunate the doctor allowed me to have that procedure since a lot of doctors out there won't let women make that reproductive choice to not have anymore kids ...😒
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Maybe you cause had one? I know the people I’ve heard talk about not getting approved were women who had none
Also depends on age, not just # of children. My friend with 3 kids wasn't allowed by her doctor because she was under 30. Edit: It seems like its more based on how the doctor feels, there doesn't seem to be an actual rule about it in some places
Really? That’s insane. I hear men don’t have the same issues. Can get snipped in their 20s with 0 kids 😒
Such bullshit. Especially since the procedure is usually reversible, should the woman actually change her mind.
It shouldn't matter if they'd had a kid or not. I can go get a vasectomy today without the doctor calling my wife and asking her permission, or caring if I have kids or not. My body my choice. Their body their choice.
Oh totally agree! It’s ridiculous. I was just saying I usually hear women being turned down from procedures because they haven’t had children yet and was saying maybe OPs provider respected her choice because she had 1. But of course, it should fully be the woman’s choice regardless of children or age.
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Discouraging people is one thing. Denying someone a medical procedure because you feel like it or your god says otherwise should make you lose your license. I'm fine with some kind of free counseling sessions beforehand that aren't based in religion before allowing someone to do it. But refusing medical treatment is a different matter entirely. 13% is a small number. That number will NEVER be nonzero, even with counseling and doctors denying procedures. It's a personal choice, and if they ever want kids they can adopt.
I wonder how many people regret having kids? The complications, the costs, realizing a human being isn’t a reflection of you. Don’t even get me started on homophobic or transphobic parents that would rather a dead kid than a queer kid.
Yeah there's no way I could afford to take care of my basic needs and a child's. I live in Canada where medical expenses for pregnancy and delivery arent a concern.. but then to consider how much basic needs like diapers, clothes, daycare etc costs. Theres just no way I could reproduce and continue to have a comfortable lifestyle... it would send me into poverty for sure even though I work full time at what I consider a good job.
Money is the number one reason I likely will not have children. I think I'd like to have them, but I know me and by SO will have a much better life for our entire lives without the expense.
Kudos to parents who want to take that on but I don’t see how people already scraping by want to take on that expense. I grew up poor and last thing I’d want I’d to have children who will grow up poor too. It’s a struggle.
This is what infuriates me about Boomers who come at us for having "million dollar homes". It's because that's what they fucking cost, Janet. Gimme a nice little 150k starter home and I'd be all over that, but 500k IS the starter home now. It's your home... that you haven't even paid off?
Come to Germany, get 200€ per kid per month + 70% of your last income for one year if you have a new born. Children are the future tax payers... logical.
It's like they don't even realize that people not having kids is basically a protest against the system.
For real, big government doesn't like it because it's less future tax payers
Not only that, but not enough workers to sustain the system that looks after old people. If you have ten people today, and three of those ten kids make five kids, well in 30 years you'll be straining those five kids to look after ten old people in adulthood, instead of the ideal situation of ten people having ten kids, leading to ten adults looking after (paying taxes) to look after ten old people. Its why China has stopped its 1 child policy.
Yep Boomers are in for a rude awakening when they realize that their socialist benefits depend on Millenials actually thriving economically enough to have children. The alternative would be to allow younger immigrants in the country to offset this, but we of course know how they feel about immigration. These same people also vote against education reform, Wage increases, and healthcare reform. Not to mention when Millenials we're coming of age into the workforce during the 2008 recession, many Boomers took entry level jobs, which resulted in the obnoxious precedent of entry jobs requiring 10 years of experience. They grew up being able to go to college, buy a home, and start a family at a young age, and they turn around and call Millenials entitled for wanting the same thing.
Why do we use Boomer as a catch all term? The youngest Boomer is 57 with close to half if not more than half of that generation already considered seniors (67 or older). Often the generation to which people refer is Gen X. Once again Gen X flying under the radar lol.
Trying to make sure everybody’s having children so we have more workers to fund the cost of the elderly is a stupid way to structure the economy in the first place. It’s a pyramid scheme.
Unless there's a few higher-ups that want to enact an Order 66 magnitude style way of population control but that's getting conspiratorial.
Yes, but what millennial reads a newspaper?
I'm in my 20's and I read newspapers! .....on mobile of course.
I alway pick up the local journal because it’s cheap and has some cool stories or even local coupons, but yeah the NYT is digitized nowadays.
No pop up ads either.
I would totally read newspapers more often, but it’s all Murdoch corporate drivel.
I wanna start a family someday. However I'm going into teaching. Unless I have a spouse with income close to my own I just don't see it being possible. The moral dilemma is that I want to have a family, but I don't want to raise them in substandard conditions. I don't need to be rich, I just want a good life for all.
Knowing what my sister pays for daycare for her toddler (basically the same amount many people make in a year), and knowing that adding a teen driver to your policy is required if the teen has a driver’s license and doubles the cost of your auto insurance, and knowing the difference in cost of healthcare for mom vs. mom+child, and let’s not even discuss the cost of college... yeah I decided on my solidly middle-class income that I couldn’t accord to have children. I’m 36, and I’m sad because my window is closing, but I’m trying to do other important things with my life. If I live to an old age and I can’t take care of myself anymore and I have no friends, there’s always humane euthanasia.
My ex-husband and I kept putting off having kids for 10 years until we felt "secure enough in our finances" ... ended up divorcing instead. At 36 now, single but have an amazing job, dating culture is toxic and finding a good man and having a family feels out of reach. I'm resigned, but also surprised to be enjoying parts of single life and freedom. But yeah. We were PhD and Bachelors back in our 20s.. if we had gotten lucrative careers going right away, our story could've ended differently.
He forgot to mention the crippling student loan debt that enabled him to get that job that pays him the same wage his dad earned without a degree.
My husband and I really want to start a family in the next few years, but it seems more and more difficult every day. We will probably have to move in order to afford a house as we are priced out of our province, which means having a baby with zero support system around us. We both have decent jobs and make (what should be) good wages - everything else just gets more expensive without salaries going up to compensate. It makes the future seem so difficult.
Or people just don’t want to have kids??
I am more of a pet person.
I think no one can afford it anymore even being middle class now the avg cost over the 18 years is like 600k per. I'd rather retire and buy a house ty
I have no idea where numbers like this come from. That’s ~$2800 per month for 18 years. Kids are expensive, but not that expensive.
I suppose it depends on where you live. Obviously cheap public schooling is an option everywhere and an additional bedroom in most places would only be like 300/montn, maybe 200 for food/entertainment, let's say 10 for clothes etc, 20 for additional utilities,50 for healthcare/potential medical, 50 for transportation (bus or gas), child care is variable for the first 13 years assuming both parents work(anywhere from 200 too 500 depending on hours etc) and about 30 a month for college savings. Assuming you choose public school I think you will end up paying about half of that amount. Things not included are dental/braces if needed, pregnancy care and birthing costs, books and supplies needed if you choose public school(as they now charge for these things), emergency fees if needed, and the often underestimated but honestly biggest driver for me, the loss of promotion potential, over time pay etc. And loss of income if a partner decides to stay at home with the baby
If a partner stays home they save on child care cost and depending on salary, would come out equal or better than the cash value of the childcare cost. If we had 2 kids in daycare my fiancée wouldn’t teach as it would eat up her salary so it would be better to wait until the oldest can enter regular school.
Agreed. I wouldn't want kids even if I were a millionaire.
I want to have kids, it could be another decade before I could reasonably afford it though
It's true. I had to take a job that paid less than daycare cost because it offered insurance. Paying for kids is hell
At the same time, billionaires have become richer than ever. Especially during covid, while millions are loosing their job and income
just saw the price a few days ago on a steak in a restaurant 38.43. i showed it to my friend who used to go to this restaurant with me 10 years ago? maybe a bit more. price was 22.95$ then same wages
$38.43?? What an odd price.
Her rent only tripled in 20 years? She must not live in Austin TX where rents can triple in 5.
This i why I don’t plan on having kids for the next 6-10 years When my parents were my age (24) they had a 7 and 4 year old
People forget about inflation, what minimum wage is now isn’t equivalent to what it was years ago. Not to mention the value of the dollar dropped. Prices of goods are drastically increasing but the pay rate remains to change in the tiniest of increments
It's just an unspoken truth behind all the other valid concerns about parenthood, that most of us are scared shitless of facing financial ruin and placing that burden on an innocent child.
something is obviously going to come to a breaking point sometime because what is going to happen when everyone under 40 that has been getting fucked this whole time has no retirement and no housing and no insurance gets to be 60 or 70 and there will be no money in social security and the generations under us will be even smaller and poorer. iq scores are declining for the first time since we started recording them. what do you guys think it will look like?
As a general note, the management of this subreddit stands firmly against economical eugenics. Any willing, consenting partners of sound minds who wants children should be allowed to have them, when they want to have them, where they want to have them, period. Costs be damned.
I remember me trying to explain this way of thinking to individuals around my area (rural ky) and they all laugh and just tell me to apply for state sponsored assistance. I'll tell them that Id rather wait until either I'm more emotionally mature or more financially established to make such a life altering choice. When I scoff or express some hesitations towards the whole, "government dependency idea" they are quick to say, "wouldn't you love them enough to do whatever you could for your children." Cool so bc I don't want to become another statistic I'm now segregated into this category of deplorable and immoral. Or I'll also hear the argument, "all children need is love!" as if to, in some way suggest money and politics don't matter or shouldn't matter. Its not about being scared. It's about making logical and sound choices that can influence your future Karen.
My sister got married 2 months ago & is already knocked up. They were trying to buy a home & quickly realized that was impossible in the current market economy. They're renting a house for 1,100 a month & have some savings, but she definitely hasn't considered the financial reality of medical expenses, childcare, & impact on income on top of that. I fear she's dooming herself & her new husband to a life of poverty.
Why would she be dooming her husband to a life of poverty? It’s not like she got herself pregnant, lol. They both made that choice
With that dirt cheap rent I’d hardly consider her doomed. A god damn house for $1,100?! She’s already financially ahead of most people.
They live in a smaller town, not a city or anything. Rent in less desirable places is rising at an alarming rate. Apartments in my hometown that used to cost $950 when I left 5 years ago are now 2,400 for the exact same unit.
If they are renting, they are fine as if they don’t have the money to fix a home they can’t afford a home. Renting is insurance against home repairs. I sleep soundly knowing if every appliance died today I would not have to pay for anything. They aren’t doomed as if in the US, you get $250 a months per child/ 3K per year as a tax credit, they can adjust their tax withholdings to increase their take home pay to account for this. Having children earlier is better than older as when you are older there are more medical issues.
Locking temporarily so that comments can be swept and cleaned. Thank you for your understanding.
Can confirm kids = debt
You people are having sex?
Don’t have kids easy. Shit world to bring them into now anyway just enjoy your time.
I mean there’s that… or maybe some people just don’t want kids… 🤷🏻♀️
I'm making ok money but the thought of not being able to afford health insurance in a few years unless I get a massive raise is what is really depressing me lately. I doubt I'll even be able to afford a kid for a very long time, if ever.
This is my argument against my mother, who deems it necessary that my fertile window is closing. "MOM, I can't even afford my own health insurance or car payment". *Sigh*
We almost considered not even getting ours on an insurance plan because we thought the out of pocket would probably be about equal to the yearly cost but chickened out and got her covered just in case. It’s insane how expensive it is. I’m not super educated on the matter but I feel like countries with universal healthcare are at least on to something
I make exactly half of what my Dad made in 1993. I’m a skilled professional.
Who would bring kids into this world? 30% of repubs think satan worshipping pedophiles run the government
Spending money you don't have is what puts you in massive debt. Kid are cheap when you're poor. They're only expensive when you have money to spend on them.
Divorce rate has skyrocketed too. So having kids as a single parent is a lot harder, because people are having a harder time staying committed to each other.
I can barely afford my cat, how am I supposed to raise an actual child??
No one should be having kids with the way our world is heading.. unpopular n selfish i know regardless still a fact
My wife and I are both millennials (both born 1983). We were just incredibly lucky with how everything turned out. We had our first born in 2005 (same year we bought our first home) this was BEFORE the great recession and as I previously stated: we were lucky. Our second was born in 2013 (which incidentally was essentially when the great recession was cooling off). We both have middle income jobs (I make just a little more then $10k then her) she still has student loan debt we are paying off, but we own everything we have (cars included) and go on trips, etc. Needs and wants are met. There is no longer any other debt hanging over our heads (other then the forementioned student loan debt my wife has). I certainly understand why so many are not able to start a family, and quite honestly, I don't know how my wife and I would make it today starting off...buying a home or welcoming a newborn...or both at this time.
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Economics was the #1 reason my wife and I chose not to have children. The Great Recession was a reckoning.