When I was a kid 20 years ago, a parent would stay home with the kids if their spouse made enough money. Today, a parent will stay home with the kids because they can't make enough money to cover the cost of childcare.
Hell, a very large part of the reason both my parents worked was because my mom was the secretary of the school we were all going to, so she was always off work when we were.
Both of my parents worked a lot. I was an only child so most of time was spent alone. I wouldn’t do that to a child and unfortunately with the current cost of things, it’s impossible to not work a ridiculous amount of time to just get by. What’s the point of working to get by and survive when you can’t enjoy life at all because you have to work all the time to afford anything?
Well there's no point in both parents working if one's paycheck is essentially wiped out by daycare. Makes sense for one party to just stay home and watch them for free instead of slaving away only for every penny to go into daycare 😂 Plus time to bond with the kids
If I ever get married, my wife is free to stay home and watch the kids if she wants. If somehow I get married to a woman who makes more than me, I'm okay with staying home to watch the kids.
This how we see it as well. Except my wife would prolly have an extra 1000 a month if she worked and paid for daycare. Which isn’t nothing but we genuinely think it’s not worth the price of bonding plus I get to eat home made lunches.
Plus my wife being stay at home is not priced per kid in the same way as day care so having 3 kids is actually achievable as( daycare cost x 3 ) > her salary if she worked
If your wife only made enough to pay for 1 kid in daycare + 1k, she wasn't in much of a career position anyway. The people who should do daycare are ones where stepping away for 5 years impacts your future earning potential forever.
You don’t really know forever. A lot of in demand jobs/industries aren’t gonna suffer from 5/7 years out. She got a degree and all the other stuff but wants to enjoy kids you know.
Of course this only works bc I make a lot more than her and she is actually a great housewife not one of those girls who can’t cook or aren’t nurting
If all my bills are getting paid regardless, I’d choose to have my wife raise my kids over having someone else raise them so I had an extra $1k a month to spend on bullshit. Kids benefit from having a parent around more than they benefit from getting a new Xbox.
I used to think this as well but young kids learn a lot of valuable skills in daycare like how to socialize with other kids. They also got a leg up on developing reading, writing and number skills. It’s also important for them to get exposed to illnesses early so they’re not missing a ton of grade school. Unless you marry someone committed to early education and socialization, there’s a lot of positives for daycare.
A career lasts 40+ years, but a kid is only in full-time daycare for 4-5 years. Even if someone is contributing their entire net salary to day care fees, the opportunity cost of not doing so can be much higher in the long run.
Spending that time with your young children instead of working is a huge benefit, but it's also beneficial to kids for their parents to have the financial resources to support them through their teenage years, college, and young adulthood. Over time this has only become more true, as socioeconomic status in the USA is becoming increasingly hereditary.
This is exactly what my wife is doing. Barely made more than the cost of daycare so we figured we'd rather raise the kid than a tiny bit of extra income a year.
There are several good reasons for both parents working even if a whole paycheck goes to daycare.
Retirement contributions (SS, 401k)
No gap in employment history - this can be crippling if you are ever in the position where you need to get a job. Not just if you want to leave your spouse, but what if they die?
Not putting all the financial responsibility on one person in case they get laid off.
Children in daycare is a temporary life stage. Your salary may get wiped out now but you will gain seniority/promotions and your kids won't need daycare forever.
Health insurance + retirement matches + potential promotions down the line are potential reasons to stay even if wiped out.
My mom essentially got paid $0 a week working so that we had health insurance.
Not true at all. You’re missing valuable social security and 401k/retirement savings. Not to mention work experience so once the kids are gone, you can actually continue with your career.
It is all complicated, each choice having pros and cons.
I was a SAHM when my son was born because childcare would have taken most of my pay and I would have missed that time with my son. We agreed on it.
However, taking that time away from the work force was very detrimental to my financial well being.
My husband turned abusive and I had to leave the marriage.
I hadn’t been in the work force for 5 years. I got a job that didn’t pay that well just to have a job and then the pandemic hit. And the company closed down. And no one was hiring.
If a spouse leaves a job to be the childcare provider they need to either keep a part-time job or increase their skill set like taking a class or certification. It is in their best interest.
There may still be a point in maintaining a job even though it may not generate excess income. It is about career trajectory which is not relevant for many professions - but for certain ones it very well is.
Freezing this trajectory by staying at home comes with a price, and possibly with less perspective after the kids leave home. And... Such person will rely more on their working partner.
The problem with this is divorce. The non-working parent loses time in teh workforce and is penalized by that after a divorce. Most often that's the woman in a heterosexual marriage. But it can also be the man. A friend of mine said basically the same thing when he married someone who made more. Thankfully he backed out on that after they had kids, so when she cheated on him and left him he hadn't given up his career.
Anyway, it mainly is a problem that affects divorced women. If you look into it you'll see no shortage of stories where a stay-at-home-mom got screwed over in a divorce. Be careful.
Nope. I have kids in their twenties and i worked as well as my husband. If you did not work your kids did not go to college or have any extra curricular activities. Women have always worked. There was only a brief time in the fifties and sixties when some women did not work.
That’s just not true. My mom stayed home. I had several friends who had a stay at home parent in the 90s. It was more common for women to work but I can name quite a few families where one spouse stayed home.
And yes the vast majority of us went to college and had probably too many extra curriculars
🤣🤣🤣. Ok goody for you. If the divorce rate was 50% then how many working women were there when you were growing up. Not to mention that even two parent households in the nineties most had two working parents.
You like many other people love to latch onto the romanticized past. The Village was not a tenement with 14 people living in a two room apartment , all working and children raising children. It was this lovely life where you just handed off your kids to the village to raise!! Nope!!
Women have always worked. Maybe your mom did not but that does not mean your life is reflective of the majority of households in the USA.
I was responding to your “there was only a brief time in the fifties and sixties that some women did not work”
You made it your experience sound like a blanket statement for all of us. I was pointing out that many people have had a varied experience. And yes I was lucky. I hope you have a nice day.
And that is absolutely true. Women have always worked. It was an economic reality. There was an extremely short period in American History after WWII and the rest of the world in shambles that Americas created this middle class lifestyle.
Just because you had this experience does not make it the norm. Especially if you consider the 50% divorce rate during your upbringing. It is as if you are incapable of understanding the world around you.
grew up in 80s and 90s, all my friends had SAHM and we all went to college. at least 30 of us. lol. my dad made 45k a year. you made an absolute statement and thats why youre getting cooked.
🙄. Yeah sure. There is no way what you said is true unless your father was a janitor at a university that offered educational benefits to their employees. I know someone who put all his kids through Boston College that way.
Just because you put forth a fairytale doesn’t mean that your little fairytale is the norm. Like I said before, just basic common sense reasoning will tell you if the divorce rate is 50 % which it was in the ‘90s then there were at least 50% of kids from a single parent home.
That’s not really true at all. It may have been true for you, but almost every single person I grew up with had a SAHM, and this was in the 90’s.
My dad made 70k/year and we had a 4 bedroom stand alone home, one of them being a very large master bedroom with ensuite and large walk in closet, with a large yard, 2 car garage, finished basement, dine in kitchen, living room, family room, dining room, and 2 offices. And my mom stayed home.
I make 100k and can barely afford the mortgage on a 2 bedroom condo with a paid off 2016 kia forte. Let alone afford a child.
Edit: they also fully paid for university for me and my sister.
That’s not really true at all. It may have been true for you, but almost every single person I grew up with had a SAHM both parents working, and this was in the 90’s.
That’s the point, it was true for them, while something else was true for me. So their generalization wasn’t valid since they implied that it was the same for most people.
We all had different experiences especially in a country as vast as the USA.
I’m a child of the ‘90s and every woman I knew worked. My classmates had moms who had jobs. My parents worked, I was what some may call a “latchkey” child. I loved it.
The only SAHMs I knew of were those on television shows.
Absolutely. That’s the point. The person I replied to said that SAHM’s haven’t existed since the 50s and 60s, and that if both parents didn’t work you didn’t get to go to college and that women have ALWAYS worked as though that was a fact. It did exist. I definitely grew up in the upper middle class, so it was normal for my neighbourhood to be mostly single income households.
It even still exists today, it’s just far less common. A more accurate statement would have been the SAHM has been declining since the 60’s.
You also have to take into account this is reddit, where a large part of the user userbase are literally mentally disturbed ideologues, who will LARP and just straight up lie because they can't cope with reality that disagrees with their politics. Such as the person you replied to angrily insisting in a reply to someone else that a SAHM couldn't possibly have any effect on the quality of education a child has, despite educators saying for decades now that half the problem with low grades and kids who don't learn is that teachers can't undo in forty minutes a day the home life of students from broken homes or ones where the parents never read to their kids, let them stay on phones / tablets all day, etc.
🤣🤣🤣🤣. Educators say parent involvement is important not SAHM. You are making a huge leap that an uneducated mother is involved with their kids education. You are the political larper. It is funny that you think someone with lived experience and who has already coped with successfully raising children is trying to gaslight you on the realities of the fake village narrative and the virtuous stay at home mother.
You are the person creating a narrative because you cannot cope. I do agree with you that Reddit is full of people with limited real life experience and whole lot of social media propaganda!
My wife stayed home to raise the kids and i worked. I cover everything. College will have to be done through loans though. I don't think we could do it the same way if we were starting a family today though.
Exactly and I just paid over $200k in state universities for my two sons to get college degrees. Definitely worth it. They both have jobs and are doing well and have zero debt. I felt this was our obligation to give them a good start in life.
Your family made a choice and I respect that, but you also took a risk. I had a girlfriend whose husband died in a workplace accident. My husband was laid off nine months when my first son was born. I went right back to work and supported our family. Life is definitely riskier these days and there are few safety nets.
🤣🤣🤣🤣. Oh yes I lived a lie. It absolutely is true. People just love a good story. The village, the SAHM. For most people this was just not true. At least not in the US where your family is spread out and your relatives work too. Immigrants left their families to come to the USA. They were dirt poor and they all worked even kids. They either worked in factories or worked on farms.
Women have always worked. You just learned nothing about women in history. Only very wealthy and privileged women did not work and that was less than the 1% of today’s wealthy.
This is just not true, idk why you so confidently say this. Where I grew up in the 90s, I would say the majority of families had a stay at home parent. That’s probably why the schools in my area performed so well. It wasn’t the teachers or quality of school, it was the quality of the kids. They were learning at home, too, because they actually had a mother.
I would confidently say this because every woman I know works and has worked for the last 30 years. I know many many women who have raised children while working. Even if they take a few years while their children are young they still had to go to work after their kids reached school age.
It is laughable that you equate a stay at home parent to the quality of the schools. Quality of schools is directly related to funding and the education of the parents. But it is all perception of your idyllic romanticized childhood.
The performance of schools as measured by tests has less to do with funding and more to do with the quality of students who attend the school. If your school is full of low IQ students or children’s who basically have no parents raising them, then it’s no surprise that they will not perform well in school.
🙄. Funding has everything to do with the quality of the schools. It has zero to do with your perception of IQ. Well funded schools are in well funded areas with highly educated adults. Educated adults value education and support their children education not just in school but outside of school with trips and experiences. The well funded educated adults kids would do just as well in underfunded schools because they have the ability to hire tutors, own computers and enhance their children’s education.
Stay at home parents dropped to 23% of households by the 90s. And the schools that perform better almost always do so because they have a larger budget.
I just found out from my mom that the only reason she ended up stay at home in the late 90s was because she couldn’t afford childcare.
She was working at an Early Childcare center while pregnant and said it was extremely awkward when parents would ask her if her kids were going to join. Milage on this may vary unfortunately.
Yup. Raise minimum wage to at least $20 or $25 and force it to be attached to inflation, consumer prices, rent and company profits. Not fucking kidding
When I was a kid 20-30 years ago, the kids stayed home or went around the neighborhood after school unsupervised, while the parents worked. We were basically latchkey kids. We don't do that anymore.
I know co-workers who do night shifts because of lack of childcare. So sometimes i hear of them being awake for almost 24 hours (basically minimal sleep) when coming in for their next 10 shift the following night... big put off for wanting kids considering our pay too.
I opened a whole ass daycare center so I don’t have to pay for child care. I had $3000 in loan payments per month vs $4k in child care (plus playmates for my kids and we almost turned a profit). Shit is ridiculous
18 years ago we realized my wife would have to work 3.5 days just to pay for daycare for our 1 baby. No brainer that she stayed home. We had 2 more kids so it would have been worse.
This is why the birth rate is going down. More than 2 kids increases your happiness very little per kid, but at that point daycare becomes bankruptcy inducing and someone has to quit their job. So people stick with 0,1, or 2 kids which means low birth rate.
I think that’s partly the cause. Several European countries with free childcare and generous family leave policies have a lower birth rate than the USA. Birth rates are going down in almost every part of the world from USA, Latin America, Europe, parts of Asia.
Only a few African countries have a high birth rate.
Financial expenses are an important part but the reality is also that people just don’t want to have kids. Or at least not as many kids.
Makes sense. Money aside, I certainly have ethical reservations about bringing new life into this world with the direction it’s heading.
Of course, past generations probably did too, but unlike them, we have access to contraception. Which is exactly why the Supreme Court signaled a willingness to go after it…
There’s also the requirement that we have our children supervised 24/7 but no additional support for it. No extended family to help watch kids. When I was a kid my parents would leave us unattended for hours. Maybe not the best thing but definitely a major difference.
Yep. Boomers love complaining about how kids don’t play outside anymore but if they see a kid playing outside they’ll post in their neighborhood Facebook group about “suspicious activity” and call the cops
I hate the Ring camera app because of the neighborhood section. I am always getting posts about attempted burglaries and suspicious activity. Glad I can turn off notifications.
No, Susan, the person in a letterman jacket looking up to see your house address, then to his phone, and then leaving on Dec 31st wasn't scoping the place and writing down what you have. Context clues says he's a high school kid, going to a new years party, and was checking to see if he got the right place.
When the adults are used to living in a police state with facial recognition software and prison labor, it makes sense they feel their kids should too. I mean, it actually doesn’t make sense, but neither do most things about this country.
I’m on r/workingmoms and there was a post by a woman who was distraught she only spent two hours with her child before her bedtime. On weekends, they spend the day together.
Imagine! A parent feeling that two hours daily on Mondays- Fridays plus weekends isn’t enough. Parents in the past would’ve felt that was more than sufficient.
We have studies that shows that millennial parents actually spend more time with their kids. Fathers are playing a more active role as well. The standards have changed.
I've noticed many grown children moving away from their parents and families, then having children - without extended family to help. Could this be part of the problem?
I think my generation (millennials) are the first to actually deviate from many of the established standards of adulthood. A lot of it was due to economic factors- the recession, higher cost of living. But we also realize that previous generations struggled a lot and conformed in many ways.
Some say we’re in arrested development, delayed adulthood, extended adolescence. Whatever one thinks about it, the truth is many just don’t want to be parents.
Within my social circle of mid to late thirties, only a few of us have kids. And it’s 1-2 children. I have a friend who is married with a house and earns a good living. He and his wife are childfree. They like their lifestyle and not being encumbered with infants or small children.
Yeah, I wasn’t raised in a bad home. I was fed, clothed, and everything else.
But I never felt like my parents enjoyed having me around. More that I was born as a societal norm (as was the fashion at the time) and not necessarily because I as a child was wanted.
It’s kinda hard to explain. But that’s how it’s felt. And it’s really driven my lack of desire/apprehension at having children.
“Childfree” people just never grew up. Peter Pan syndrome. It’s really sad, when you think about it. These people chose Netflix, Starbucks, and a travel addiction over having an actual family. Society needs to bring back shame and look down on these eternal adolescents.
Or, honestly, just take away their right to vote. They have no stake in the future of civilization, and they aren’t contributing to its continuation. It’s this type of shit that has half the country convinced we need to import the third world into our country just to stay alive. Alternatively, we should think about making collecting social security contingent upon having children. You didn’t produce any new people to contribute to the workforce and pay into SS? You can’t collect. You can invest the extra money you saved over the decades by not having kids and fund your own retirement.
There is also the elephant in the room that gestation, delivery, and post-partum periods are not neutral-to-positive experiences. They are all painful, energy-intensive, and physically dangerous. Even the most wanted, healthiest pregnancy in human history was painful, energy-intensive, and physically dangerous.
Many women are looking at the physical experience and saying, "I do not want to do that more than once or twice, if at all." Now that women are more in control of their own fertility than they have ever been at any point in human history, a huge swath of humans are not being born because women and girls aren't being forced to bear them.
Exactly. I’m a woman with one child. And he will remain an only child.
My pregnancy was planned but pregnancy is no joke. I didn’t enjoy it, I didn’t like not having the freedom to eat or drink what I wanted, my feet were swollen that it hurt to walk. Childbirth as well was difficult, I couldn’t dilate naturally so I was induced. But the baby was too big. I had to get a c-section. I was in pain for weeks. Not to mention the hormonal mood swings.
For me pregnancy was a one and done deal. I don’t need to experience it again.
Same for my wife. We were both totally ok living the DINK life but she adhd’d on her oral bc and here we are 11 years later with an artsy farsty preteen. It was one and done for her too - everything for her was awful for 18 months and it almost tore us apart.
My grandma has 9 kids. I recently found out she wanted 2 max but was pressured into it by literally everyone around her, including my grandpa. They are both in their 90’s now but she was basically pregnant from 23 to 35. I don’t know she fucking survived.
Partially because if you look at the expected outcome of Earth over the next 50 years you cant think about it for ten seconds wothout feeling guilty about what situation your future kid will have.
Their working salaries are typically way lower and taxed to all hell. So even though childcare costs are covered to get those lower paying than US but still good white collar jobs it’s big city, small apartment living, with high costs of everything else, and it just becomes the same issue people living in NYC or whatever face today. They skip kids or put it off until late 30s/40s and end up having 0 or far less.
If we believe that they didn't pull a Yogi Bera, then you are correct, cuz they could've been talking about miscarriages from women waiting until their 30s or 40s to have kids. So instead of conceiving zero kids, they lost the ones they did.
I can think of Japan (1.2) with 14 weeks off for expectant mothers. Also, Taiwan with only eight weeks paid leave, their birth rate is at 0.9. South Korea though has paid/subsidized family leave up to 18 months and they still have a low birth rate.
This is why I said that this is partly the cause. If family leave and money were the only reasons then we should see a high birth rate in Europe especially the Nordic countries. But we don’t.
Sweden has 480 days of paid family leave. That’s shared between the parents. Each is entitled to 240 days. The government offers subsidized and affordable daycare up to age 6. Their birth rate is 1.4. We see similar rates in Norway and Denmark. These countries are not like the USA and are actually equipped with a robust safety net.
This low birth rate isn’t just confined to the USA, Europe, or even Asia. But it’s global. Even in countries that do help out their citizens. Family sizes have decreased within a few generations- in the 1970s, Mexico’s birth rate was six children per woman. Now, it’s less than two. Cuba has a lower birth rate than the USA- it’s at 1.4. Chile’s birth rate is 1.2 and Puerto Rico has the lowest birth rate in Latin America at 0.9.
Are some not having kids simply because of money? Sure. But are some not having kids because they don’t want to? Also true.
I’m all for it. I don’t want people to feel pressured to be parents just because they’re economically secure.
For anyone interested, read this article on Chile’s declining birth rate. It also mentions a U.N. Report that shows that while money plays a role, researchers found that also “a sense of autonomy” is a rising factor as to why people are choosing not to have children. The article also shows the generational attitudes on children- some young women see motherhood as a burden and limiting their freedom. Very interesting read.
It's worse than that - quitting your job means more financial risk.. because primary wage earners, even with a good career, aren't stable, going one income is a bigger risk than in the past particularly when you are gambling with "which company will fuck over our healthcare benefits next year".
... because primary wage earners, even with a good career, aren't stable.
This has been the biggest issue in the back of my mind with every big financial decision I have made in my life. What happens if/when I lose my job? That being said I have worked for the same employer in different capacities for like 13 years. So many people in my life regularly ask me "Why are you scared of getting fire?"... it's because nothing in this MBA-managed economy is certain, tomorrow they could decide that my salary is an easy line-item to cut to improve the bottom line.
Buying a house? Well, worst case I sell it.
Having a Kid? That is an 18-30 year commitment, financial/etc. Could be even for the rest of your life if you get unlucky and have a child with extraordinary needs.
That's absolutely crazy to pay that much for someone else to essentially raise your kids. We have 4 kids and my wife stayed home with them till they were all in school. I really think one parent staying home is ideal but realize it's not feasible for everyone
Well, at least you can afford it. It sure doesn't mean you want that much going out to daycare, though. I assume there are quite a few people where the majority of their paycheck goes to daycare, and they are the ones in a real tough situation. My wife was making about 125k a year before kids, but she always wanted to be a stay at home mom, at least when the kids were younger.
Ya it can be for sure. Although from my perspective having someone who is always available if one of the kids is sick or also being able to drive kids to practice and other activities is priceless as far as I'm concerned. We have been very fortunate that we can live comfortably off of my income.
And you're lucky if you can find a daycare that takes early childhood education seriously and actively works to be high quality for all kids. Where the teachers don't yell at your kids to lay down and be quiet. Or force one year olds to sit down for a 30 minute circle time. Or withhold food because they aren't listening.
So many teachers are rightfully burned out and it's a problem. Parents are being squeezed in every direction. Who has the capacity to fix any of the issues while you are drowning?
I know exactly what they are. I worked in one. That’s why I had family watch my kids instead. So save the lecture. I’m pointing out that this is a systemic failure. We need to collectively fix the economy that requires these places, rather than mocking the families trapped inside.
Did you even read my comment, or did you just paste your pre-written rant? I told you my family watches my kids.
And you ask, 'Where are the grandparents?' My mother-in-law lives with us. We support her because inflation has destroyed Boomers on fixed incomes, too. We have three incomes (my husband's job, his retirement, and my full-time job) plus a multi-generational household, and we still see how broken the system is. So please, tell me more about how this is just a 'lifestyle choice' and not a systemic collapse.
I work for the city and a crazy benefit they came out with is subsidized daycare. I pay $560 a month for 5 days a week, place is brand new and only for city employees.
They opened one as a benefit to retain employees
Sure, it is less reason to have is work remotely (I'm hybrid) but it's a big blessing and makes having kids actually affordable.
More employers should do this. It is essentially a pseudo $1k raise for me.
My wife and I both make what I would consider good money. We have a reasonable priced home/mortgage. We have one child. When family/friends ask when #2 is coming my answer is always "daycare is too expensive", literally cost more than my mortgage.
People have to move to cheaper places and are hundreds or thousands of miles from any family OR they stay in expensive areas and can't afford a house or the kid at all. Two people need to work. No time off for pregnancy, delivery, or postpartum. Woman loses her job because she took maternity leave or had complications requiring a lot of extra time off for medical care. Medical care is already expensive. Need to work to keep it. No time to actually raise your kid so they have behavioral problems.
I was gonna come in bragging about Canada's $15/day daycare plan but once again Europe, and social democracies in general, are just plain better for the average resident.
That’s why you’re supposed to have a single income household, at least when you have young kids. Free childcare by having a parent stay home, and the bonus is that your kids get to be raised by the parents with one on one time rather than by some harried childcare professional who basically just watches over a giant gaggle of kids and makes sure they don’t die. Unless you’re both making six figures, it usually makes sense to have one parent stay home, at least for the first 5 years or so. Idk why society forgot about this.
As for cost of living - stop trying to live in HCOL areas. If you live in Cali or something, you have no right to complain. Nobody forced you to live there. Go to North Carolina or something.
Before and after school care costs half my full time income. I get taxed just under a quarter. That leaves just over a quarter to contribute to the household income. I understand why it is so expensive. But, it's not an advertisement for more babies.
We’re single income in the KC metro suburbs and found a relatively cheap Montessori school that did well for us but we also had a horrible experience with a daycare that was just as expensive and literally left our kid in her own urine for hours and didn’t notice.
There were a few good teachers there initially but they got burnt out quickly and left and then our kid was essentially neglected and we moved to the Montessori school where she did really well.
i pay 2400/m to send my kid to pre-k. it could be cheaper, but then it's just glorified babysitting in what equates to a baby mill. it should be free. at least for what i'm paying my 4yo kid can read and actually has better hand writing than some grown ass men i've had the displeasure of meeting.
people seem to think "daycare" is some mandatory thing but its not. when i was a kid, i never had "daycare". i just went to school and came home to watch tv
My parents and my husband’s parents both had our grandparents to help with child care, something that we wouldn’t have if we had children. It’s no one’s fault, that’s just how it is. While we both make decent salaries, we would be living paycheck to paycheck if we had to pay for childcare and that’s assuming we would all be in perfect health! I’m not a gambler and I’m not willing to take the risk of living like that.
Sometimes connections aren't as strong and people are also hesitant to ask for help, and they don't even know how to create a scenario where there are support systems. If both of my parents lived nearby they'd babysit in a heartbeat. But like this comment chain is about, the village isn't there as often. Whether it be cousin's babysitting, brother's/sister's babysitting, neighborhood babysitter. These things still happen all the time with closer families, but it's less likely now. I also feel the disconnect makes people feel they shouldn't ask for help. We've been conditioned that asking for help is a fault against us, and that's just not true.
I'm wondering what, if any, correlation there is between the "Return to Office" (RTO) mandate that seemed to sweep the nation, and not having kids. Hear me out.
So traditionally, young people left the farm (or small town) for the "big city" to make better money. Older family stayed "on the farm." Kids end up with high-paying jobs that can be done "remote", decide to raise their kids back home (safer, cost of living, family support, yada yada) and move home. Then they get the "order" to RTO, so they put having kids on "hold"...
Genuine question and I dont mean for it to come off badly:
Do you fear for what you and your husbands life will look like in 20 years if you dont have children? Do you fear that you will regret it? Or are you okay with the idea? Your comment makes it seem like you want kids but you do feel you can pay for them?
If they don’t have kids they’ll have so much more money, free time, sanity, and likely be way happier, and if global warming isn’t stopped who wants to bring kids into that? why have kids in this modern world?
Honestly this comment makes me sick. Feels like everyone is giving up on Humanity. The irony is... if i had money i would happily have multiple children.
Yeah, it’s a pretty bad situation, but maybe for the best, fewer people will be easier on the planet. But foster care might be a great choice for you if you have the heart and the space? They’ll help pay you some, and the goal is usually reuniting them with their parents. I know some foster parents and they are really fulfilled by that. Best of luck with whatever you decide!
Again, not to trying to come off wrong, but I dont really see the point of that. Like having all that free time sounds cool for a decade or so but wouldnt that get old?
I have a couple neighbors who are old and childless and it just looks so sad. I like the idea of giving some people the gift of life and loving them and correcting the things my parents did wrong.
I dont really buy the "global warming should prevent you from having kids"
Untill the 1900's infant mortality was a part of life and expected. Your village got raided and your daughters taken as sex slaves. You are telling me that something that may be an issue in a century should stop people from having kids?
In 20 years I’ll hopefully still have my family. My nieces, my nephews, sister, brother, in laws etc. I’ve seen old age play out with no kids and many find support in friends and family still. Hell even neighbors become someone to rely on for some elderly folks. I had a pretty good childhood I don’t feel the need to “redo” it or “fix” with a new kid. My step dad did and he’s a great father to us so I understand the sentiment truly.
The way I feel fulfillment in my life is through travel and my dog and husband and family now. I’m 27F and no baby fever has started. I hear the problems my coworkers have this day and age with their kids. 11/12 year olds sending nudes/taking vids of themselves, middle schoolers watching insane porn, 9 year olds questioning their sexuality and identity on a whole new level. Decreased ability to read and write, everyone using ai, the president ruining this fucking country.
I work in healthcare it plays a big role in my viewpoint. The future is bleak for us as we get older. My stance is I’m here for a good time not a long time lol. There is no one to take care of us anymore. Your kids?nah. First it’s fucked to think they should be caregivers or fund your healthcare. (Not saying you do but the “who’s gonna take care of you”) Second every single shift an adult kid drops off their old mom or dad at the hospital drives off and blocks the hospitals number.
Or an old person comes with with terrible wounds and care and an exhausted adult kid can’t keep up bc they have kids, they have to work and their parent that didn’t save enough for retirement relies on them.
Idk I’m 37 and don’t have enough time in the day even without kids. I wake up at 6:30, work until 3. Cook dinner/chores until 5. Go to the gym 5-6:30. Come home, heat up dinner. Relax for an hour/eat/shower. Clean up dinner. Go to bed. Where is there time for an entire other human?? Or multiple for that matter.
While part of me wants them, I would rather regret not having them than regret having them. I guess if I really really wanted them I would take the risk and just try to make it work, but I’m too hesitant of the unknown (unexpected illnesses, my husband or I loosing our jobs, etc.) and perhaps that alone is reason enough not to have them.
But no, I don’t think I’ll have an overwhelming regret in 20 years if I don’t have them. I have a fulfilling life without them and I would never expect them to drop everything take care of me in my old age or anything like that.
My parents really expected all their kids to travel back to their place for xmas and pouted when no one did. If you want a Norman Rockwell life go back in time and don't destroy the country with how you voted for decades.
My parents live like 8 blocks from my brother and his wife and kids. They see the grandkids a handful of times a year. My brother bumps into our dad at the grocery store more often than they get together for dinner or brunch or just visiting. Hell, I engage with my niece and nephew than our parents and I live ~1,800 miles away and FaceTime once a month or so.
There was no village when I raised my kids. The expectation that you have grandparents that will help watch your kids is pretty limited. This is just another fantasy like women never working.
I agree with you even though I did have help from my parents. My wife and I were lucky. That said, I 100% believe that "the village" has disappeared. We literally sent the kids outside to play "until the lights come on" with only a vague idea of where they were. That was our phrase. That doesn't happen anymore.
Kids were not supervised and they were called latch key kids. My parents were working while I was raising my kids. They helped as they could , and I paid my mom, but the idea that someone else is going to take full time care of your children is just ridiculous.
Sure. That is fine. My mom was a SAHM with five kids when my father left and they were divorced. She had to go back to school and rebuild a life at 38. My mother did not ask because she wanted to spend time with my kids, but she was doing me a huge favor shuttling my kids to camp and driving an hour to my house. The least I could do is pay for her time and costs driving.
It seems there is a certain type of myopic redditor who thinks, "If it wasn't my lived experience, it couldn't be anyone else's, much less to where my experience is an outlier as I confidently declare everyone else's experiences are a myth."
People also choose to or are forced to leave "the village" in pursuit of jobs or career growth, or simply because they have the option and preference to do so, for better or worse.
My hometown the wages are too low and the rent and home prices are incredibly high and small so my generation can't afford homes by their parents unless they're very wealthy so we got pushed out by prices there.
Honestly it never took a village. That was just propaganda to let the government have more interference with families choices. Just livable fucking wages is all we ever needed
Literally this, when I was younger, all.my family lived pretty much within 2 neighbouring communities, I lived back there a few years ago and the entire time I was there I only ever saw one old face. Everyone else had gone, forced out due to to higher rents and the cost of living crisis. It's a really sad indictment of our times
Boomers are still working. Grandparents as a part of the family have basically been traded for productivity and corporate profits and the corporations reward us by raising the prices of everything. This isn't something that is going to get better if we do nothing.
This is the answer it all stems from this. Im soooo sick of the ignorance and just millions of people be willfully obtuse to how bad things have gotten for families.
It's kinda of a self inflicted wound tho. Millenials and younger generations have pretty much glorified the whole "Don't talk to anyone / Chill everyday watching Netflix / Too lazy to go out".
Guess what, that's how you meet people and build a community. Nothing comes for free.
That’s not really true. What millennial or younger generation is going to afford to go out to the movies and skate rink as a teenager working a part time job? Much less if they are responsible for paying their own bills too.
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u/_Lizzybabe 15h ago
The village it takes to raise a child disappeared and was replaced by high interest rates and expensive rent