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Well, the only really expensive thing is daycare. I'm afraid there's no ready solution to that - unless we're willing to get back to the idea of extended famil

Well, the only really expensive thing is daycare. I'm afraid there's no ready solution to that - unless we're willing to get back to the idea of extended family and village to raise a kid. PS. I have three kids, I know what I'm talking about.

steve_adams_86 5y ago
I’d argue that in a nuclear family culture, kids are also expensive in indirect ways which are hard to account for. You sacrifice a lot of personal time and often health when you need to be there for kids virtually constantly, and while daycare is very expensive in some places ($1200 CAD/month for us) I feel like it’s one of the more manageable costs. During the pandemic, having no friends or family around to help and needing to work full time jobs is a lot harder to manage than money. I’m not complaining at all. I just spent a great day with my kids at the ocean and I love having them around. It’s still a daily task to juggle them, work, and my well being without much in the way of outside help. I’m fairly sure my life is shortening considerably as a result of the stress, so like I said, daycare seems pretty cheap in comparison. Just my take on it - I know some people seem to manage it expertly, and maybe more people do than I realize. In any case, that cost is still very high these days since both parents typically need to work. Money becomes easier to find than time.
- AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
  > both parents typically need to work I think that's the key. I'm still trying to figure out for myself if it has something to do with "we need more women in workforce"
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/23/18183091/two-income-trap-elizabeth-warren-book https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/23/18183091/t... (Elizabeth Warren’s book, The Two-Income Trap, explained) > Warren’s central argument in the book is that this rise in household income was almost entirely driven by the increase in the number of two-earner families. And adding income by adding a second worker, she argues, has very different economic implications than rising pay for a single worker. In practice, the book says, the increasing ubiquity of two-earner households leaves families in more precarious financial circumstances with more brittle budgets that were more prone to tip over into insolvency if a problem cropped up. > The “two-income trap,” as described by Warren, really consists of three partially separate phenomena that have arisen as families have come to rely on two working adults to make ends meet: > The addition of a second earner means, in practice, a big increase in household fixed expenses for things like child care and commuting. > Much of the money that American second earners bring in has been gobbled up, in practice, by zero-sum competition for educational opportunities expressed as either skyrocketed prices for houses in good school districts or escalating tuition at public universities. > Last, while the addition of the second earner has not brought in much gain, it has created an increase in downside risk by eliminating an implicit insurance policy that families used to rely on.
    - AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
      Sounds almost like that if we (putting the hard hat on and hiding under the table) find a way to exclude one parent from workforce, things will get back to normal.
      - toomuchtodo 5y ago
        Your reasoning is sound, but I believe it’s untenable in public discourse (for various reasons).
        zaphod12 5y ago
        Forced exclusion sounds terrible. It's about having options, so there is not forced inclusion, which is the trap we've found ourselves in.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        toomuchtodo 5y ago
        Long term, the fix is to push wages up so single earners can support a family and a stay at home partner. Short term, don’t have kids if you can’t afford expensive daycare and need both incomes to break even.
        passerby1 5y ago
        How would it work? Maybe I'm wrong, but once wage goes up there'll be prices growth for housing, daycare and other related things because more families is now able to afford it. It's simply the supply-demand equilibrium. So raising a single earner wage does not seem to do anything good, maybe without decreasing at the same time wage for the second earner (which is unacceptable for obvious reasons).
      - mensetmanusman 5y ago
        I’m not sure this is necessary. I wonder if a future advanced society will support women who want to have large families during their college/educational years. Our family had 2 children in the dorms while I was getting my doctorate, and they were a joy for the floor (e.g. we didn’t require the emotional support animals they were sending to every floor). Also, having the communal environment was ideal for finding child care here and there. A situation like this would help such women reach their (per Pew research) goal of ~3. Imagine if you had free tuition if you had a child while in college? Raising children while young is also super helpful activity wise…
  - Ericson2314 5y ago
    I would say declining worker power drove women to the workplace, and elite strains of feminism were the cover not cause. If it was just feminism we should have seen a 20 hour work week to compensate.
    - AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
      Not an expert here, but from my Soviet background I remember workers rights to go hand in hand with women emancipation.
handrous 5y ago
Well, that and health care (in the US). And housing. And those two don't go away until they're out of the house. But yes, next to those three things most other expenses aren't that bad, or are avoidable with little down-side. Only other notable one's probably consumables (diapers, food, that sort of thing) which doesn't come close to any of the other three. Toys and clothes are practically free, if you're not picky. People get all kinds of expensive crap at baby showers, but very little of it's actually of much use, and most of the rest could have been had used for next to nothing.
- AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
  Healthcare - yes. Housing - we lived with the kids in a 2-bedroom for three years. One room for kids, one for us. Not super pleasant, but overall acceptable.
  - handrous 5y ago
    Housing's technically an avoidable expense, but in most parts of the country one pays for school quality either directly (private school, in which case that expense replaces [and exceeds] most of the extra housing cost, if one wants it to) or by paying a premium for housing in a decent-or-better public school district (some of this may end up paid in extra transportation time & expense, as well—the accounting gets complicated, when a commute is part of the picture). One with the means to avoid it could send one's kids to bad schools and save money, but not many people who can avoid bad schools take that option, for obvious reasons. And I assume in a few small, fortunate areas, or if one gets very lucky when house/apartment shopping, it's possible for this to end up not being that large an expense, but it's atypical.

steve_adams_86 5y ago

I’d argue that in a nuclear family culture, kids are also expensive in indirect ways which are hard to account for. You sacrifice a lot of personal time and often health when you need to be there for kids virtually constantly, and while daycare is very expensive in some places ($1200 CAD/month for us) I feel like it’s one of the more manageable costs. During the pandemic, having no friends or family around to help and needing to work full time jobs is a lot harder to manage than money. I’m not complaining at all. I just spent a great day with my kids at the ocean and I love having them around. It’s still a daily task to juggle them, work, and my well being without much in the way of outside help. I’m fairly sure my life is shortening considerably as a result of the stress, so like I said, daycare seems pretty cheap in comparison. Just my take on it - I know some people seem to manage it expertly, and maybe more people do than I realize. In any case, that cost is still very high these days since both parents typically need to work. Money becomes easier to find than time.

AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
> both parents typically need to work I think that's the key. I'm still trying to figure out for myself if it has something to do with "we need more women in workforce"
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/23/18183091/two-income-trap-elizabeth-warren-book https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/23/18183091/t... (Elizabeth Warren’s book, The Two-Income Trap, explained) > Warren’s central argument in the book is that this rise in household income was almost entirely driven by the increase in the number of two-earner families. And adding income by adding a second worker, she argues, has very different economic implications than rising pay for a single worker. In practice, the book says, the increasing ubiquity of two-earner households leaves families in more precarious financial circumstances with more brittle budgets that were more prone to tip over into insolvency if a problem cropped up. > The “two-income trap,” as described by Warren, really consists of three partially separate phenomena that have arisen as families have come to rely on two working adults to make ends meet: > The addition of a second earner means, in practice, a big increase in household fixed expenses for things like child care and commuting. > Much of the money that American second earners bring in has been gobbled up, in practice, by zero-sum competition for educational opportunities expressed as either skyrocketed prices for houses in good school districts or escalating tuition at public universities. > Last, while the addition of the second earner has not brought in much gain, it has created an increase in downside risk by eliminating an implicit insurance policy that families used to rely on.
  - AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
    Sounds almost like that if we (putting the hard hat on and hiding under the table) find a way to exclude one parent from workforce, things will get back to normal.
    - toomuchtodo 5y ago
      Your reasoning is sound, but I believe it’s untenable in public discourse (for various reasons).
      - zaphod12 5y ago
        Forced exclusion sounds terrible. It's about having options, so there is not forced inclusion, which is the trap we've found ourselves in.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        toomuchtodo 5y ago
        Long term, the fix is to push wages up so single earners can support a family and a stay at home partner. Short term, don’t have kids if you can’t afford expensive daycare and need both incomes to break even.
        passerby1 5y ago
        How would it work? Maybe I'm wrong, but once wage goes up there'll be prices growth for housing, daycare and other related things because more families is now able to afford it. It's simply the supply-demand equilibrium. So raising a single earner wage does not seem to do anything good, maybe without decreasing at the same time wage for the second earner (which is unacceptable for obvious reasons).
    - mensetmanusman 5y ago
      I’m not sure this is necessary. I wonder if a future advanced society will support women who want to have large families during their college/educational years. Our family had 2 children in the dorms while I was getting my doctorate, and they were a joy for the floor (e.g. we didn’t require the emotional support animals they were sending to every floor). Also, having the communal environment was ideal for finding child care here and there. A situation like this would help such women reach their (per Pew research) goal of ~3. Imagine if you had free tuition if you had a child while in college? Raising children while young is also super helpful activity wise…
- Ericson2314 5y ago
  I would say declining worker power drove women to the workplace, and elite strains of feminism were the cover not cause. If it was just feminism we should have seen a 20 hour work week to compensate.
  - AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
    Not an expert here, but from my Soviet background I remember workers rights to go hand in hand with women emancipation.

handrous 5y ago

Well, that and health care (in the US). And housing. And those two don't go away until they're out of the house. But yes, next to those three things most other expenses aren't that bad, or are avoidable with little down-side. Only other notable one's probably consumables (diapers, food, that sort of thing) which doesn't come close to any of the other three. Toys and clothes are practically free, if you're not picky. People get all kinds of expensive crap at baby showers, but very little of it's actually of much use, and most of the rest could have been had used for next to nothing.

AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
Healthcare - yes. Housing - we lived with the kids in a 2-bedroom for three years. One room for kids, one for us. Not super pleasant, but overall acceptable.
- handrous 5y ago
  Housing's technically an avoidable expense, but in most parts of the country one pays for school quality either directly (private school, in which case that expense replaces [and exceeds] most of the extra housing cost, if one wants it to) or by paying a premium for housing in a decent-or-better public school district (some of this may end up paid in extra transportation time & expense, as well—the accounting gets complicated, when a commute is part of the picture). One with the means to avoid it could send one's kids to bad schools and save money, but not many people who can avoid bad schools take that option, for obvious reasons. And I assume in a few small, fortunate areas, or if one gets very lucky when house/apartment shopping, it's possible for this to end up not being that large an expense, but it's atypical.