8 ms·

There's also a financial aspect that I think is important, and this is purely anecdotal, based on my experience. When my partner and I were younger we had more

There's also a financial aspect that I think is important, and this is purely anecdotal, based on my experience. When my partner and I were younger we had more dependent children, were not yet established in our careers, and were living month to month, with little to show for it. Money was a frequent cause of arguments and resentment. Now we are down to one dependent child, we are both earning good money, can afford to splash out on each other a little, take an occasional holiday, and don't feel bad about the odd selfish purchase. We don't argue about money anymore. Nothing much else has changed, our love life has remained consistent, time together, shared activities. The one major change is that we're not fretting at the end of the month, as we wait for payday.

watwut 5y ago
I think this is going to be common experience.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  One thing I find interesting is that my wife and I explicitly discussed before marriage that we would not have kids until and if we had enough to ensure the kids would have a nice, stable home with decent healthcare and education.
  - hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
    Probably someone already told you this could be a trap. You might never arrive to the point when you feel everything is really perfect to have kids. In my case, I expressed is as the amount of cash I need to have in order to feel secure enough - a concrete amount is much more reachable as an aim.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      I model our cash flow for the rest of our lives to determine when and if we have enough for our goals, and if we need to modify goals. I would say the house/mortgage payment is the big one, and then the roughly $15k to $20k per year per kid for daycare, and then a few thousand per year for doctors. And then a few years of expenses saved up in case we lost our incomes. I think it was in the $200k range (excluding house) or so. Both my wife and I grew up children of poor immigrants. Neither of us had our own home, much less a room, and we moved around quite a bit, and we did not see a dentist until we both had gotten jobs in our 20s that afforded us dental benefits. I had been in 8 different schools in 7 states by the time I was in 9th grade, and I think we both agreed that financial insecurity was our biggest problem growing up. If we did not have that for our kids, then we were simply happy to go without kids.
      - Artistry121 5y ago
        So in essence the way you were raised convinced you you'd rather someone not exist rather than have that childhood? Is that because of what it did to you and your life or because of the stress on your parents?
        lotsofpulp 5y ago
        Yes, I would not want another person to have the childhood I did (although I understand that many, many people around the world have much worse childhoods, including my parents). It did put stress on my parents, of course, but my main motivation is in the interests of the child(ren). Which I guess is also to not have stressed out parents. I also think I was lucky to have had the life trajectory I did, partly due to just being good at school. My parents never taught me English (and we still do not speak English to each other), but I somehow never had a problem being successful in US schools. I doubt that is the case for many other kids in similar positions. I was also lucky that I had access to online forums and educated adults to advise me on what choices to make, since my parents were not able to help me. I do not think I would have had a fraction of the success were it not for the internet giving me the ability to communicate with educated people familiar with how things work in the US.
        hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
        > So in essence the way you were raised convinced you you'd rather someone not exist rather than have that childhood? Well, that is really a metaphysical question. If there was a way of knowing whether consciousness exists before conception and if so, what is its "quality of life", it would shed a new light on our perspective of not just when, but also whether to have kids and how many.
    - Loughla 5y ago
      This is absolutely the best way. My partner and I set our goal at X% of our total annual expenses in savings exclusively, before we started trying for children A nebulous 'when we're comfortable' will never be comfortable. Whereas a set, concrete goal based on income and expenses is measurable and provides a clear path to an outcome.
      - nuclearnice3 5y ago
        What's X, approximately? As a frame, I think 25 times annual expenses is a retirement goal.
        Loughla 5y ago
        Not X times, but X% of. For us, that was 90-100% of annual expenses. We wanted a one year cushion in case something went wrong. And to be clear - that's cash money, not investments. That is simply a crash easy to access liquid asset in case of emergency. If we couldn't say, this cash is exclusively for this goal, we didn't count it. It took 6 years to put together, with both of us working in education.
  - gonehome 5y ago
    Yeah, I’m with you and we’re also doing this. Reality though (imo) is this is extraordinarily rare and most people pick mates based on attractiveness at a young age and then have kids similarly randomly either then or a couple of years later at best. Any kind of planning around this (or anything really) seems to be uncommon.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      Based on the stats of increasing age at first marriage, increasing age at first child's birth, and overall decreasing birth and marriage rates, I assume more and more people are doing the same calculations and concluding that if they cannot have a certain minimum lifestyle, then they are willing to forego the marriage/child parts of life.
    - watwut 5y ago
      Most people dont have kids randomly.
  - jlokier 5y ago
    Because of the housing cost crisis, I'd guess the majority of people currently of child-bearing age will simply miss the chance to have children at all if they put it off until they have a nice, stable home with decent healthcare and education. They will not get that until their 40s or later, if ever, by which point the wife will have reached the end of their viable child-bearing years, probably with some panic and grief if they waited. Did your wife and you discuss before marriage whether you would skip having kids entirely if you didn't achieve your financial ambitions in time, or were you able to assume you would?
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      Yes, we made it clear to each other that we were both not interested in having kids if we could not provide them with the minimum quality of life/opportunities we wanted for the kids. I am also cognizant that maybe those discussions were all just talk, and biological urges from one or both of us would have won out if push came to shove and we were mid 30s and had not reached our minimum viability stage yet.
      - watwut 5y ago
        I think that the point was, your rules are not good population level rules. Also, on population level and looking at history, a lot of marginalized subgroups would cease to exists entirely if they followed those rules. Including formerly marginalized subgroups that do better now.
        lotsofpulp 5y ago
        I am certainly no authority on what rules other people should have. But I also think history would have been very different if women had had the financial independence they do now, plus access to the birth control methods available these days.
        xxpor 5y ago
        But that's the point. Society has made raising kids extremely expensive. Society needs to fix itself if it wants to continue growing. And it's really not even that hard. We know what the issues are. It's entirely a political problem. (talking mostly about the Anglo world here).
  - subpixel 5y ago
    As Mike Tyson said so eloquently, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. That reflects my experience in planning for vs actually creating a family.
  - ant6n 5y ago
    In retrospect, I should've had kids when I was in grad school. I wasnt ricb then, but had more time and more energy. Then they'd be mostly out of the house once I get settled. But that's a Canadian/German perspective, where there's access to health insurance and affordable day care, so kids aren't so expensive. Ppl worry too much about kids. They mostly ride along with whatever, and are probably more flexible than u are.
    - doubled112 5y ago
      > Canadian perspective ... affordable day care Is $1000+ a month per child for daycare in large cities considered affordable?
      - ant6n 5y ago
        No. Its also not what u pay in Montreal.
        klyrs 5y ago
        Sadly, that's a Quebec perspective. The rest of Canada has yet to get its shit together with respect to childcare.
    - balfirevic 5y ago
      In retrospect, I should have worked my ass off so that I'd be retired now. Or learned a bunch of languages. Or spend a lot of time practicing guitar and piano. In other words, it's easy to imagine what you should've done when you also imagine the entire cost being in the past but all the benefits still being enjoyed in the present. You might, of course, be right - but you also might not be, and it's hard to tell when fantasising about all the benefits and not actively living through paying the cost. Which is also the reason why we shouldn't put much stock in what people on their death beds say they wish they've done differently.
  - ip26 5y ago
    Nobody even remembers being 0-6 years old. I have decided this is in part a sort of grace period for you, the parent, to get your shit together. For example, if you have a kid at 25, you’ve got at least until 30 to secure a stable environment for them. (You are also way more motivated to do this when the kid is there) Certainly on the other hand, it makes some things easier if you don’t have to sweat the cost of a doctor visit, but it’s hardly prerequisite.
    - wing-_-nuts 5y ago
      >Nobody even remembers being 0-6 years old. Maybe you don't have conscious memory of much of that time, but it absolutely shapes the person you will become. If you haven't, please check out the following books: The Body Keeps Score Behave What Happened to You Having said that, your psychological stability matters SO MUCH MORE than your financial stability. A parent who is kind, patient, caring, and struggling financially is going to have a much better outcome than a cold, distant parent that cannot control their anger, but can otherwise afford to provide their toddler's every whim.
      - JoeAltmaier 5y ago
        I agree in principle. But some claims stretch the truth. E.g. 'suppressed memories' from early childhood are often false?
        wing-_-nuts 5y ago
        Memory isn't reliable for any of us, but this is especially true with childhood. I certainly would not have a 4 year old testify in a trial. My point was that events absolutely do emotionally imprint from basically birth onward. There was a very unethical but interesting experiment that a pair of psychologists did on their toddler. They showed him a pet rabbit and made a loud noise to startle him. As an adult, the man was terrified of rabbits but had no idea why. Children exposed to violent parents as a child go on to have a host of issues even if they're removed from that environment. It's flat out wrong to suggest that parents get a pass from birth to 6 because 'children don't remember'.
  - jimbokun 5y ago
    Which is very sad, because those two things should just be a given in a prosperous society. (I'm guessing you are in the USA.)
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      Yes, I am in the US.
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    Young kids are not expensive, and they don't care much about having a lavish home. IMO you want to have kids by no later than your mid 30s. You don't want to be 60 and dealing with teenagers.
    - jvvw 5y ago
      I actually think that when they are young is the most expensive period - unless you have family nearby to help, either one of you gives up work or you pay a large amount of money on childcare, or some combination thereof if you work part-time. Although we haven't reached the teenage years yet so I am prepared to change my mind!
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      It depends if you want them to go to daycare or not and what kind of quality of life tradeoffs you are willing to make. If you do, then they are going to bring back sicknesses every other week for a couple years, which means lost work time / $150 to $250 for the ones that require doctor visits. Pregnancy and birth alone will prob take most families to the out of pocket maximum, anywhere from $3k if your employer is generous to $17k per year (legal maximum) if it is the cheapest insurance. I assume licensed, inspected daycare in even the cheapest COL areas is $10k per year. But this is where grandparents who are willing to serve as backup or guardians while you work can make a world of difference.
mikepurvis 5y ago
Can strongly relate to both parts of this. Particularly a source of conflict when partners have different family of origin experiences— the one whose parents normalized buying a round of drive thru coffees every Sunday on the way to church is going to really struggle to ever be frugal enough for the one who grew up eating out once or twice a year and never having take-out. "Cheaper" families can often end up developing an attitude that buying a solution to a problem instead of reusing or making do with what you have is a cop-out or sign of being bougie; it's important to be able to shed those things (with the help of a therapist, if necessary) rather than bringing them into a relationship where they erode trust and safety. On the other side of things, a lot of upper middle class families think of themselves as "not rich" so that can be an adjustment to look back and recognize that oh yeah... I kind of was well-off wasn't I, and part of the privilege of wealth/class is actually being shielded from the full reality of it and just thinking of whatever your experience was as being normal. Anyway, one of the keys I think is explicitly acknowledging the transitions to different tiers of financial security as they happen. Otherwise a lot of that early stress/judgment/anxiety can hold over from the early years until long past the point where any of it really matters any more. A few $5 treats a week is a way bigger deal when the household income is $50k than when it's $150k.
darkerside 5y ago
Like they say of sports teams undergoing periods of poor chemistry, "winning solves everything."
- slim 5y ago
  you have to be a team for that to work
  - darkerside 5y ago
    Do you not think a married couple is a team?
- watwut 5y ago
  It does not. Sometimes the issue is real. Winning don't make it disappear. The good feeling after makes it easier to not solve it until it gets real bad.
  - darkerside 5y ago
    Sure, it's sometimes real. It's just a saying. But there is definitely a real aspect to it where the stress of constant losing will wear on even the strongest team over time. It's amazing how quickly the sense can go from thinking the team needs to be blown up to thinking it's on track to contend at the highest level.

watwut 5y ago

I think this is going to be common experience.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
One thing I find interesting is that my wife and I explicitly discussed before marriage that we would not have kids until and if we had enough to ensure the kids would have a nice, stable home with decent healthcare and education.
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
  Probably someone already told you this could be a trap. You might never arrive to the point when you feel everything is really perfect to have kids. In my case, I expressed is as the amount of cash I need to have in order to feel secure enough - a concrete amount is much more reachable as an aim.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    I model our cash flow for the rest of our lives to determine when and if we have enough for our goals, and if we need to modify goals. I would say the house/mortgage payment is the big one, and then the roughly $15k to $20k per year per kid for daycare, and then a few thousand per year for doctors. And then a few years of expenses saved up in case we lost our incomes. I think it was in the $200k range (excluding house) or so. Both my wife and I grew up children of poor immigrants. Neither of us had our own home, much less a room, and we moved around quite a bit, and we did not see a dentist until we both had gotten jobs in our 20s that afforded us dental benefits. I had been in 8 different schools in 7 states by the time I was in 9th grade, and I think we both agreed that financial insecurity was our biggest problem growing up. If we did not have that for our kids, then we were simply happy to go without kids.
    - Artistry121 5y ago
      So in essence the way you were raised convinced you you'd rather someone not exist rather than have that childhood? Is that because of what it did to you and your life or because of the stress on your parents?
      - lotsofpulp 5y ago
        Yes, I would not want another person to have the childhood I did (although I understand that many, many people around the world have much worse childhoods, including my parents). It did put stress on my parents, of course, but my main motivation is in the interests of the child(ren). Which I guess is also to not have stressed out parents. I also think I was lucky to have had the life trajectory I did, partly due to just being good at school. My parents never taught me English (and we still do not speak English to each other), but I somehow never had a problem being successful in US schools. I doubt that is the case for many other kids in similar positions. I was also lucky that I had access to online forums and educated adults to advise me on what choices to make, since my parents were not able to help me. I do not think I would have had a fraction of the success were it not for the internet giving me the ability to communicate with educated people familiar with how things work in the US.
      - hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
        > So in essence the way you were raised convinced you you'd rather someone not exist rather than have that childhood? Well, that is really a metaphysical question. If there was a way of knowing whether consciousness exists before conception and if so, what is its "quality of life", it would shed a new light on our perspective of not just when, but also whether to have kids and how many.
  - Loughla 5y ago
    This is absolutely the best way. My partner and I set our goal at X% of our total annual expenses in savings exclusively, before we started trying for children A nebulous 'when we're comfortable' will never be comfortable. Whereas a set, concrete goal based on income and expenses is measurable and provides a clear path to an outcome.
    - nuclearnice3 5y ago
      What's X, approximately? As a frame, I think 25 times annual expenses is a retirement goal.
      - Loughla 5y ago
        Not X times, but X% of. For us, that was 90-100% of annual expenses. We wanted a one year cushion in case something went wrong. And to be clear - that's cash money, not investments. That is simply a crash easy to access liquid asset in case of emergency. If we couldn't say, this cash is exclusively for this goal, we didn't count it. It took 6 years to put together, with both of us working in education.
- gonehome 5y ago
  Yeah, I’m with you and we’re also doing this. Reality though (imo) is this is extraordinarily rare and most people pick mates based on attractiveness at a young age and then have kids similarly randomly either then or a couple of years later at best. Any kind of planning around this (or anything really) seems to be uncommon.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Based on the stats of increasing age at first marriage, increasing age at first child's birth, and overall decreasing birth and marriage rates, I assume more and more people are doing the same calculations and concluding that if they cannot have a certain minimum lifestyle, then they are willing to forego the marriage/child parts of life.
  - watwut 5y ago
    Most people dont have kids randomly.
- jlokier 5y ago
  Because of the housing cost crisis, I'd guess the majority of people currently of child-bearing age will simply miss the chance to have children at all if they put it off until they have a nice, stable home with decent healthcare and education. They will not get that until their 40s or later, if ever, by which point the wife will have reached the end of their viable child-bearing years, probably with some panic and grief if they waited. Did your wife and you discuss before marriage whether you would skip having kids entirely if you didn't achieve your financial ambitions in time, or were you able to assume you would?
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Yes, we made it clear to each other that we were both not interested in having kids if we could not provide them with the minimum quality of life/opportunities we wanted for the kids. I am also cognizant that maybe those discussions were all just talk, and biological urges from one or both of us would have won out if push came to shove and we were mid 30s and had not reached our minimum viability stage yet.
    - watwut 5y ago
      I think that the point was, your rules are not good population level rules. Also, on population level and looking at history, a lot of marginalized subgroups would cease to exists entirely if they followed those rules. Including formerly marginalized subgroups that do better now.
      - lotsofpulp 5y ago
        I am certainly no authority on what rules other people should have. But I also think history would have been very different if women had had the financial independence they do now, plus access to the birth control methods available these days.
      - xxpor 5y ago
        But that's the point. Society has made raising kids extremely expensive. Society needs to fix itself if it wants to continue growing. And it's really not even that hard. We know what the issues are. It's entirely a political problem. (talking mostly about the Anglo world here).
- subpixel 5y ago
  As Mike Tyson said so eloquently, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. That reflects my experience in planning for vs actually creating a family.
- ant6n 5y ago
  In retrospect, I should've had kids when I was in grad school. I wasnt ricb then, but had more time and more energy. Then they'd be mostly out of the house once I get settled. But that's a Canadian/German perspective, where there's access to health insurance and affordable day care, so kids aren't so expensive. Ppl worry too much about kids. They mostly ride along with whatever, and are probably more flexible than u are.
  - doubled112 5y ago
    > Canadian perspective ... affordable day care Is $1000+ a month per child for daycare in large cities considered affordable?
    - ant6n 5y ago
      No. Its also not what u pay in Montreal.
      - klyrs 5y ago
        Sadly, that's a Quebec perspective. The rest of Canada has yet to get its shit together with respect to childcare.
  - balfirevic 5y ago
    In retrospect, I should have worked my ass off so that I'd be retired now. Or learned a bunch of languages. Or spend a lot of time practicing guitar and piano. In other words, it's easy to imagine what you should've done when you also imagine the entire cost being in the past but all the benefits still being enjoyed in the present. You might, of course, be right - but you also might not be, and it's hard to tell when fantasising about all the benefits and not actively living through paying the cost. Which is also the reason why we shouldn't put much stock in what people on their death beds say they wish they've done differently.
- ip26 5y ago
  Nobody even remembers being 0-6 years old. I have decided this is in part a sort of grace period for you, the parent, to get your shit together. For example, if you have a kid at 25, you’ve got at least until 30 to secure a stable environment for them. (You are also way more motivated to do this when the kid is there) Certainly on the other hand, it makes some things easier if you don’t have to sweat the cost of a doctor visit, but it’s hardly prerequisite.
  - wing-_-nuts 5y ago
    >Nobody even remembers being 0-6 years old. Maybe you don't have conscious memory of much of that time, but it absolutely shapes the person you will become. If you haven't, please check out the following books: The Body Keeps Score Behave What Happened to You Having said that, your psychological stability matters SO MUCH MORE than your financial stability. A parent who is kind, patient, caring, and struggling financially is going to have a much better outcome than a cold, distant parent that cannot control their anger, but can otherwise afford to provide their toddler's every whim.
    - JoeAltmaier 5y ago
      I agree in principle. But some claims stretch the truth. E.g. 'suppressed memories' from early childhood are often false?
      - wing-_-nuts 5y ago
        Memory isn't reliable for any of us, but this is especially true with childhood. I certainly would not have a 4 year old testify in a trial. My point was that events absolutely do emotionally imprint from basically birth onward. There was a very unethical but interesting experiment that a pair of psychologists did on their toddler. They showed him a pet rabbit and made a loud noise to startle him. As an adult, the man was terrified of rabbits but had no idea why. Children exposed to violent parents as a child go on to have a host of issues even if they're removed from that environment. It's flat out wrong to suggest that parents get a pass from birth to 6 because 'children don't remember'.
- jimbokun 5y ago
  Which is very sad, because those two things should just be a given in a prosperous society. (I'm guessing you are in the USA.)
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Yes, I am in the US.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  Young kids are not expensive, and they don't care much about having a lavish home. IMO you want to have kids by no later than your mid 30s. You don't want to be 60 and dealing with teenagers.
  - jvvw 5y ago
    I actually think that when they are young is the most expensive period - unless you have family nearby to help, either one of you gives up work or you pay a large amount of money on childcare, or some combination thereof if you work part-time. Although we haven't reached the teenage years yet so I am prepared to change my mind!
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    It depends if you want them to go to daycare or not and what kind of quality of life tradeoffs you are willing to make. If you do, then they are going to bring back sicknesses every other week for a couple years, which means lost work time / $150 to $250 for the ones that require doctor visits. Pregnancy and birth alone will prob take most families to the out of pocket maximum, anywhere from $3k if your employer is generous to $17k per year (legal maximum) if it is the cheapest insurance. I assume licensed, inspected daycare in even the cheapest COL areas is $10k per year. But this is where grandparents who are willing to serve as backup or guardians while you work can make a world of difference.

mikepurvis 5y ago

Can strongly relate to both parts of this. Particularly a source of conflict when partners have different family of origin experiences— the one whose parents normalized buying a round of drive thru coffees every Sunday on the way to church is going to really struggle to ever be frugal enough for the one who grew up eating out once or twice a year and never having take-out. "Cheaper" families can often end up developing an attitude that buying a solution to a problem instead of reusing or making do with what you have is a cop-out or sign of being bougie; it's important to be able to shed those things (with the help of a therapist, if necessary) rather than bringing them into a relationship where they erode trust and safety. On the other side of things, a lot of upper middle class families think of themselves as "not rich" so that can be an adjustment to look back and recognize that oh yeah... I kind of was well-off wasn't I, and part of the privilege of wealth/class is actually being shielded from the full reality of it and just thinking of whatever your experience was as being normal. Anyway, one of the keys I think is explicitly acknowledging the transitions to different tiers of financial security as they happen. Otherwise a lot of that early stress/judgment/anxiety can hold over from the early years until long past the point where any of it really matters any more. A few $5 treats a week is a way bigger deal when the household income is $50k than when it's $150k.

darkerside 5y ago

Like they say of sports teams undergoing periods of poor chemistry, "winning solves everything."

slim 5y ago
you have to be a team for that to work
- darkerside 5y ago
  Do you not think a married couple is a team?
watwut 5y ago
It does not. Sometimes the issue is real. Winning don't make it disappear. The good feeling after makes it easier to not solve it until it gets real bad.
- darkerside 5y ago
  Sure, it's sometimes real. It's just a saying. But there is definitely a real aspect to it where the stress of constant losing will wear on even the strongest team over time. It's amazing how quickly the sense can go from thinking the team needs to be blown up to thinking it's on track to contend at the highest level.