3 ms·

These calculations are absurdly subjective and based on some sort of very unusually defined notion of costs per child. In the country I live in (and in many oth

These calculations are absurdly subjective and based on some sort of very unusually defined notion of costs per child. In the country I live in (and in many others i'm sure) millions of people manage to raise perfectly healthy kids wonderfully without earning or spending anywhere near those amounts per child or for a home. 2 million for a home fit for two kids? Ridiculous.

com2kid 4y ago
I'm in Seattle. Child care is 24k-30k a year, with wait lists that can exceed a year. Parents don't have a choice, if they are lucky enough to get a daycare spot they have to take it wherever it is at. Gas in Seattle is still around $4.60 a gallon, nearly $1 more per gallon than outside the city. > 2 million for a home fit for two kids? A 70yr old home in an above average neighborhood, with 3 bedrooms, costs 1.2 million. If you want that house in an area with highly ranked public schools, you will be approaching 2 million. If you want 4 bedrooms (home office if your company does wfh), add another 200-300k. For the areas with the best public schools, you'll need to go to a neighboring city and those houses can easily reach 2 million, home prices near the nicest schools have nearly doubled in the last 3 years. A note about schools here, the school you go to is based on where you live, and schools are funded with property taxes. This means more expensive neighborhoods have better schools. In some schools the pipes still have lead in them and the water is unsafe to drink. The city does not have enough money to fund the schools and as such even has repeatedly cut programs as schools are ran in a shoestring budget year after year. Because of this there is a lot of competition between parents to buy houses in nicer neighborhoods, which dramatically increases home prices.
- helloworld11 4y ago
  Congratulations on having exceptionally high personal living standards while residing in the 7th most expensive U.S city. You represent a miniscule fraction of the world's population. Now of course, this doesn't mean you should base your standards on how hundreds of millions of other families with one or more children manage to live okay in the rest of the world, but I note that even in Seattle itself, there are 110,672 children under the age of 18 and I guarantee you that the parents of only a small fraction of these kids own a 2 million-dollar home or pay 30 grand per year in childcare expenses. Again, many, many people raise children quite well and responsibly without needing anywhere near $2 million to have a couple of them.
  - com2kid 4y ago
    > but I note that even in Seattle itself, there are 110,672 children under the age of 18 and I guarantee you that the parents of only a small fraction of these kids own a 2 million-dollar home or pay 30 grand per year in childcare expenses. Of course not, 5 years ago houses were much more affordable. 10 years ago they were massively more affordable. Now they are not. > Again, many, many people raise children quite well and responsibly without needing anywhere near $2 million to have a couple of them. You can get a 4 bedroom house in a not so great part of town for under 1 million, but even an 800k house in a crap area is hardly "affordable". Houses around good schools, aka ones with drinking water not contaminated with lead (which is an actual fucking problem in Seattle schools), cost a lot more. Houses in cheaper areas also have schools where, pulling from state test scores, less than 30% of children in local schools learn how to read. So if that matters to parents, they may want to look elsewhere for housing. Prior to starting school, child care in Seattle for 2 kids is still going to run 44-60k a year. When they do start public school, count on expensive summer programs, and during the school year, expensive after school sports. > Congratulations on having exceptionally high personal living standards while residing in the 7th most expensive U.S city. When I was born here, this was a very affordable city. When I went to public schools here, they were good. Funding was still piss poor, and presumably we were all drinking leaded water without knowing about it (and again, everyone responsible for that still being a problem should be thrown in a jail cell for awhile), but the education outcomes were good. Heck I got to play with recombinant DNA in high school! We were still using 8086s in the year 2000 (same school as the genetics program!) but at least they had those sweet IBM keyboards. I've voted for every single proposal that is supposed to help improve schools and fix infrastructure issues, but thanks to decades of NIMBYs, high housing prices have contributed to, of caused, nearly all of Seattle's woes. > You represent a miniscule fraction of the world's population. And a non-trivial % of HN readers who the topic "who runs spreadsheets to figure if they should have children" applies to. My original point is that plenty of people I know indeed do the math on having a second or third child. Friends who bought a large house at 1/2 to 1/3rd the price houses go for now, not an issue! Everyone else is boned.

com2kid 4y ago

I'm in Seattle. Child care is 24k-30k a year, with wait lists that can exceed a year. Parents don't have a choice, if they are lucky enough to get a daycare spot they have to take it wherever it is at. Gas in Seattle is still around $4.60 a gallon, nearly $1 more per gallon than outside the city. > 2 million for a home fit for two kids? A 70yr old home in an above average neighborhood, with 3 bedrooms, costs 1.2 million. If you want that house in an area with highly ranked public schools, you will be approaching 2 million. If you want 4 bedrooms (home office if your company does wfh), add another 200-300k. For the areas with the best public schools, you'll need to go to a neighboring city and those houses can easily reach 2 million, home prices near the nicest schools have nearly doubled in the last 3 years. A note about schools here, the school you go to is based on where you live, and schools are funded with property taxes. This means more expensive neighborhoods have better schools. In some schools the pipes still have lead in them and the water is unsafe to drink. The city does not have enough money to fund the schools and as such even has repeatedly cut programs as schools are ran in a shoestring budget year after year. Because of this there is a lot of competition between parents to buy houses in nicer neighborhoods, which dramatically increases home prices.

helloworld11 4y ago
Congratulations on having exceptionally high personal living standards while residing in the 7th most expensive U.S city. You represent a miniscule fraction of the world's population. Now of course, this doesn't mean you should base your standards on how hundreds of millions of other families with one or more children manage to live okay in the rest of the world, but I note that even in Seattle itself, there are 110,672 children under the age of 18 and I guarantee you that the parents of only a small fraction of these kids own a 2 million-dollar home or pay 30 grand per year in childcare expenses. Again, many, many people raise children quite well and responsibly without needing anywhere near $2 million to have a couple of them.
- com2kid 4y ago
  > but I note that even in Seattle itself, there are 110,672 children under the age of 18 and I guarantee you that the parents of only a small fraction of these kids own a 2 million-dollar home or pay 30 grand per year in childcare expenses. Of course not, 5 years ago houses were much more affordable. 10 years ago they were massively more affordable. Now they are not. > Again, many, many people raise children quite well and responsibly without needing anywhere near $2 million to have a couple of them. You can get a 4 bedroom house in a not so great part of town for under 1 million, but even an 800k house in a crap area is hardly "affordable". Houses around good schools, aka ones with drinking water not contaminated with lead (which is an actual fucking problem in Seattle schools), cost a lot more. Houses in cheaper areas also have schools where, pulling from state test scores, less than 30% of children in local schools learn how to read. So if that matters to parents, they may want to look elsewhere for housing. Prior to starting school, child care in Seattle for 2 kids is still going to run 44-60k a year. When they do start public school, count on expensive summer programs, and during the school year, expensive after school sports. > Congratulations on having exceptionally high personal living standards while residing in the 7th most expensive U.S city. When I was born here, this was a very affordable city. When I went to public schools here, they were good. Funding was still piss poor, and presumably we were all drinking leaded water without knowing about it (and again, everyone responsible for that still being a problem should be thrown in a jail cell for awhile), but the education outcomes were good. Heck I got to play with recombinant DNA in high school! We were still using 8086s in the year 2000 (same school as the genetics program!) but at least they had those sweet IBM keyboards. I've voted for every single proposal that is supposed to help improve schools and fix infrastructure issues, but thanks to decades of NIMBYs, high housing prices have contributed to, of caused, nearly all of Seattle's woes. > You represent a miniscule fraction of the world's population. And a non-trivial % of HN readers who the topic "who runs spreadsheets to figure if they should have children" applies to. My original point is that plenty of people I know indeed do the math on having a second or third child. Friends who bought a large house at 1/2 to 1/3rd the price houses go for now, not an issue! Everyone else is boned.