Taking Money Out of the Should-I-Have-a-Baby Equation
I had a chat with my friend Jen recently about the cost of raising kids, and something she said has been stuck in my mind ever since. I told her that money was probably the #1 or #2 reason we might not have kids (depending on where you rank a lack of desire to actually have them). She seemed surprised by this, and suggested that I take money out of the equation entirely and focus solely on deciding whether or not we want kids first.
To be clear, Jen’s not naïve and would never suggest that people who can’t afford kids should have them. She said it knowing that Drew and I could technically afford them and we should first decide if we want them and straighten out the finances later. In theory, this isn’t a bad idea. It narrows the scope of what seems to be an impossibly large decision into a more manageable chunk. The problem is, I’m not sure how useful this revelation is to me when taken out of an important context.
Imagine if I’d hemmed and hawed for ages and then came to Drew, squared my shoulders and said, “Yes. I’m ready. I’m ready for my beautiful new Astin Martin, let’s head to the dealership right now!” Could we afford an Astin Martin if we REALLY wanted one? I guess so. But I must say, I’ve never understood this concept of whether or not you’re able to afford something. If you spend your very last dime to get it, and it makes your life financially uncomfortable to do so, is it really “affordable” for you?
Whenever the importance of money comes up (particularly when pitted against non-monetary items of value like family), people are fond of saying that it can’t buy happiness. This is perhaps true, but I must humbly submit that
a LACK of money can buy UNhappiness
And I don’t mean an emotional tailspin because you can’t have your pink glitter Roberto Cavalli slingbacks. Depleted funds may mean you’re unable to buy a $600 Christmas plane ticket to see your family, send a pop of yellow tulips to a sick friend, take that advanced pastry dough class, get the creative writing Ph.D. you’ve always dreamed of, find those Elvis Costello tickets for your husband’s birthday, play Scrabble on the spin board
There are people who do it, and do it fabulously. My friend Leah quit her job over a year ago and has been traveling the world with her boyfriend Ben, surviving on little more than her wits and wintergreen Tic-Tacs. Having the time of her life. [you can check out her blog at www.TwoWithoutAClue.com]
But I’m not Leah. Money is important to me, and a lack of it scares me. My parents were somewhat poor when my brother Ken surprised them with his existence. I have no idea what inspired them to have two more after that (especially knowing they might turn out like Ken – good grief!), but they did, and we grew up on something of a shoestring budget. I’m not saying we didn’t have what needed – and more, particularly in the later years (they generously paid our college educations, gave us safe cars, etc.) – but we certainly weren’t sporting Juicy Couture velour jogging suits in our youth.
So when I started babysitting at 12 and then took my first “real” job at Burger King at 15 (photos from this time period are conveniently missing), my mom made sure I put 50% of it in the bank, every payday. That stayed with me. My parents have plenty of money now, and so do I, but it’s hard to break that mode of save, save, save if that’s what you grew up with. The thought of living paycheck to paycheck makes me downright nauseous. And that’s essentially what we’d be doing if we had two kids and still lived in Southern California.
But I’m all about trying anything to make this decision and feel good about it. So I took Jen’s suggestion seriously and asked myself – would we want kids if we were independently wealthy? I don’t know. Maybe? Even the seemingly non-monetary things I worry about (not having enough “me” time, my house being a wreck, etc.) actually melt away when you toss a trusty Mary Poppins figure into the mix. But in the end, I’m not sure I’ve really answered the question. I don’t seem to be capable of making even a hypothetical decision in a vacuum, ignoring certain circumstances. We wouldn’t have a nanny, and I wouldn’t have any regular sanity breaks.
So is this exercise pointless? Not necessarily. I think it works nicely for those who are excessively worried about money, but would come up with an enthusiastic YES! to kids when it’s taken out of the equation. Unfortunately, my answer was still a resounding …
MAYBE.
How about you guys? How much does money factor into your decision?
PS, many of you reading this may think, if you’re so concerned with money, why don’t you get a REAL job, you blogger bum! And to that I say…touché.
57 Responses to Taking Money Out of the Should-I-Have-a-Baby Equation
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Love the blog. It’s nice to know we aren’t the only ones out there who feel the way you do!
I think money is a big factor, and one that shoulnd’t be cast aside. For the majority of people, taking money out of the equation just makes for an unbalanced equation. The one thing couples fight about more than anything is money, and the last thing a couple with a new baby needs is one more thing to cause strain and adjustment.
If money was the only reason for not having kids, then what Jen’s suggestion does do for would-be parents is create an opportunity to talk about and set a financial plan that could make them more comfortable with starting a family.
My husband and I are in the same place. Could we afford it? Sure, but it would make things tighter financially than I’d be comfortable with. We’d likely have to sacrifice some of the things we enjoy to make ends meet and still be able to save and pay the bills. Even if we had boatloads of green lying around, it wouldn’t automatically clear the air of the other concerns that leave us on the fence: the lifestyle we want, the attention given to our careers, the freedom we enjoy, etc. I appreciate Jen’s suggestion, but it still leaves us in the same place: Maybe.
An excellent point. If money is the number one thing couples (even couples without kids) fight about, I imagine it only gets worse when you start tacking on all the baby expenses (and are trying to discuss it while running on 3 hours of sleep).
Was at Katie and Will’s this weekend and listened to Will wonder out loud how they are going to cut $2500 our of their budget a month to afford daycare. . . .whoa. . . thats intense!! nevermind diapers, wipes, clothes, doctor visits etc. . .
Um yeah, that’s kind of a large chunk of money!! Good thing they’re having four baby showers.
I think it’s not so easy as it sound to take the money out of the equation. The problem is, if you have enough money, you can have help, care and resources that you won’t have if you aren’t rich enough. And the more resources you have, the easier the parenthood will be for you. It’s really two different decisions if a family would be able to have a babysitter and some household help vs. if they wouldn’t. When you can afford housecleaning and babysitters, you have more time to be you, your home is less of a wreck etc. – and, all in all, the prospect of a prosperous parenthood leaves a lot of space for the parents to continue to be themselves rather than overhaul their entire lives to accommodate a baby.
So true, but yet it’s still taboo to say that you’d need to be able to hire someone else to help take care of your kid part of the time so you can still feel human!
Who wouldn’t want to have a nanny, a private chef, a personal trainer, top of the line pre-school, college fund, designer baby clothes, a new car when they turn 16, lavish family vacations etc??? Even the poorest of families wish these things for their children. Some people (myself included) want children bad enough that they are willing to forgo many of these luxuries and give their children as much as they possibly can.
I think that there is a spectrum of wanting a baby. MaybeLady, you said you WANT an Astin Martin. Well I’m sure if you went back to work full time, lived in a one bedroom apartment in the valley with Mr.Maybe, and cut out vacations for a few years you could purchase one easily. But my guess is that you don’t want one THAT bad. (By the way that sounds HORRIBLE and I don’t suggest you do this ) I just think that some people that are towards the 100% WANT end of the “baby spectrum” are willing to live further away from the city, rent instead of buy, work full time, give up some vacations etc. I think that if you end up having to sacrifice things you were not willing to give up you could end up with some resentment.
Interesting blog Liz. It’s definitely thought provoking
From the thought-provoker herself! Yes, nothing really puts your want-level into perspective more than thinking about all the sacrifices you’ll have to make to get something. I applied your technique to a different “want” today – there was a job in Thousand Oaks that sounded interesting and I almost immediately dismissed it because of the commute. Then I decided to take the drive time out of the equation and it forced me to think a little deeper about the job itself and the opportunities for growth there that I might not get further south, etc. It actually worked very well as a decision-making tool because I never would have gotten that far on the Pros list in the past, and then in comparison, the commute didn’t necessarily seem that bad. So maybe I will be moving to that one bedroom apartment in the valley – just not for the reason you think!!!
Money does and always will play a part in any decisions we make how big of a part is up to the individual. I like Liz have looked at our situation and while sure we could afford it just but it wouldn’t give us much to come and go on especially since i would pplan on not returning work until that kid is 8. taking money out still leaves me in the maybe fence.
I have a theory those of us sitting on this fence are we more likely to have attended university?
Good question Kylie – I think the articles I’ve read have said that Childfree women are more likely to have post-graduate degrees (Masters, Ph.D., etc.). It’s probably difficult to say though whether they chose not to have kids BECAUSE of that, or if someone who already isn’t fond of kids is more likely to get a post-graduate degree, or if some of these post-grads simply didn’t have as much time as non-post-grads to have kids. It’s probably worthy of an investigation and a blog post soon though!
You freak me out. I swear, I read your posts and think, “Holy shit! She was in my head.” Of course, you had to go back in time about 10 years to when I was having the same thoughts, and you express them WAY more poetically/coherently than I could, but…the thoughts are the same.
In fact, I’m going to be writing a post about what would you do with your life period if you theoretically had all the money in the world. (It was inspired by something I heard commentators saying about Sharapova.)
All I know is, you’d make due. You’d cut out the things you had to to afford what you needed for your child. Money isn’t really an excuse not to have them (unless of course you totally couldn’t afford them, but even then that doesn’t stop most people).
I’m so sorry you’re struggling and the answers aren’t coming easy, BUT you’re not alone. Others contemplate it from the cerebral aspect too and not everyone is born with the automatic passion for motherhood. As always, I find comfort in reading your posts because I used to feel so alone in my dilemma about it. I just wish I had learned anything useful to offer. All I know is you’ll eventually know if it’s right for you or not. But you’ll have to go through this period of trying to decide that.
Until you do, I’ll enjoy your posts. Truly, they bring much comfort. Oh, and AMEN to your thoughts about lack of money bringing unhappiness. Whewie is that a true statement!
Aww, thank you Courtney! And I look forward to your post about what to do with all the money in the world. It’s probably a good exercise to think that way, and then figure out how to do some of those things on the cheap, or which ones are worth splurging on. Good call!
Liz, based upon your methodology for making this decision you are missing the obvious solution. Have a baby and if you don’t like it, sell it and then use the money to buy a car.
How much do you think I could get for a baby?! Is there a section for that on Craigslist?
The thought of living paycheck to paycheck makes ME nauseous also. Great post, it’s pervasive in our society to not take money into account when having a child, and yet having a child is the most expensive thing you can ever do!
I think there are many people out there who aren’t of the mindset of saving as much money as they can out of each paycheck (as clearly you are, as am I), and maybe for them, the idea of being a little broker at the end of each month than they already were doesn’t seem like a big deal. But to me, not being able to save would send me into a panic. And having a baby would guarantee that.
And it’s PARTICULARLY bad out here in California where it seems to be quite fashionable to be in debt and not be worried about it. Thanks for the comment, fellow scrimper&saver!
Went through the same struggle. Took us 10 years to finally decide to have one. Now Max is 5 years old and we can’t imagine life w/o him.
I totally understand what your dilemma is. Hope you make the best decision regardless of what it is.
Oh boy, 10 years? Yikes, guess I might have another 9 1/2 years of indecision ahead of me. Glad to hear it’s all turned out well for you though!
Parenting = sacrifice. If you don’t want to sacrifice, then don’t have kids. It’s a pretty simple equation.
I forgot to add – I think that the vast majority of American kids do not grow up wearing Juicy Couture. Your college education was paid for? A lot of people dream about that. Your parents bought you a nice safe car? It must have been a difficult life.
I’m not trying to be a snatch here, but what I am trying to say is that you do not see how privileged you have been. There are a lot of people who don’t get their college educations paid for by their parents, and a lot of people who never had a car in high school or college. A lot of us do most of this stuff on our own.
Also – considering your parents could pay for 4 college educations and 4 cars, it doesn’t sound like they were so broke. It sounds like they were actually pretty well set. I imagine that providing that for 4 kids must have been pretty expensive.
Believe me, I do not think I’ve in any way had a difficult life and I know exactly how privileged I was that my parents were generous enough to pay for our college education and cars (3 kids though, not 4), which is why I added that in there. Sorry if this didn’t come across accurately, but my point was that in the very early years, my parents were indeed, quite poor – the stories from this time period support it. And they were incredibly responsible with their money and made enormous sacrifices early on in order to send us to college. Those habits were passed down to us kids and, as a result, I have a very difficult time parting with hard-saved money. Of course parenting is sacrifice. My point here is that we all have to realistically determine how much we’re willing to sacrifice for it. My parents set the bar enormously high, and all I’m saying is that I’m not positive that I have it in me to rise to it. But please rest assured, I know exactly how much they have sacrificed to provide me with a good life.
My parents were similar to yours Liz.
When my brother and I were very little, my parents were dirt poor. Paycheck to paycheck wasnt the half of it – they were also living to the limits of every piece of credit they could get.
But they worked their way out of it. We got by with not a lot when we were young because they had a financial plan. They managed to buy a house when I was 8, and have it paid off within 15 years.
But even when things got more comfortable financially, my Mum was so ingrained in the saving habit that she had to be persuaded to spend money on herself. (you should have seen the shock on her face when she calculated how much Dad had persuaded her to spend on pampering for my wedding!)
They gave me an allowance for my first year of uni so I didn’t have to find a job. They paid off my credit card once, have given my brother money to help him out etc etc. They have now been on longer overseas holidays 3 times since I finished high school 12 years ago. They are within a couple of years of paying off their mortgage and their holiday home. But they are still not “well off”. They have saved and planned carefully to get to where they are.
Having seen that, and having enjoyed the fruits of their hard work in my later years, I would like to give similar to my own kids if I were to have them. We have plans for possible future progeny, and they aren’t cheap.
We enjoy travel, skiing, tramping etc. If I can work through until we have kids, we could still afford to do many of those things, but more limited.
And TBH, I WANT to do those things to prove to my p-i-t-a SIL that you CAN travel etc with kids…
Well it sounds like you’re already going to be in a better starting position than your parents were, so I’m sure you will do just fine!
i and my brother both had our college education paid for by our parents they also paid for our first cars as well. Its only natural that if i was to have a child i would want to do the smae things that i had as a kid that also included the odd overseas trip. So i understand where you are comming from all parents wnat whats best for their kids and want them to have what they didn’t have or at least what they did have and order to provide this money has to come into the big picture. You have to look ahead from the baby stage throught to the young adult stage as well
Exactly! I would really have a hard time with the idea of providing less for my kids than my parents did for me, but they truly have set the bar so high, it’s intimidating!
I’m 31 and have lived with the daily baby-no-baby mind battle for years. If I told my friends I was the one writing this blog under a pseudonym, they’d believe me, because it does sound like the inside of my head!
Until a couple of months ago, my husband and I were in a tighter financial position than now. We were living comfortably on two quite good salaries, but paying off a very large mortgage (not a huge house by any stretch of the imagination, but we lived in London) which meant I wouldn’t have had the option to take time off work to raise a child or pay for childcare and still have a life. And I thought that sacrifice was just too big to make.
(Not that I’m really keen on the idea of being a stay-at-home mum, but I know I wouldn’t want to work full time and just be a parent for the rest of my waking hours.)
My husband then got a job offer in Australia and we moved. He’s suddenly earning 50% more than our combined UK income. Our house back home is being rented out so we don’t have the scary mortgage to worry about. A big change and you’d have thought that would make it more appealing to have a baby, wouldn’t you? But it didn’t go that way. Because with the financial freedom I decided to take some time off to write, and now we wouldn’t be able to pay for a full time nanny AND trips back home AND hobbies and so on.
I then asked myself: how much money would I need so that in my mind I would feel financially ready? And the answer was: enough to pay for full time childcare regardless of whether I’m earning any money; enough to pay for holidays for just he two of us on top of any family holidays (which sound horrendous to me so don’t really count as leisure!); enough to allow us to still go to restaurants, go diving, go to wine tastings etc. etc. – ON OUR OWN.
So, basically, I think I would love to have children as long as I had enough money to see very little of them and have someone else do all the hard work while hubby and I enjoy couply things. Haha!
On a rational level it sounds very obvious to me that I have no business being a mother, and yet the mental battle continues.
Haha! I completely understand. I too, worry about working all day and then coming home to the 2nd job of being a mother. But in taking this year off to write (we have so much in common!) I’m realizing that I can’t be a stay-at-home mom either. I’m climbing the walls already! So interesting that even in the face of overwhelming evidence that we probably shouldn’t, we still wonder if we should be having kids…
Good luck with your writing!
Good luck to you too! I’m going crazy at home too… As I’m not going out to work, I’m the one doing the grocery shopping, the cleaning, the cooking. This domesticity is mind numbing. And I think it’s a pretty good snippet of motherhood. Yikes!
Off-topic PS. We lived in SoCal for a while – Irvine. I’d love to go back one day!
Yes, and as it turns out, I’m awful at all those activities…
Irvine was my first California home, actually!
I think the “money question” can be helpful. But, moreso for a person who is leaning a bit in one way or another. I think that it may reinforce a decision the person was favoring but wasn’t totally sure about. For example, a couple that was leaning towards having children, but was worried they wouldn’t be able to afford everything they needed. Asking themselves how they felt about children if money wasn’t an issue may lead them to say that they do want children.
Again, it really sounds like you’re very much in the middle. I know that’s not fun to be reminded of.
Oh, maybe what Jen really meant was for you to flip a coin?
A coin flip is sounding mighty nice these days.
Our parents paid for our educations and helped us with our cars…they really set us up for a good start. the thought of not being able to do the same for ones offspring is sad, and i do agree with the old adage” you shouldn’t have more kids than you can afford to send to college.” Many people have children they cannot afford and that’s their choice, but I feel for the children…and for them.
Yup, I think this issue of not being able to provide as much as our parents did is somewhat unique to our generation – it was easier for our parents to go a little further than their parents as education became more accessible and career opportunities opened up, etc. Now we have to jump that much higher!
There is this great quote from Boardwalk Empire (coincidentally a show you wouldn’t want to watch if there were children anywhere NEAR).
Flip a coin. Once its in the air, you’ll know which side you’re hoping for.
Now I can’t see you doing this, as obviously you’ve put alot of thought into this and I can’t see a rational person leaving their reproductive choices up to a coin toss, but it does make you think. Especially since this entire post is about trying to reduce the equation to simply “Do I want children or not?”
As for me, I haven’t had the guts to flip a coin yet.
That IS a great quote. Drew and I like use, “If there was a gun to your head right now and you had to choose, what would you say?” Unfortunately, until one of us actually becomes crazy enough to put a gun to the other’s head, I suppose we still won’t get a TRUE answer.
the thing is though is its highly likely that when you were born that your parents were in a different situation to that which they were when you headed to university its likely that they chnged jobs house etc over time. What i am trying to say is i doubt that they had you with the thought of paying for college and a car for you.
We had this same conversation a year ago. We planned to have “the talk” when I turned 30, and were joking leading up to it that it would be very short. All of our quick responses to people had been about affording to raise a kid: The baby can’t sleep in a drawer forever, I hope the kid likes toast cuz that’ll be all we can afford to feed it, etc. But we decided to get serious when we sat down for the talk. If money weren’t a factor, would our decision be any different? For us, it wasn’t. That was refreshing, knowing we weren’t convincing ourselves out of something we secretly wanted. On a related note, someone actually said to me “oh you can never really afford a baby, just do it” You’re kidding right? Full time daycare costs more than I make in a year, and my husband just got laid off. That’s a great environment for a child. Who’s gonna buy all that toast?
Ah yes, cousin comment to “No one’s ever really READY to have a baby, you just have to dive in.” WHAT?!
I’m reminded of a line from a movie, _It Could Happen to You_:
“If only people with lots of money had kids, there’d be no public schools.”
(Or something to that effect. Nicolas Cage’s character is trying to get his wife, played by Rosie Perez, to think about having a baby, but she doesn’t think they have enough money, and she doesn’t really want to be a mother anyway.)
Perhaps public schools are a BAD example to use. I’m just saying even a heartless childfree person like me can say that you don’t really have to be rich to be a successful parent. My parents didn’t make a lot of money, and look how I turned out….
Of course we all can, the question is whether we want to. Oh great, I’m Rosie Perez now!
I’m really enjoying this blog and this particular post. Some thoughts:
I was once at an audition and there was a man there with his baby daughter, who was adorable. I made my (sincere) appreciative remarks, and then in a moment of complete candor, he said “I love her to bits, but if I’d known how much time and money it would take to have a kid, I might have made a different choice…” I’ve never forgotten that.
I wonder if it’s more expensive to have kids today… back in my day, we didn’t have computers, or internet, or cell phones or any of those things. We rode bikes and played in the yard. I wonder if, just from a technological perspective, it’s more expensive to have kids because you have to buy those things — not just for their entertainment, but for their education.
Finally, I was talking to my yoga teacher/dear friend (childless and peaceful about it) and remarked that I felt badly that my decision to likely not have children is based strongly on finances. I had finally arrived at a point in my life where I wasn’t broke, and felt that if I had a kid, I’d be instantly broke again, and that was just not tenable for me. She responded that I am the Governor of the State of Diva, and that I got to decide what things were going to fit in my State’s budget. It was perfectly okay to decide that children just weren’t in my Budget. That was an interesting way to think about it for me.
I think that if you want to have kids, you will find a way to put them into your Budget. But if, like me, you just can’t seem to fit kids into your Budget, now or ever, that’s perfectly okay too.
Yes, I do think it’s WAY more expensive to raise kids now. You can say you’re not going to be the parent that buys your 12-year old an iPad, but when an iPad is becoming the equivalent of a bike, and they’re using them in school, etc., it’s going to get harder and harder to stick to your guns on that. I like the State of You concept – some programs just aren’t going to get funding. If one of them happens to be kids, well, I guess that just means there were other important programs that needed your cash.
Money and the subject of kids are not easily teased apart, in part due to the emotions connected to each. Parenting can be both draining and rewarding, though the rewards tend to be emotional, not financial. Do kids really *need* those gadgets? No- we got by just fine without. However, the understandable desire to provide the *best* is haunting and very persuasive, no matter how best is defined. Best is also relative: there’s always something better. So, parenting not just a financial sacrifice, but also an emotional one, knowing that you will constantly wonder what you should/could be doing differently.
Loving the blog!
I think I need to research if the cost of raising kids has raised in proportion to inflation, or if it truly is getting way more expensive with each new generation that “needs” phones, iPads, etc. Because there were plenty of things our parents went without that we then HAD to have as kids in order to keep pace with other kids in school (like a computer). Thanks for your comment, glad you’re loving it!
I’m happy I found your blog. I’ve been struggling with the same issues for a while now. My husband and I married when I was 28 and he was 35. His Italian parents wanted to know ASAP when I would be having a child (he already has 6 nieces and nephews) and I mentally thought I would be ready after working for another 2 years or so when I was more financially stable. Ok, so 30 came and went. Then I was thinking ok, maybe after we travel a little bit more and do more “selfish” stuff we’ll be ready. Yup, nope. Now I’m 32 and still at square one. I received a Happy Mother’s Day card today in the mail “from my dog” (sent by his parents) so I’m not sure whether they’re finally getting off my back or they are still trying to point out to me that they still do not have a human grandbaby from me. And I’m sick to death of people at work asking me when I’ll be “next” and “don’t you WANT to have a child?” So intrusive. I try to say I’d like to have more money saved up but I get the same answers everyone does- “oh just DO IT” and “you’ll figure it out, people always do”. But le sigh, I LIKE our vacations, I LIKE my car, I LIKE sleeping in, I LIKE dropping everything to go to AC for the weekend, I LIKE going to dinner at 10pm sometimes and I DISLIKE the thought of having to give those things up right now. I just sort of feel like I’m a bad person for liking these things so much… Thus for me, finances ARE a big deal because I want to be able to do all of the above and (maybe) have “ah” child and give that child the same type of life I had growing up. Plus, I’m still totally grossed out by toddlers with sticky hands and faces and I people’s newborns aren’t cute, they look like prunes. There I said it. Boosh.
Wow, that Mother’s Day card certainly is a mysterious message! And, well, we really can’t control the types of things that we enjoy and value. If all those other things (vacations, sleeping in, etc.) sound great, and babies/toddlers don’t, well, there’s not much you can do about that right now! I’ll just cross my fingers that the answer becomes clear to both of us sometime soon.
Money is the ENTIRE reason we don’t have kids. That and lack of consistent affordable healthcare. I know many people in a tough economic position these days. Maybe the economy will lead to population control? But then again, there are always people having kids who live on limited incomes.
That’s a great question! I think as there’s more and more public discourse about whether or not to have babies, more and more people may start considering financial implications. It’ll be interesting to see how much the Childfree rate shoots up in the next few years since it’s gone up dramatically already.
Well I can’t have kids nor can my hubby so that is part of our reason for not having them to start with (as in adoption isn’t an option or even a possibility as things stand in our lives), yes we could adopt but the cost of adoption comes into play and if one can’t afford that option then raising a child after the adoption process was over ummm you’d be lucky to have two cents to rub together it seems/feels.
I never was on the fence of not having kids, I always though I’d have to have them because it was expected of me to do so, regardless of what my personal choice in the matter was. It would only be as I got older and started to look at other’s that I started to put two and two together and understand that being a parent is a choice just as much as not being one can be (or is depending on your point of view).
Taking the cost of it all out of the deal and having unlimited funds wouldn’t change my mind about having a child in our life, I’m a mother to pups only a human child just isn’t part of my being – though my hubby would love to have a child of his own if everything was in place to be able to afford one and still be able to live without the high debt that seem so common with parents in this day and age.
What a reasonable decision you’ve both made! And lucky you – dogs don’t go to college, so you won’t be stuck with a tuition bill.
I’m grateful I found your blog. I’m not married like a lot of you, but I am feeling quite forced to answer this question as I date and run up against my feasible age-limit.
I’ve been living a comfortable life on a small salary, even if I have the degrees and potential to earn much much more. If it weren’t for the money factor, I swear I think I’d just go it on my own. The thought of having to move back closer to my parents just to make sure I had childcare just horrifies me. I just don’t understand how people afford kids.
Thanks for an enlightening read.
Well, unless you DO decide to go it alone, you’ll be adding another salary into the mix from this potential baby’s Daddy – and who knows how big or small that might be! Maybe you’ll be fabulously rich. Or at least rich enough to not have to move closer to your parents (agreed, horrifying, no matter how much we all like each other).
Money is a HUGE factor for me in this whole thing, because the only way I’d even entertain the idea of having a baby is if I can stay home to raise said baby. For me, I don’t see the point of going through all the trouble of having a baby just to leave it in someone else’s care while you work all day and come home tired and hungry and still have to deal with the freakin baby and then grunt in the direction of your husband and then pass out and do it all again. Over and over. F that. No thank you.
If I’m doing it at all, I’m doing it full-fledged, and maybe I’ll even bake a pie and vacuum in heels at some point, too. I very much feel like, “Screw you, world. You want me to friggin work a full-time job AND raise a kid? Bite me.”
So until the husband makes enough to finance such a thing, because I would absolutely not be willing to move somewhere cheaper or sell my house or anything like that, half of our conversations about the maybe-baby situation are virtually moot. Problem is, it’s likely he WILL be able to fund this just in time to make the self-imposed deadline we have in regards to when we will finally call the whole discussion quits one way or the other. And I still don’t know if that would make me want to have the baby anyway.
Meanwhile, all I keep thinking is, “If I’m questioning it so much, doesn’t that mean the answer is actually ‘no’, anyway?” Ugh.
I have no idea how to answer that last question (obviously!). It could probably be interpreted two ways: 1) if you’ve got so much doubt, you probably shouldn’t have one 2) if you keep turning this subject over and over again in your mind, it must mean you subconsciously want one. So who knows! BTW, vacuuming in heels sounds really dangerous – I can barely walk in them while sober!
CG! I read the post and tried the thought process like MaybeLady mentioned and pretty much came to the same conclusion. I’m not married but I imagined being able to continue with life (I’m still in school working toward a doctorate but imagined I was already practicing) and able to do everything in terms of traveling, and have full time childcare and a army of staff. I would spend little hallmark moments with them while they were all washed and fed and in the best of moods. Since I’ve always had the dream of living in England, they would be in boarding school year round from the ages of like 12-18! Clearly I have zero business/interest being a parent. I’m pretty much childfree but I still wonder about all the comments people throw at us (who will take care of you, what about all your friends changing, aren’t you lonely, you’re selfish etc). However curiosity is so different to having a burning desire to have/parent children. I’m curious about living in Bali and opening a yoga studio but it’s not a burning desire. Actually, maybe I should change that!
Wow, I’d completely overlooked the concept of boarding school! My, my – how that would change the landscape!