How can families afford children? • Hacker News Board

Re: How can families afford children?

#21

Post by epx » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 5:05 PM UTC

compiler-guy wrote: post #4

The standards we expect for childrearing are also dramatically higher today than ever before. Previous generations just sent the kids off to play after school, without much attention; they expected kids to be 100% on their own after highschool (and even before); and on and on. Today we expect far more parent involvement than ever before (at least in the US), this makes it comparatively more expensive to raise childre…

Exactly my case: I walked to and from school every day, and kept playing on street and backyards' bushes every afternoon. My kid I drive to and from school, he never went to the street unattended, he is 10.

Re: How can families afford children?

#22

Post by TremendousJudge » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 5:07 PM UTC

bmcusick wrote: post #16

Globally, the main thing is that married families have transitioned from small farm cooperatives (where the husband works the fields and the wife in the house) to market-based work for both of them. The problem with market based work is that it's usually incompatible with keeping one eye on small children, unlike the household chores of a farm. Also, kids are pure burdens until they can join the market themselves, wh…

>where the husband works the fields and the wife in the house

Back in the day, everyone worked the fields. The men, the women, and the children. Especially in times of harvest, the more hands, the better

Re: How can families afford children?

#23

Post by Broken_Hippo » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 5:07 PM UTC

This article claims a lot of things and assumes many more.

I think "affording" children has never been the primary goal of folks having children. Most folks aren't all that good at predicting what it will cost to raise a child or three. Some costs aren't as much with multiple children (used clothing, for example, or sharing rooms makes housing more affordable). Others are higher, such as child care and food costs. Some things are improved if one parent stays home. I think the main thing that drives folks to have smaller or larger families is desire to do so rather than costs themselves. Oddly enough, education can help as well, if you are in a country that thinks it needs more or less children in total.

I find it appalling that it is socially unacceptable in many places for the man to stay home while the woman works. If my immigration status didn't depend on my husband working and we were at all keen on having children at all, I'd work while he stayed home with children.

I'm not sure jobs are any more satisfying, as it is a difficult thing to compare. Many parts of the world simply didn't allow women the same sort of opportunities as men 100 or 150 years ago. Some didn't 40-50 years ago. I got turned down for a job 20 years ago because "females just couldn't do the work required".

We also don't actually need large families any longer, not like we did in the past. Between better infant mortality rates, better survival of giving birth, and birth control, and the financial reasons given earlier, it really isn't as necessary. It's OK to do, but it should be a choice. I think society should have laws allowing maternity and paternity leave and time to tend to the children. This should include a parent staying home... at least until the child is in school and/or mature enough to spend some time alone. In so many places, this is missing.

There are opportunity costs if someone has multiple children, though. What chances does a woman have to be CEO if she also wants 5 children in a 10-year time frame? If she takes the proper time off for both her pregnancy and infant care, it becomes difficult. This can be worked around with strong paternal leave policies: After all, once a woman is healed enough to do her job, she doesn't need to be the one staying at home. It also puts the opportunity costs on both sexes.

Re: How can families afford children?

#24

Post by TremendousJudge » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 5:08 PM UTC

epx wrote: post #21

compiler-guy wrote: post #4

The standards we expect for childrearing are also dramatically higher today than ever before. Previous generations just sent the kids off to play after school, without much attention; they expected kids to be 100% on their own after highschool (and even before); and on and on. Today we expect far more parent involvement than ever before (at least in the US), this makes it comparatively more expensive to raise childre…

Exactly my case: I walked to and from school every day, and kept playing on street and backyards' bushes every afternoon. My kid I drive to and from school, he never went to the street unattended, he is 10.

a kid can't really walk to school if it's 5 miles away because it's a suburb

Re: How can families afford children?

#25

Post by watwut » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 5:09 PM UTC

klipt wrote: post #18

CalRobert wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Not to mention how expensive large vans/suvs are to actually drive them around. " Just driving is pretty expensive. Not owning a car saves loads. Unfortunately, it usually takes a lot of money to live somewhere that doesn't require one. Also worth noting - my wife would be at home with the kid right now (I have a much higher income) except she has substantial student debt, so off to work she goes. This means paying…

> Not owning a car saves loads. Unfortunately, it usually takes a lot of money to live somewhere that doesn't require one. In America perhaps. Europeans seem to manage, generally on lower salaries than Americans...

Cheaper healthcare, education and available public transport (less need for car). That matters greatly. Also, not having much money seems to be less stigmatized and less criminalized then in America. There is some stigma, but there is less of "you are not rich therefore you are stupid" attitude.

Re: How can families afford children?

#26

Post by aceon48 » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 5:13 PM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #13

craig1f wrote: post #5

"Jobs for women are higher-paying and more satisfying than ever before, and that raises the opportunity cost of having large families" This is not true. Depending on the wife for income prevents her from focusing on having a large family. Without the assistance of a grandparent or some expensive nanny, this tends to limit the number of children in the family to 2 or 3. Also, women working has driven the price of hous…

"Not to mention how expensive large vans/suvs are to actually drive them around. " Just driving is pretty expensive. Not owning a car saves loads. Unfortunately, it usually takes a lot of money to live somewhere that doesn't require one. Also worth noting - my wife would be at home with the kid right now (I have a much higher income) except she has substantial student debt, so off to work she goes. This means paying…

The sad thing is you both sound like intelligent, upstanding members of society, and are rationally limiting your sadly expensive kids.

Meanwhile, the dredges of society have multiple kids, Bc they actually make money from them with their subsidized housing and other benefits they pick up having more kids.

And then you factor in “undocumented” immigrants, who also seem to roll in with way more than 2 kids, and your taxes also end up paying for all those kids to go to school with your one kid.

Idiocracy indeed. When will liberals actually wake up to some of the realities around them? Our productive, intelligent members of society are the ones being most discouraged to reproduce!!

Re: How can families afford children?

#27

Post by aidenn0 » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 5:19 PM UTC

lacker wrote: post #8

craig1f wrote: post #5

"Jobs for women are higher-paying and more satisfying than ever before, and that raises the opportunity cost of having large families" This is not true. Depending on the wife for income prevents her from focusing on having a large family. Without the assistance of a grandparent or some expensive nanny, this tends to limit the number of children in the family to 2 or 3. Also, women working has driven the price of hous…

"Jobs for women are higher-paying and more satisfying than ever before, and that raises the opportunity cost of having large families" This is not true. Depending on the wife for income prevents her from focusing on having a large family. You claim to be disagreeing but I think you are agreeing with that comment. By referring to "opportunity cost", the author means precisely that when a woman works it is harder to ha…

I believe that craig1f is claiming that if most women did not work, wages would be higher for those women that do work (due to reduced labor supply), so increased labor participation for women has lowered the opportunity cost compared to a hypothetical world in which women work.

Re: How can families afford children?

#28

Post by noobhacker » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 5:21 PM UTC

epx wrote: post #21

compiler-guy wrote: post #4

The standards we expect for childrearing are also dramatically higher today than ever before. Previous generations just sent the kids off to play after school, without much attention; they expected kids to be 100% on their own after highschool (and even before); and on and on. Today we expect far more parent involvement than ever before (at least in the US), this makes it comparatively more expensive to raise childre…

Exactly my case: I walked to and from school every day, and kept playing on street and backyards' bushes every afternoon. My kid I drive to and from school, he never went to the street unattended, he is 10.

It's very interesting that you are aware of the difference yourself. Is there a reason why you can't let your kid be like you? Is it spousal disagreement, living circumstance, or a change in your own attitude?

Re: How can families afford children?

#29

Post by xyzzyz » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 5:21 PM UTC

bmcusick wrote: post #16

Globally, the main thing is that married families have transitioned from small farm cooperatives (where the husband works the fields and the wife in the house) to market-based work for both of them. The problem with market based work is that it's usually incompatible with keeping one eye on small children, unlike the household chores of a farm. Also, kids are pure burdens until they can join the market themselves, wh…

Back in the day, in the farming days, people still had only 2 children on average survive to the adulthood — the population growth only really took off after industrial revolution. The biggest problem back then was that having more than 2 children impoverished them in the long run — it ensured that each kid had less land to farm than their parents. If you kept having above replacement fertility rate for a while, after a few generations the descendants had no land to farm, and with few alternatives afforded by technology-less society, this meant absolute poverty and starvation.

Re: How can families afford children?

#30

Post by aidenn0 » Tue, Mar 06, 2018, 5:23 PM UTC

dazc wrote: post #6

compiler-guy wrote: post #4

The standards we expect for childrearing are also dramatically higher today than ever before. Previous generations just sent the kids off to play after school, without much attention; they expected kids to be 100% on their own after highschool (and even before); and on and on. Today we expect far more parent involvement than ever before (at least in the US), this makes it comparatively more expensive to raise childre…

'Today we expect far more parent involvement than ever before (at least in the US)...' True also in the UK. As a kid, the normal after-school routine was to walk home, get changed and play out until it was dark. All achieved with minimal contact with parents. Now kids seem to have very little independent time and this, in my opinion, is/will be very much to their detriment in later life.

Is there a trend in the UK of nosy neighbors reporting unsupervised children to the authorities? This has been a disturbing trend[1] in the US that makes it harder to provide kids with independent time, particularly when the person responding to the complaint is guaranteed to be heavily armed.

1: I say trend, though it's probably much less than 1% of the population, but kids are seen by more than 100 adults in a week, and the nosier adults self-select for being more likely to be looking for kids doing something wrong.