How can families afford children?

Post by bmcusick » Wed, Mar 07, 2018, 2:40 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #67

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…

As somebody who collected eggs and fed pigs at a very young age, it would have been much faster and more efficient for Dad to do it himself. :)

Post by creep » Fri, Mar 09, 2018, 4:11 PM UTC

craig1f wrote: post #61

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…

If you drive down my friend's neighborhood in North Virginia, you see house after house of moms with law-degrees, math degrees, engineering degrees, most with Masters, who said "fuck working" after 5-10 years and decided to become stay-at-home. All with substantial student debt that they didn't work long enough to justify. The number of women who WANT to work is a lot lower than everyone wants to admit. And when they…