all 13 comments

[–]sdl5 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

1988.

2nd kid arrives.

Mortgage now 5 years old and well within budget.

No car payments or other debts.

Hubby has a top dollar blue collar job.

I have nearly a decade in same company, promotions, raises regularly and more than keeping up with inflation for a routine pink collar accounting staff job.

......

Do the math on daycare.

My paycheck will be -$64 a month now.

Absolutely NO safe and available lower prices anywhere across a 40 minute not in rush hour distance through multiple cities.

Take every second of medical, vacation, and parental time off.

Take additional 2 months until slot opens at same one.

Idiot me returns to work.

Because it was expected and assumed I would.

Even by hubby.

Even though we are now LOSING MONEY in gas and daycare every month.

FOR 3.5 MORE YEARS.

IN NINETEEN EIGHTY-EIGHT.

....

THAT child is now 35.

Had first child.

Work was freelance photography. Got very popular fast, easy to fill slots well in advance.

Had a pre school used 3 days a week.

They had a fixed house cost within the budget after the first few years, his pay is similar to what her father's would have been, one car payment AND his student loan to pay off still...

SHE did the math shortly before her 2nd conception with an under 5 year old.

GUESS WHAT? They were smarter than her parents:

Only working very limited slots when well paid first responder hubby was free made sense- and not much of that due to photo/gas costs relating and her time and energy.

Now has 3 children.

Stay at home.

His student loan is gone. Car payment half done. Youngest almost 4.

Not at all displeased with this decision.

.......

Lesson? If it is at all possible to live decently on one paycheck once you start a family, DO IT.

STOP STAYING TRAPPED ON THE FORCED MODERN HAMSTER WHEEL THAT REMOVES BOTH PARENTS FROM THEIR CHILDREN'S DAILY LIVES AND ACTIVITIES.

[–]MeganDelacroix🤡🌎 detainee 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This is one of the reasons I hate Elizabeth Warren. She knows this "better than anyone," as Trump would say. She's done the research. Yet she never speaks out against it and instead perpetuates the "women can have it all" garbage girlboss myth every chance she gets.

This is a marked tendency in the oligarch class. They order their own families according to traditional values, but pretend to believe "progressive" nonsense, doing incalculable harm to their constituents and supporters. Look at Zuckerberg and his ilk openly admitting they'd never allow their own kids on social media, and simultaneously designing products to turn everyone else's kids into zombies and addicts.

[–]unagisongsBurn down Reddit! 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I suspect we are headed to situation where the very wealthy have few children that get pampered and the very poor that have too many children.

All the people somewhere in between will end up becoming life long pet parents.

[–]Maniak🥃😾 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

All the people somewhere in between will end up becoming life long pet parents.

Which would be way better, so it can't happen given that things can only be getting worse.

People somewhere in between will end up being pushed to the bottom, except for the tiniest few who will manage to be psychopathic enough to escape to the top by screwing over everybody else in their surroundings.

[–]MolecCodiciesCOVID-9/11 Vaccines Don’t Work 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Contemporary society has been deliberately structured in such a way as to make having a family prohibitively expensive, in a eugenicist effort to deny the majority of humanity their most basic fundamental purpose and natural function as an organism. Procreation is being turned into a “privilege”, and while they’re at it they would also like to groom us into blaming the victims of this blatantly anti-human policy agenda, who are supposedly stupid for continuing to make love and propagate the human species as nature intended

[–][deleted]  (10 children)

[deleted]

    [–]captainramen🇺🇸🛠️ MAGA Communist 🛠️🇺🇸 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

    The reason people can't 'afford' to raise kids any more is because most of us are doing pointless busywork. There is a Kaitlin Peterson in Denver who works as a Librarian. Why this job continues to exist when we have the internet is beyond me.

    To do the physical work necessary for society to go on - grow enough food for everyone, build enough houses, bridges, roads, rail, transport the goods, mine the energy, manufacturer the washing machines and dishwashers, the cars, all of it, would be a 5-15 hour work week.

    [–][deleted]  (4 children)

    [deleted]

      [–]captainramen🇺🇸🛠️ MAGA Communist 🛠️🇺🇸 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

      There's no excuse whatsoever for not digitizing everything.

      All work that produces wealth is physical in nature. Any other work might be socially useful but it is not socially necessary.

      That being said, you can do anything you want in your free time. If for you that means doing librarian stuff, why not? Just not as a job.

      [–][deleted]  (1 child)

      [deleted]

        [–]captainramen🇺🇸🛠️ MAGA Communist 🛠️🇺🇸 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

        No, the wealth was already created, then transferred to you.

        Let me put it to you this way: imagine two islands, one where everyone does physical labor and another where everyone does mental labor. Which island will thrive? Which one will starve to death?

        For our jobs to exist someone else has to produce a surplus. No different than ancient Sumer where the class of scribes who marked clay tablets for a living could not have existed without an agricultural surplus.

        [–]MeganDelacroix🤡🌎 detainee 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

        There's no excuse whatsoever for not digitizing everything.

         

        Steven Spielberg says he regrets editing guns out of '.E.T.'

        Agatha Christie Books Get Woke Makeover, Join Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming

         

        I think I'll keep my hard copies of everything.

        [–]unagisongsBurn down Reddit! 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

        If it is the expense that finally does it,

        Dogs don't have to go to college.

        [–]MeganDelacroix🤡🌎 detainee 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

        Dogs > humans in every respect, though. Not really a fair basis for comparison.

        [–]Maniak🥃😾 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

        And cats rule over them all, as they're entitled to.

        [–]RandomCollection[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

        https://archive.is/AetNu

        This is why the birthrate has collapsed. Young people can't afford this.