Is our society heading towards the point where having children is an unaffordable luxury for the average couple?

[MamaLlama123]

Is our society heading to the point where having/ raising children is becoming a luxury?

Thinking about my family as an example - My grandmother had 5 children - she was working class and a SAHM. Despite not having much, my grandparents were able to house, feed and raise their children well. They were not in poverty. They had small treats like fish & chips every Friday and a few days at the seaside every year etc. I don't think family size for this generation was any kind of luxury but children was just an inevitable outcome of life

Comparing this with today, I read so many threads on mumsnet about women who are in a much stronger position than my Grandma. They are not SAHM but actually have extensive qualifications/ careers and resulting in 2 incomes within the household. Despite being so much better off, women seem unable to confidently go forward in planning even a small family 1-2 children (comments from a recent thread about delaying 2nd child due to nursery fees comes to mind)

Are children becoming disproportionately more expensive compared to previous generations? and do you think that having children will be an unaffordable luxury/ unrealistic goal for todays children?

@therainneverbotheredmeanyway
Children aged 5 to 7 attend school until 1.30pm where I am (Ireland), then until 2.30pm up to the age of 12 or 13.
The hours don't really facilitate 'full steam ahead'? It must be hard to study for a degree if you have 4 primary aged children surely?? I think you're underestimating the amount of work involved for the degree and with the children.
Not impossible, but there would need to be a considerable amount of outsourcing done and that takes money or significant assistance from family.

It takes a village was a common thought back in the day. With fewer women studying to degree level, less women moved away from their families and support system. Using an example from my own family, my aunts all stayed in the same city as their parents and were young mums, my nan offered them each childcare. By time my mum had kids she was older and not up to it.

Now so many people that go to uni, meet their partners and settle in cities or towns other than where they grew up. That great in some ways as there is more opportunities for them but it also means moving away from families. That means less support with childcare and also makes it more difficult arranging care for elderly parents etc. Of course that assumes that grandparents would want to help with childcare but years ago it was more common. Now with the cost of living grandparents may well still be working themselves, they may well have had children later in life so not be physically up to it, they might live too far to help on a day to day or simply not want to.

We have 3 kids and manage but we live simple lives (one car, no expensive hobbies, no gym membership, holiday in the UK) and ours are little. These are not compromises that many people would make and as a result they may choose to have less kids which is fair enough. We have no family support but dh has a very flexible job which really helps and I am now self employed. We used childcare for our 2 older children and it was expensive so we held off on having a 3rd until both kids were in school and our prospects improved. I have a professional job though which meant that whilst childcare was expensive whilst I worked part time it was ultimately worth it.With dd2 we have not needed childcare as dh was able to compress his hours and I work one weekday and a Saturday.

I was abandoned at birth and chose not to have any kids. For me the biggest advancement is the WOMAN’s RIGHT to choose. We got educated on risks and are making (in most cases) informed choices.
Costs are one thing, finding a suitable partner is another, prolonged male adolescence, general sentiment towards women has not changed at all if you scrape the male commentators under any basic social media post, it is just as shocking as the amount of “flatearthers” out there. Covid has done more damage to social development of adolescents and kids. Probably producing more dysfunctional males in effect. The middle class erasure is probably complete at this point pushing everyone (the illiterate and unwashed) together into the middle income distribution. The properties are sold off to “foreign investors” in bundles of 16 as “portfolios” yet the gov is gaslighting we should breed as who will pay taxes, meanwhile they are selling off the land. There is no hope there. I won’t even mention everything else- instagram posturing, peer pressure, etc

I think that people want secure housing before they have kids. So generally you need social housing or to own a house.

Increasingly people are stuck in private rented with no likelihood of buying.

Back then there were loads of factories in the days when the UK made things . Women could stay at home with the kids because a man got over time at double pay ( Saturday mornings) or time and a half . Workplaces looked after their workers .

Men were home by 5pm most days and Grandma or an Aunt often had the kids for a few hours while Mum worked a few hours in the late afternoon/evening or until Dad got home .

But very few families went abroad , a car was expensive and there were no subscriptions for tv , mobiles etc. Swimming and the cinema were affordable. Fish and chips was a cheap meal . A night in the pub didn't cost an arm or a leg .

I guess life was much simpler, back then .

My blunt post here will be about economics and politics being tied to each other.

Solutions are there to help people make kids much more affordable. But corrupt people in power don't care.

NATO countries, Australia, and others are technofeudalistic in a world where white billionaire men gatekeep resources from common people. These places I mentioned earlier have monopolies from American tech companies that reflect America's severe corruption when white billionaire men create systemic racism, patriarchy, ableism, class warfare against common people sugarcoatedly disguised as job outsourcing and AI replacing human workers, price gouging sugarcoatedly disguised as skyrocketing inflation, etc.

Some Asian countries are very ahead in the 21st century while having lower living cost yet their citizens can have high quality of life. That's why those Asian countries have thriving people who can afford things like house ownership and kids. NATO, Australia, and others don't adopt this Asian model since they're in bed with corrupt white billionaire men who dehumanize common people. So, NATO, Australia, and others are on a downward spiral of systemic corruption while those Asian countries stay significantly less corrupt with no societal decay from gatekept resources.

There are solutions to make having kids affordable without sacrificing modern conveniences. But again, corrupt people in power don't care. So, you end up with corrupt people in power and complicit society allowing kids to be increasingly expensive, which is ridiculous. It's about elitist wealth-hoarding and gatekeeping resources away from common people. It has nothing to do with justice, a fair economy, and compassion. It has to do with corrupt people being obsessed about making ends meet, greed, wealth-hoarding, profit, technologies, escapism, and celebrity culture more than protecting society's well-being.

Japan, Korea, China are in the same boat.
Nato membership has absolutely nothing to do with it.

But you sound utterly unhinged.