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?

@BlueGrey1 you're making massive generalisations that people who go to university are all intellectually superior. Many are as thick as mince.
I went to university. As did many of my friends, mostly studied arts or humanities. Who do you think needs more help from the state? Former art students or those who went into a trade at 17?
Think about it

@BoohooWoohoo I agree with everything you've said.

Its already the case for many people in England, and one of the main reasons we chose to leave. Fulltime childcare (5days per week) would be just over £2,100, we couldn’t afford that, so we both worked part time and as opposite days as possible to reduce nursery costs. For many £2,100 is more than their entire take home pay.

We now pay £89 a month that covers fulltime childcare.

@Simonjt where do you live now?

Sweden.

Absolutely. All the 20somethings I know and some 30somethings don’t want kids at all. We’ve only had 1 purely for financial reasons and we are also 2 professionals on decent wages.

Yes but things will have to change the government know we don't have much of a work force for the future (hence bringing the age of free childcare down to tempt people to have more children )

Although population is at its highest we have an ageing population and a mixture of women choosing not to have children and not being able to afford to means we will struggle to maintain a workforce in the future hence the government putting measures in to tackle the latter (although I still agree nowhere near enough is being done)

High taxation though.

The only people I know who didn't learn to drive as soon as they were 17 were the very poorest kids. My eldest had her first on road driving lesson the day after her 17th birthday and her theory test the day after that. This is normal for kids around here. She's used her car (that we bought) to get to her part time job. She would have had no way to get to a job otherwise. The poorer kids her age, still can't drive and so can't easily get to a part time job to save up and learn.

Not much higher than ours to be fair, but go you get a lot more bang for your buck in Sweden.
We can't even get potholes repaired.

I've told my daughters if you want children have them young and don't worry about trying to find perfection. Everything else - money, house, holidays, even a husband - can come with age and application. You'll never get your biological clock back so don't waste time with men who don't know what they want. I think we all get too hung up on "stuff" and thinking we need everything just so to have children, we don't.

So no I don't think they're a luxury, we've just conditioned ourselves to think they are.

@Userob

Saying have children when you are young is fine but have you the means to fund them, If not your relationship and life will be under massive pressure

We are lucky to live in a society that can support low income families. If you're a driven individual you won't need that support for long. Material stuff is just that, material stuff. Is it easy? No. But is the potential of years of IVF and no children at the end of it easy? Also no.

Agree about the luxuries. When I had my 2 over 30 years ago we just ate and paid the bills . Holidays were the Sun breaks from the Newspaper. But there were no mobiles or gadgets like there are now I guess .

@Userob are we?
I had mine at 27 and 29. Through their early years I was absolutely skint. I worked and could claim some childcare costs but not all. My nursery bills were over £1,700 for three days. Unstable housing, relationship breakdown, the stress of never having any money ever. Is that better than IVF? Really?

And previously people raised families in one room because their rents were proportionately high to salaries. Thankfully we don't see that anymore but I think people really need to see how far society has moved on and that comes at a price. Materially your children don't need their own bedroom each, they can share with each other. A baby can share with you until they go to school if needed etc.

A lot of the prohibitive costs are a choice.

If housing costs were proportionate to wages childcare would be a choice, as one parent could give up work / both parents could work part time around each other.

Reducing housing costs so the average house could be afforded on the average wage would be much better for society generally (except for landlords) than reducing childcare costs.

There is a lot of help out there now for childcare, certainly a lot more than when mine needed to use nursery.

I also feel the government need to step up and force and fund schools to have mandatory wrap around care provision through breakfast clubs and after school clubs (not run by teachers) but that's another argument for another thread.

Also "child care" was playing out.
Mum went to her job or did her job at home, ironing etc or it was cleaning/ laundry day and in the holidays you were chucked out -play out all day, jam sandwich if you were lucky and and a strict warning about getting into trouble.

This is exactly what I was about to say!

Equally if people lived where they could afford it would help. Disproportionate aspiration is another cause of low birth rates.