to ask why having kids is expensive?

[HodgePodge23]

What do you need to buy them apart from toys, food, clothes and a few other bits and bobs here and there? I have an 8 month old so maybe things will get more expensive with time, but I really don't understand why people say having children is expensive. What are people spending their money on?

Yes but you are conveniently not counting time your child is at nursery/ school. Also, do you physically 'nurture' your child all the time? Or do you leave them to it while you do the cooking/ cleaning/ laundry? My children's childminder 'nurtures' my children too . They have more time with their father than they would if he was working all hours to support 4 people on one salary. Children ring isn't counted in how many hours you are physically in the house.

Nurturing and raising children is about far more than just the simple sum of 'how many hours a week do they spend with parent.' It is about quality of relationships, richness and range of experiences and so on.

If you can't cope with the idea of working while being a parent, then of course you're not going to 'get' that. Fortunately there are enough of us 50 plus mums around who worked right the way through and now have adult children who are perfectly happy and well adjusted to know that there is more than one way to raise a happy family where everyone gets a good deal.

32percent- of course. But it was crucially important to me and OH that our very young children were looked after by a parent and not at a childminder or nursery.

The number of hours you spend caring for a child doesn't often correlate to time actually spent with them

Ie my cousin mainly leaves her children to occupy themselves as she is busy with housework, and doing own thing. So she is with them 24/7 but never sits down with them, and makes then stay in bedroom 7pm-7am.
In comparison we both work, but 6-9pm every day Dh or myself are sitting down focused on the children playing/ reading/ games/ or outside actually playing with them. At night they usually still sleep in our bed. So actually we probably spend more time focused on them, talking to them, hugging them than someone who sees theirs 24/7

Hodge
YABVU, woefully naive and smug with it.

There are lots of perfectly good reasons why mothers and/or fathers work, whether materialistic, selfish or not.
Plus, how else would they pay the basic bills - the rent? Or something unexpected - travel to a family funeral?

Families and family life are not cheap all day everyday and you are kidding yourself if you think they are.

You are in for a hell of a shock when your DCs get old enough to say 'if you loved me you'd buy me an iPad/Xbox/£100 trainers/theme park trip/holiday abroad'

If any of my dc had said this I'd have been ashamed at the way I'd raised them tbh. Like these things are important

So actually we probably spend more time focused on them, talking to them, hugging them than someone who sees theirs 24/7

Not my experience.

Full time working parents I know are usually frazzled, when they get in from work frantically trying to cook, catch up with housework, laundry, bedtime routine etc.
A 9pm bedtime is very late for younger children, especially if they have to be out of the door early in the morning to go to nursery or childminder.

Why do these threads always end up in an argument about sah/woh

What does that have to do with how much children cost?
If you have lots of money there is a good chance you'll spend it on your dc.
If you don't have so much, then you won't.

However you choose to raise them, whoever decides to fund their dc is irrelevant when you look at the cost of basic needs of a child, which is how the thread started.

Four - 9pm isn't early. Our wake at 8am for school/ nursery, and younger takes a nap if he wants in the afternoon. 11hrs is what the NHS recommend for a 4 year old. We batch cook at weekends so only really heat food in the week, and have a cleaner who does all the cleaning and laundry, so we don't need to be frazzled. Most people i know at home all day are frazzled by the afternoon anyway

Actually it was the OP who turned her own thread into a SAHM/WOHM thread, which I suspect was the original purpose for starting such bad breathtakingly naive and patronising thread in the first place!

I love how women who pride themselves on not being 'materialistic' make damn sure they are with a partner who doesn't share their values & is prepared to sully themselves with a bit of base materialism.

Spot on what he said . They are also quite happy to take advantage of the selfish teachers, nurses, gp's, shop workers and council workers who selfishly go out to work so they can go on foreign holidays but only, of course if they are mothers. The fathers can nurture for a few hours at the weekend

I earned £18K working 10 hours a week.

How?? What did you do?

So your answer to all those people who are saying that childcare is expensive is that they should get a job where both parents can work full time around each other so they don't have to pay for childcare

How does that work for single parents? And before you ask, no he wont even turn up when he is supposed to for the one night EOW never mind taking them 50% of the time to fit in round my work.

I do everything on the cheap. Mine however still want to do sports clubs & swimming etc at £4-8 a class, need endless shoes, eat like horses, use bikes and scooters and decent car seats, force us to have breaks in school hols etc. compared to us being childless it's eye watering. We moved to a bigger house too. Nursery for two wiped all my earnings at £1800 a month but I wanted to keep a career. Now I just pay for school wrap around and how club when needed (£50 a day).

OP, I might have said something as stupid as similar to you when my cheap and easy PFB was only 8 months old. My unmaterialistic DH was blending all the organic baby food and doing my ironing as I worked very hard (in a career I did love, tbf) until I was lucky enough, like PP, to reduce to part time hours on a full time salary as some of my DC have SN.

Many years later and I became ill and disabled and unable to work with my insurance not paying out yet, so my lovely unmaterialistic SAHP DH who sacrificed any chance of a career rather than a job, has had to go back to a minimum wage working all the hours God sends to keep our teens feed, watered and warm. Now we are finding out exactly how expensive the DC are and exactly how much our smug happy frugal living SAHPing has cost us. I sincerely hope you don't find out the same way.

Yes, it's pretty clear the OP wanted to start the boring old WOHM/ SAHM bunfight

Look : if you choose to give up work and be a SAHP there should be one simple reason only: do it Because you want to for your family. Don't do it for any other reason- and particularly not because you somehow secretly think it will make your kids smarter/ happier/ better adjusted that the children of Mr and Mrs Smith along the road who both work. If that's your agenda then you stand to be disappointed. My children are all in their twenties now and guess what? They are just as happy, clever etc as their peers who had a parent give up work.

if you or your partner earned enough to keep you going (e.i. enough to live but you wouldn't have all the luxuries), would the other stay at home?

Thats all great until you split up/ the earner becomes too ill to work/dies and the non-earner is up shit creek pension wise, recent experience wise, gap in CV etc. its a very vulnerable position to put yourself in. To be utterly dependant on another person for the very food you eat when you have the ability to provide that security for yourself.

surlycue, I sell second hand books.

My kids are older now, I actually have three jobs, all self employed. I work more like 30 hours a week.

Ha ha OP!

Little babies are cheap.

My son got his first shoes at 14 mths. He then went through four sizes IN A YEAR that was £120 on shoes alone.

Mine (now 6 and nearly 4) go back to school/nursery in Sept. They both need new winter coats (£80), new school shoes (£80) new wellies (£20), new trainers (£40), new waterproof trousers (£18).

My DS needs new school shorts and new school jumper (£40). My DD the beanpole needs an entire new school uniform (2 school jumpers (£20), one skirt (£10), one pinafore (£12), two sets of polo shirts (£16).

Then they need winter boots for out of school (£80) plus warm winter jumpers, tights, new skirts and jeans and my son needs winter trousers since his old ones don't fit. God knows how much that will be, praying friends will hand things down tbh.

Then between them there is one birthday party a week on average (£40 a month on presents/card/wrapping paper.)

Then there are ACTIVITIES. Shudder. Piano lessons - £80 a month. Swimming lessons - £50 a month and nearly twice that when DS starts.

Extra nursery hours plus nursery hot lunches for my son - £120 a month.

Plus when you are feeding four rather than 2 it is MUCH more expensive at the supermarket.

Of course you can do it all for cheaper than the above, and indeed many people less well off than we are have to. But it is still v expensive!

fourtothedozen does your DC really have 113 pairs of shoes?! I really hope you meant 13, and I still think 13 is a lot, particularly if their feet are still growing.

eek that came out a lot more judgey than I intended to, apologies. Also slightly hypocritical too as I have a lot of shoes myself

Did I say 113- ? Sorry, I meant 13. Bad typo. Makes my DD sound like a caterpillar!!!

So that leaves 34 hours time with your child a week compared to 84 for a SAHM. THat's a whopping 60% less "nurturing" time.

Children are capable of being nurtured by more than one person. Some of them even do it better than the mothers depending on the task at hand. Your child doesnt have to be on mum's hip to be nurtured. It doesnt even have to be near mum.

surlycue, I sell second hand books.

My kids are older now, I actually have three jobs, all self employed. I work more like 30 hours a week.

Thanks four i have to say i'm a bit shocked! I never though SH books could be such a good source of income.

I practiced AP surlycue.

Yes books make good money.