AIBU To Think We Wouldn't Cope?

[picklypopcorn]

DP and I really want to start a family. We have been together for 8 years, bought a house 2 years ago and financially we're ok, not a lot in savings (

Sounds like you are in perfect position OP. One partner happy to stay at home and can do shifts weekends and evenings, both sets of grandparents nearby, one of you in decent career, 6 months full paid leave, own your home, low mortgage. Many people would be desperate for this situation! It sounds ideal. Yes your income is low right now, but it won't be forever.

I think if your DP can do weekend restaurant work, gigs, music lessons then you'll have that extra income and he'll have that extra dimension to his life (I'm a sahm, it's can be pretty dull) and for his cv. Plus you have family to babysit so he could do some day shifts if necesary. He needs to drive though. I love my automatic, would never go back to a manual!

I live in the USA, there's very little maternity leave here. Many of my friends went back after 3 months (many go back after 6 weeks but I never got a chance to be friends with them as they were back at work!) of unpaid leave. Leaving your child with your DH once they are at least 6 months old would be a major luxury here!!

Babies are dirt cheap, especially if you use reusable nappies and breastfeed. When they wean onto food they still cost basically nothing because they eat like birds. Their clothes are soooo cheap and because they go through the sizes at breakneck speed you don't need to buy fancy expensive ones that will last, just a few baby grows or whatever in each size. The biggest cost is the pram and cot but you have eight months to sort that so can save money aside each week for it. Babies really cost nothing.

However the older they get, the more expensive they get- let me assure you . School uniform, school trips, birthday parties, presents for their friends birthday parties, Christmas, clothes definitely cost a lot more, shoes, they eat you out of house and home etc. They're also quite fond of breaking things at random just when you could really do without the extra cost...

As long as you've beared the fact they do grow up and get far more expensive (and ruddy difficult) then I say go for it.

OP, please ignore all the spiteful, sexist rubbish that PPs have offered. Just go for it. You're at a perfect age, ie. plenty of time to go for a second, should you BOTH so desire but also loads of life left in you once they have grown up. As the not-professionally-offended PPs have said, there's never a "right time" and you will just manage. You and your partner sound like you've got the IMPORTANT THINGS in life pretty much licked and I think a child would just enhance it for you IMHO.
Good Luck! xXx

Just to add to the chorus...

Babies are indeed quite cheap. You don't need half the crap marketed at you. You can get pretty much everything second hand from baby pre-loved sales, eBay, possibly local
Parenting forums or gumtree etc.

Warning about reusable nappies: they require a big initial outlay. And apparently they don't actually save you that much money, either. Supermarkets, Boots and the like sell own brand nappies that are absolutely fine. We use Sainsburys own brand and they are great.

Tbh the biggest thing is support, NOT money. We are lucky in that we don't have to worry about money in our family but we have no relatives near us to help and it has been really, really tough. If your parents are near and willing/keen to get stuck in, frankly I'd say go for it now!!

I've said it before but it's worth saying again: the cost of babies is not cots and nappies!

It doesn't matter if you get everything off freecycle! because having children = years of reduced earning potential and reduced employability (even if you're not actively discriminated against, if you take more days off and can't spend weekends on training or conferences or extra CPD, you don't progress as fast with small children than without).

the working parent(s) often find they have to work twice as hard just to prove they aren't lazy parents counting down to clocking off, if you go part time you end up working as much as the full timers and you still get stigmatised and less likely to be considered for promotion, and if you take time out to SAHP it can be SOO hard to get back into work. Retraining is also much harder with kids, you might get through the academic side, but once qualified you can't do the free shadowing/volunteering/internships that other grads do that lead on to paid jobs (because you're not getting paid AND you would need to pay for childcare)

Seriously, are most of the posters just parents of babies so far? because for people with children who've been bearing the brunt of childcare+loss of earning potential + slower career progression and/or reduced employability… saying "just buy clothes off ebay" has got to be a joke?

My eldest is now in his 20's and if money becomes tight for whatever reason you cut your cloth. Free sites 2nd hand shops and a network of friends and family to pass on decent things theirs have outgrown can be a great help.

However a decent support network is worth its weight in gold.

The decreased earning potential and employability could equally happen due to illness or a downturn in the sector you work in. To lay the blame purely at the feet of having children is painting a bleak picture and the effect it may have on the OPs career is very dependent on the attitude of her workplace.

Plenty of people on here have had their employment prospects reduced without having kids in the mix. Wage freezes and real term drops in income do happen. Why is it such a joke to suggest ways to make less stretch further? Its just life. Things happen despite your best planning. If you covered every possible eventuality no one would ever take a holiday, get married or leave their parents homes let alone have kids.

The OP seems to have a more stable income than a lot of people can claim.

It's a joke, because as a PP said, babies don't stay babies! And getting a few newborn bargains doesn't offset the massive financial commitment that having children for 18 years will be

I have already said that I thinkk the OPs situation sounds okay, but the posts saying "just ebay/gumtree and it'll absolutely definitely be fine" are hardly helpful or realistic

For us, the the cost was not baby clothes and nappies. It was me taking a career break and then going part time.

Screenshot but even past babies, children don't have to cost a fortune. It just depends on your expectations of how much you should spend. I have a friend with a 4 year-old DD and she has drawers and drawers of clothes and about 5 different coats and 10 pairs of shoes. My DD of same age has one coat/jacket per season plus hoodie, 2 pairs of shoes at any one time and her clothes all fit into one and a half adult drawers...

The career breaks, childcare etc are costly, it's true - but cumulatively. On a day to day affordability basis, the OP's situation is fine.

And frankly, being able to be a good parent should always be of higher concern, and no amount of money can help there. It seems like the OP has available what she needs more than anything: A support network.

There is no right or wrong answer. The thing, which would most concern me in your position is that you are being relied on to be the main breadwinner after having children. You don't know how you will feel about leaving your baby once he/she is born. You also don't know how your health will be after the birth and during pregnancy. There are so many illnesses during pregnancy, which would prevent you from working. I, for example became very ill during and after pregnancy and my health got worse when she DD was 3 and I struggled to even look after her. Had I not had a child, I would have considered myself bedridden. That's not a likely situation but something worth considering as I still cannot work and my DD almost 8. Knowing what I know now, I would want more choices than being relied on to go back to work after the birth even if that meant moving closer to work possibilities and renting out my home.

screenshot just looking for new born bargains is short sighted. I have furnished my house with the exception of beds second hand. It should be a way of life. If its decent quality it will last. Too many things are considered disposable in life.

As for compairing it to other causes for reduced earning potential.
Well, I was out of work with an injury for a while.
Except because we had kids, it meant that DH had to reduce his work too to pick up the childcare slack, because due to the injury I was unable to look after the kids at all even though I was at home.
So instead of being down one income as a couple, we were down 1 and a half incomes because we had children. That took us over a year to get back on an even keep afterwards.

Our kids live in hand me downs, we don't spend money on things like clothes and toys (they get plenty to keep them going a christmas and birthdays) the cost us a FORTUNE! not just in real every day costs (like childcare) but also in loss of earning potential

They're great, and we're not starving. But ebaying doesn't mitigate against the ENOURMOUS cost.

And yes, I still think the OPs finances sound okay for planning a child, but lets not give an unrealistic picture of the real costs

No you're right Ebaying doesn't mitigate costs and make something go from unaffordable to rolling in the ailses with cash. Its just sensible practice to minimise costs no matter your situation rather than pay through the nose for everything.

You sound like you'll make great parents! Yes, things might be tight but they are for 99/100 parents and you have options as time goes by. The support network sounds really good and you are both happy with the balance of work/life/home responsibilities. An awful lot of people projecting their own issues onto you - ignore them! Go for it, and have fun trying! ♥️♥️♥️

Just as a counter to some of the negativity here, your situation sounds just like my dsis and BiL. When they had their DD she was the main breadwinner. He was a waiter and was struggling after going to art school.

Many years on, he's now earning more than her as his career took off, through him slowly building up freelance illustration gigs etc, which he builds around their DD.

I know the arts are a really difficult thing to make a living in, and I'm not saying that your DP will make it. Just offering a different anecdote.

LTB

Totally joking, you sound like a great match. Have children Immediately if you can & best of luck with it. Carry on being sensible & look into him becoming a childminder maybe? You're defo not too young for dc :)

@Janecc - no, you don't know how you will feel about leaving the baby, but if you have no choice, you have no choice. I had to go back after 7 months maternity leave, burst into tears in work, but I'd always known there was no choice and that as the main earner who contributed most financially I couldn't even reduce my hours.

Tbh I got a bit fed up when pregnant of people telling me I'd feel differently after the baby was born as how I felt really didn't come into it.

One other piece of advice on the driving, my dh has recently passed his driving. He started learning 7 years ago when I was pg with ds1 & we've since moved from city to rural town where it's important (to me) that he drives in case I can't, in order to support our family. We have 2dc now & he eventually got a week off work organised & did an intensive course & test " passed. Much less hassle than lessons every week drawn out. He sounds like your dp-sensitive & nervous of other road users but the intensive course was great :)

mirime I fully appreciate that. And this wasn't the only thing I said as you will know if you read my complete message. Op asked for pros and cons and opinions. This is one thing to factor in. Had I seen a trail of messages saying the same thing as I did, I wouldn't have bothered posting as I'm not in the business of trying to guilt trip people.

My DH said to me, when we were considering TTC a 4th(!!) and last baby that we had the rest of our lives to make money but only a certain set amount of time to make/have a last baby. True, I thought. Expecting number 4 in three months ;)

I think you'll find that things just generally work themselves out. If you feel that money is tight when you have the baby then you think about that then, when and if it happens. Your DH does more shift/gets another job. You start a business from home, go back to work part-time or otherwise land a big fat inheritance. Who knows what's going to happen - that's the exciting thing about life. That aside, you might find out that a baby, yours and DH's baby, is priceless and any amount of money spent on that child was worth it a thousand fold! I would go for it.

Actually, screenshotting you are right, kids are incredibly expensive - at least over their lifetimes. However, actually this couple (OP) are in a very strong position in that their joint earnings are unlikely to be majorly affected by this decision. As DH is not earning a great deal right now, his appointment as SATD will NOT reduce their earnings potential as a couple, at least, not in the same way as it would for most couples.
OP's earnings are likely to rise and DH's probably will as well - at least once DC is school age.

picklypopcorn honestly you sound so happy. Unfortunately some women are impressed by money rather than by being treated as wonderfully as it sounds like you are...
A million times over I would take the nice little things he does over big earnings any day.
My little one came along unexpectedly at a time when money was at its worst, but we managed & it sounds like you will do more than okay, especially with the support of such an amazing man. Let me tell you from experience, it will be that support that gets you through the hard times, not how much money he has in his wallet.
Go for it :)

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for all your input I really do appreciate it, even the negative stuff!

So I thought I'd post a little update:

DP and I had a sit down and a good think over the last week and DP has said he quite fancies training to be an electrician . This was all news to me, but he's been thinking about retraining for a while. The plan is to work as an electrician for a few years, then specialize in fixing/ making music PA equipment and creating a business from it. There's loads of demand for PAT testing, fixing gear etc so it's viable. If he was an electrician he could also fit his shifts/ jobs around childcare and take a career break to be a SAHD while working on his music equipment venture in the future.

If he's going to retrain, now (before kids and stuff) is definitely the time!

So we have a new 5 year plan:
DP learns to drive
DP gets his electrician qualifications
I get a promotion
We buy a van
We get married (2018)
We make babies

Sounds like a fab plan

Try to resist getting a cat or dog in the meantime

If you want a baby then have one. You sound like a lovely couple who have the perfect balance.

It's all very well people on here thinking he should be out earning 60k a year and having a proper career but a) not everyone is cut out for a career, some people are happy just having a job and b) you'd end up putting the baby in childcare all the time or relying on relatives.

I do think that if the set up you have works for you both then you should stop worrying about what other people think.

I know three couples where the wife is the main earner and the dads do the child/house stuff because it works for them. I also know two single dads who are doing a fabulous job of bringing up their kids on their own.

If you were a man and the situation was the other way round, this would be a non-issue for most of the posters on here.

Babies don't cost very much. Once they reach about 7 or 8 and start doing tons of activities and school uniforms and school trips are needed then the costs start to creep up. Teenagers are money pits. They are very expensive and I'd suggest giving them away aged 12 and getting them back as adults when the hormone/money years have passed by :o