AIBU to consider having another child in these circumstances?

[PoorMe123]

I hope no one minds; I posted in chat but I've had a fairly small response and this is obviously a big decision so looking for lots of feedback.

I'm a SAHM. DH & I make ends meet and have 2 DC. We've had a particularly expensive couple of years which has left us with some small debts which we are managing and will have cleared soon. We don't have any savings and are 30. Once our DC are in school I will work again and we'll have more spare cash to get savings together. We don't own our house.

If we're going to have another DC, now is the time. If we wait & I get back into work, then it's just more time off down the line & paying for childcare etc. If we have one now, we will have them all in school by the time I'm 35 so still plenty of time for me to have a good career.

Just to make sure I'm giving you all the information, DH will get 50k around the time he turns 40 (don't want to elaborate and out myself) so we will have some money coming our way in the next 10 years. Also we'd be buying in either Scotland or the North of England where home ownership isn't so expensive.

Would we be foolish to have another child in these circumstances? DH & I would both love another child and a sibling for our existing DC.

No, not trying for another sex. I do have 2 of the same sex but they are both so different. Sex doesn't really come into it for me. I've never found out the sex until birth.

But there’s nothing edifying about choosing to produce a massive family without even considering how you’re going to support them - often it just leads to children living in poverty while their feckless parents convince themselves that “love is all you need”

@SleepySofa, are your comments aimed at me?

I'm not aware that I have told you that I have a massive family, or that I am feckless or living in poverty. FWIW, I I have a modest number of children, just because I didn't need a spreadsheet to tell me that I couldn't afford any more school fees. If they were heading for state schools, I'd have had more.

I’m not saying you’re feckless. I’m saying that refusing to think about how you’re going to support your growing family is feckless. Considering finances carefully doesn’t mean weighing it on a spreadsheet necessarily, but so what if it does?

@Rixera wow you are rude

OP go with your heart. I've said it below a day or so ago.

Lots of love from a reckless mother of 3 xxxx

Nope - 50k is not going to go as far as you think it is. You don’t have a house.have you thought about 3 sets of clothes - 3 after school clubs, 3 childcare costs? 3 seats of presents? Be happy with the two - I don’t think you can afford another one. Sorry.

Work out your worst case scenario - can you still house and clothe one more? If you reckon you could cope - do what is in your hearts! We did :)

Rixera It’s not that easy to adopt. Some people for whatever reasons may not be able to go through that. Think they are very strict too.

I don't think it's rude, I think it's realistic. You find it rude, because you have made that choice already.

I still think for those asking for opinions on having 3 children it's appropriate to consider the societal & environmental impact of so many 3-child households.

We have four and its a huge financial responsibility which just increases as they get older. We were lucky to get on the property ladder when we did but still things have been tough. I readily admit I did not realise the expense of the teenage years.

Op it's not just redundancy you have to worry about. Sickness/disability can hit ANYONE without warning. How would your family manage if he were suddenly sick/disabled? What about if he left? What if one of the DC become sick/disabled? How old are the DC? My dd has a disability that only started to show noticeable symptoms at late primary school stage, took years to get a dx too.

10 years is actually not that long. And there are likely to be more cuts that are coming to the public sector.

Are you in receipt of tax credits or UC for the DC? Because in the current climate I would not be relying on those even staying the same!

"It is not misfortune, it is life." Yep!

What's the situation with both sets of you and dh's parents health wise?

Are you thinking £50k will get you a house outright? And that would need to be a min 3 bed house if you have 3 DC. I live in a VERY cheap part of Scotland and even now you'd need MINIMUM £75k to get a 3 bed and that's not inc all the additional costs of buying/moving and is in frankly a rather undesirable, out in the sticks, high unemployment, crime and deprivation area!

"the fact that I'll be getting back into work when I'm 35." No YOU have missed the fact that several posters have pointed out

A - there's no guarantee you could GET a job - there's 3.5-4 times MORE people applying for jobs that there are jobs available. That's govts own stats AND ONLY inc in the jobseeker stats those on jsa or equivalent, not sahp not claiming who are trying to re-enter the workforce, nor under 18's, nor sick/disabled looking to re-enter workforce etc etc - also the number of jobs available counted for those stats includes ANY job not just full time. Zero hours, "Saturday" jobs of only 3-4 hrs a week - ANY job.

B - there's CERTAINLY no guarantee you'll a job paying more than nmw.

C - there's no guarantee that you'll actually be able to return to work. If you or one of the DC become/are discovered to be sick/disabled that'll kibosh your plans!

D - do you even KNOW how much childcare Costs? For THREE DC? INCLUDING 13-15 weeks a year holiday cover? Possibly more if there's a difference across schools once you have DC at both primary and high school? Because younger high school age DC may not need minding as such but it's certainly not a good idea simply leaving them to their own devices all summer! That's asking for trouble!

That also means THREE DC having time off sick at various points too - can you or your dh risk losing your job to cover that? Cos that's the real world!

Blacktype - you can't "hand me down" extra furniture, extra housing, childcare costs, sickness cover, university costs. Also having a teen myself and so experience of families at the same stage I don't know any that "hand me down" tech.

Wanna hear a story?

At 30 I was married, healthy, 1 apparently healthy DC, solvent even comfortably off sahm.

At 35 I was a single, disabled, mentally ill mother to 1 frequently suffering symptoms (of a condition I didn't yet know were due to a disability) and in pain and often off school child, dependant on benefits and even at times going without myself so dd was fed.

You REALLY cannot know what the future holds!

I think it depends on what sort of life you want for you and your kids. If you plan to do foreign holidays then taking three kids rather than two is more expensive. Will there be one who is always left out? Can you afford three lots of childcare costs, after school activities? Will you have a big enough house and car? I am not even sure if you can get three child seats in a normal saloon so you may need a larger car. Helping them out with driving lessons, cars, university, weddings, house deposits etc will be more expensive.

*At 30 I was married, healthy, 1 apparently healthy DC, solvent even comfortably off sahm.

At 35 I was a single, disabled, mentally ill mother to 1 frequently suffering symptoms (of a condition I didn't yet know were due to a disability) and in pain and often off school child, dependant on benefits and even at times going without myself so dd was fed.

You REALLY cannot know what the future holds!*

Surely this just goes to prove the point that if you think worst case scenario, you'd never have any children. No one would. Like you say? You were comfortably well off. If you had known your future, would you have chosen to fall pregnant.

Life can take unexpected turns for the worse but also for the better. I'm really not sure that thinking worst case scenario is a productive way to live life.

My point is you can't always think best case scenario either - which is what you seem to be doing.

You have to consider both possibilities and prepare as much as possible and make sensible choices based on reality now (eg that £50k isn't enough to buy a house, there's few jobs, and little financial security in the U.K. Currently) and the MOST LIKELY future which will be a combination of good and bad events

Do you have any skills that could bring in an income whilst the children are young.

I would be looking at ways to improve my financial situation and then have another baby.

user I was considering qualifying in a couple of beauty treatments so that I can do them from home for a while to help generate savings before we ttc. A friend of mine offers eyelash extensions where we live and makes great money doing it but shes moving away so I thought there may be an opportunity there. She also has her small kids at home with her whilst she does some of the appointments and the people round here seem fine with that, although I'd try to book appointments around school/nursery hours.

I wouldn’t.

You have two healthy children. Focus on giving them the best and happiest life possible. Their lives will not be improved by you having another baby.

I would quite like a third. But it would make life more difficult, logistics are tricky (cars, holidays etc), and it is probably environmentally irresponsible to even have two. I could afford a 3rd, but we won’t.

No absolutely not.

No savings, debt and renting.

Wait a few years when debt is cleared. Babies are very cheap really if you are a SAHM but the costs go up and up the older they get.

We decided against a 3rd. We decided we could give a lovely life to the 2 we have and another child would dilute that. It's also stuff like a bigger car to fit the car seats in the back, bigger house with more bedrooms, yet another place for holidays, uniform, school trips (secondary schools are massively expensive now), childcare, clubs etc.

I agree with more children reducing your mortgage opportunity and at the age of 40 that will be reducing anyway.

Some people have mentioned pensions. This is a massively serious consideration for you OP.

The need to have a 3rd is solely about the mother (sometimes both parents) need to have that last baby. There's lots of things I want but you have to make informed and sensible decisions which sometimes you may not like.

Erm... just for perspective, we bought property when my dh was 40, with an inherited deposit of £15k, some credit card debt, two average salaries and no hope of ever ever seeing a lump sum of 50 k

It doesn't sound to me like your financial situation is as precarious as others are suggesting. You're managing, it doesn't sound like anyone is going without. Yes catastrophe could happen at any moment, but that's the same regardless of how many kids you have.

And as far as being unable to give your kids all of the holidays and clubs with a third mouth to feed - well, so what? Who plans life choices around violin lessons and term time holidays??

Life can take unexpected turns for the worse but also for the better. I'm really not sure that thinking worst case scenario is a productive way to live life.

People who prepare for the worst-case scenario (I prefer to call it risk-averse) are usually far better prepared for whatever life throws their way, whether it be an unexpected boiler disaster or braces or a disability (they also tend to have insurance). On MN they're also very often called 'lucky',

Often times you see people who have three children on MN who are having real financial difficulty, mostly because the women find it much harder to get back into work, and there are invariably lots of comments about how unhelpful it is to say that it would have been much smarter to stick with two children (of course, it is supremely unhelpful after the fact). Just consider that now. The government is almost certainly not going to help you in any meaningful way if you fall into dire straights, and the tide is really turning against people with larger families.

Teenagers are so, so expensive. I have two. They both wear man-sized clothes, they together eat probably four times as much as my husband and I do, they have social lives, they need books, software, class trips, braces, trips to the dermatologist (honestly, your heart will break for them when they go through the acne phase), phones, laptops, guitar lessons, drum lessons, the list goes on.

Yes catastrophe could happen at any moment, but that's the same regardless of how many kids you have.

Seriously, have a word with yourself. This sort of reasoning is complete rubbish, a legacy from the Labour years of insulating people from the actual cost of raising children. The more children one has, the more financially vulnerable they are.

@PoorMe123 if I could give you any advice now and I sincerely hope you read this..get off this thread. The decision around a third child will come to you only through discussion with your husband. Who is to say you will actually be able to conceive, how long it will take etc. You sound like my kind of person. I did in fact post myself a few weeks back about, dare I say it, a fourth child! I had similar response, your thread is worse. I can not believe how your every comment is picked upon and how rude people are. I came to the conclusion that it really was no ones business other that mine and my husbands and that using a forum such as this was me seeking acceptance. Acceptance from who?! Who cares what everyone else thinks? You never know what is round the corner and simply canny plan for everything. I myself are still undecided on number 4 it may or may not happen. Good luck to you and your family in whatever you decide my love xxxx

You can have another child but the chance of any kind of career is very slim indeed. It sounds like you haven’t worked before other than the admin at your brother’s company. Unless he is willing to employ you?

My3bears - agreed!! I've never heard so many negative people in my life. Some just down right rude. If every person thought about 'what if' their husband/partner lost their job when considering children I doubt many people would have them. I suppose all those commenting would be able to manage to pay their bills etc. Should something happen to their husband/his job?!