July 2009 Weddings
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Article re: Kids and money
my doula e-mailed me this article this morning: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/you-can-never-afford-them
Just thought I would share it since there seems to be a "how much will it cost to have a kid/how did you financially prepare to have a kid?" post. No, it's not financial guidance, but it is a different way to look at growing your family.
Re: Article re: Kids and money
I don't 100% buy into the 'You're never financially ready for kids.' Sure, if you keep waiting for absolute perfection you'll never attain it and never have kids, but there are definitely better times than others to have them and planning should always be used (ideally) when deciding to have kids.
H and I want a baby. Like really really REALLY bad, but we just can't afford it right now and it would be incredibly irresponsible for us to actively try to procreate. It kinda irks my buttons when I hear people say the above to us because we're doing our best to make sure things are as good as they can be. It's a decision that we've come to and I'd prefer not to have people act like we're naive because 'Oh, you're never REALLY ready to have kids.'
I don't think you are ever 100% ready to have kids. (unless of course you are a millionaire and have disposable income coming out your tush). However, I think there is a difference in not being 100% ready and just being irresponsible. You need to be able to support yourself and have the extra income to take care of a little one. If you are scraping by with just the two of you, then it is irresponsible to have a child. If you do ok and are willing to give up new clothes, extra vacations etc then you are in a good spot, but you never know what the future holds... You could have extra medical bills, a car that needs work,
I agree with this. If i were up to DH we would have never been financially ready.He is just very conservative that way. Even though we have no debt and a years worth of pay in the bank he still wasn't completely comfortable with having kids from a finance point. This is probably because I most likely will not return to work for at least a year and it is a lot of pressure on him though which I understand.
This exactly.
I hear this all the time from certain friends and relatives. It's a bit of a sore point with me.
the wedding | the blog
Thanks for sharing, Meghan!
I agree with the PPs about the argument that you can "never really afford kids" being a dangerous one. I think it gives a free pass to people who are really in no position to raise a child mentally or financially to justify a bad decision or "mistake". However, I do think that some people need to be reminded that there are no guarantees in life. Some people need to be reminded that some risks are worth taking. Even if you have 100K in the bank before you have your first child, that doesn't mean that something couldn't happen which would cause the child to "cost" more than that.
Like a PP said, I think the decision to have kids has to be made based on you (and your partner's) comfort level with regards to age, money, time of life, etc.... Unfortunately, life isn't always perfect, and some children may suffer because their parents' comfort level was far too low, or too high.
I think it should also be said that not everyone should have kids.... regardless of whether they can afford them or not. Some people just are not cut out to be parents and/or would feel happier in life without having to make the sacrifices involved in raising a child.
I can't tell you the number of parents I have met who see their kids as little more than the fulfillment of a societal expectation. The people who suffer most in those situations are the kids.
Please don't think I'm calling you out Meghan, because that isn't my intention at all. I simply feel that sayings like "you're never REALLY ready to have kids" exist more to guilt people into doing something they truly don't want rather than encourage the overly cautious.
the wedding | the blog
So true. Not everyone is cut out to be a parent. And not everyone has to be a parent. It is definitely a choice that shouldn't be taken lightly.
Great article and discussion. Thanks for sharing!!!
I agree that while there might never be a perfect time to have kids, there's also a huge difference between not being 100% ready and not being responsible. Like PPs said though, I think the definition of "readiness" can vary from couple to couple. Plus, I think a couple's comfort level can change according to circumstance, too.
In my own experience, when we first started TTC, we were in the right place financially/emotionally to have a baby. However, once we realized that we needed (fertility) help, we had to reevaluate our definition of "ready." Not only did we want to be prepared for the baby once it was born, we also wanted to be prepared for the high costs of conceiving a baby through fertility treatments. For us, this meant that we couldn't head straight to the fertility clinic at the first signs of trouble; we made ourselves wait until we felt we could afford (to the best of our knowledge) both treatment and baby. Honestly, it felt awful to wait, but we needed that time to get back into (our definition of) a financial comfort zone.
Having said that, I know other couples in our shoes would make--and have made--a different decision, so I agree that readiness is often a personal choice.