How is it possible for people to not be able to afford children?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get out of your bubble.

The median HHI in the US is only like $70k. Try raising a family on that while trying to own a home, pay for childcare, save for college, and save for your own retirement. That's not even factoring costs for daily living.

The median family income is around 100k, which would be low for any major metro much less the DMV.

Nope, the PP was right--the median US HHI is just under 70k as of Dec 2023. And that figure typically includes households with heads between 25-55 years old, so you would expect 30 year olds to be on the lower end. And the majority of people do live in major metropolitan areas in the US (and that percentage is steadily growing).

Household income and family income are defined differently. PP is correct, but the median family income is a much more appropriate indicator than households that include retirees and singles.

[Anonymous]

Maybe people who make what you make want a better lifestyle than what you’re living now. You have to pay for childcare, education, food, etc and that is a huge portion of your take home. They want to live better than you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op sounds like a troll.

This is a troll post for sure. Thinking everyone can "make $150k by their 30s". Should we just not have teachers, professors, physical therapists, nurses in DC? There are plenty of professional jobs that don't make $150k.

Understand your point but, as a woman, I purposely didn’t go into a a more flexible but lower paying field like physical therapy, speech therapy, social work etc. I know MANY women who did this, banking on getting married to someone making multiple times their salaries, and then ultimately staying at home with their kids before maybe going back to work. at 22, I didn’t see the ROI- those low paying fields, while extremely noble and possibly fulfilling, require grad school and very little opportunity to make decent money long term. I was thinking along the lines of “I want to get married at some point, but what happens if I don’t? What career would I need to support myself adequately, and has more possibilities for making decent money?”

That’s fine, but if no one went into speech therapy your brat would never learn how to enunciate properly. Guess it’s good some people are more selfless.

I don’t think people go into OT or ST because they’re selfless. I think they’re possibly interested in it and probably are attracted to the flexibility of it, being that these are female dominated girls. It’s just a gamble in the sense that it’s generally low paying and you need to bank on marrying a significantly higher earner to have a middle class life in any HCOL area.

That said, I have a child in speech therapy and occupational therapy. The therapists charge 125 and 170 dollars for 45 minutes, respectively, and they don’t accept insurance. So maybe they’re not doing too poorly.

But yes, generally I think it’s silly to choose a low paying career out of “selflessness” and I think it’s equally silly to assume that’s why people choose these fields.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op sounds like a troll.

This is a troll post for sure. Thinking everyone can "make $150k by their 30s". Should we just not have teachers, professors, physical therapists, nurses in DC? There are plenty of professional jobs that don't make $150k.

Understand your point but, as a woman, I purposely didn’t go into a a more flexible but lower paying field like physical therapy, speech therapy, social work etc. I know MANY women who did this, banking on getting married to someone making multiple times their salaries, and then ultimately staying at home with their kids before maybe going back to work. at 22, I didn’t see the ROI- those low paying fields, while extremely noble and possibly fulfilling, require grad school and very little opportunity to make decent money long term. I was thinking along the lines of “I want to get married at some point, but what happens if I don’t? What career would I need to support myself adequately, and has more possibilities for making decent money?”

That’s fine, but if no one went into speech therapy your brat would never learn how to enunciate properly. Guess it’s good some people are more selfless.

I don’t think people go into OT or ST because they’re selfless. I think they’re possibly interested in it and probably are attracted to the flexibility of it, being that these are female dominated girls. It’s just a gamble in the sense that it’s generally low paying and you need to bank on marrying a significantly higher earner to have a middle class life in any HCOL area.

That said, I have a child in speech therapy and occupational therapy. The therapists charge 125 and 170 dollars for 45 minutes, respectively, and they don’t accept insurance. So maybe they’re not doing too poorly.

But yes, generally I think it’s silly to choose a low paying career out of “selflessness” and I think it’s equally silly to assume that’s why people choose these fields.

Female dominated industries*

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op sounds like a troll.

This is a troll post for sure. Thinking everyone can "make $150k by their 30s". Should we just not have teachers, professors, physical therapists, nurses in DC? There are plenty of professional jobs that don't make $150k.

We can have teachers, professors, PTs, nurses, but according to OP, they should not marry one another because their incomes will be too low. Marry for money, not for love, so that you can end up in the DCUM relationship section in 20 years, posting about your doomed marriage.

[Anonymous]

Troll.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op sounds like a troll.

This is a troll post for sure. Thinking everyone can "make $150k by their 30s". Should we just not have teachers, professors, physical therapists, nurses in DC? There are plenty of professional jobs that don't make $150k.

Understand your point but, as a woman, I purposely didn’t go into a a more flexible but lower paying field like physical therapy, speech therapy, social work etc. I know MANY women who did this, banking on getting married to someone making multiple times their salaries, and then ultimately staying at home with their kids before maybe going back to work. at 22, I didn’t see the ROI- those low paying fields, while extremely noble and possibly fulfilling, require grad school and very little opportunity to make decent money long term. I was thinking along the lines of “I want to get married at some point, but what happens if I don’t? What career would I need to support myself adequately, and has more possibilities for making decent money?”

That’s fine, but if no one went into speech therapy your brat would never learn how to enunciate properly. Guess it’s good some people are more selfless.

I don’t think people go into OT or ST because they’re selfless. I think they’re possibly interested in it and probably are attracted to the flexibility of it, being that these are female dominated girls. It’s just a gamble in the sense that it’s generally low paying and you need to bank on marrying a significantly higher earner to have a middle class life in any HCOL area.

That said, I have a child in speech therapy and occupational therapy. The therapists charge 125 and 170 dollars for 45 minutes, respectively, and they don’t accept insurance. So maybe they’re not doing too poorly.

But yes, generally I think it’s silly to choose a low paying career out of “selflessness” and I think it’s equally silly to assume that’s why people choose these fields.

I work in healthcare at a large DMV area (RN). Most of the people who work in these roles do not live in DC, commute in from the burbs (especially easy when your workday starts at 7am and is over at 3:30pm, or you work nightshifts), and yes, they marry each other and do just fine. They also generally wouldn't pay attention to a site like DCUM where people make these ridiculous assumptions that they should have married a rich doctor or whatever due to being a low earning RN or nurses aide, etc. Generally, the majority of the entire DC hospital is staffed by people who do not live in DC. Quite a lot in burbs outside the beltway and just commute in during non-rush hour times.

[Anonymous]

People can't afford to raise children *the way they want to raise their children*, and that's fine. It's their choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op sounds like a troll.

This is a troll post for sure. Thinking everyone can "make $150k by their 30s". Should we just not have teachers, professors, physical therapists, nurses in DC? There are plenty of professional jobs that don't make $150k.

Understand your point but, as a woman, I purposely didn’t go into a a more flexible but lower paying field like physical therapy, speech therapy, social work etc. I know MANY women who did this, banking on getting married to someone making multiple times their salaries, and then ultimately staying at home with their kids before maybe going back to work. at 22, I didn’t see the ROI- those low paying fields, while extremely noble and possibly fulfilling, require grad school and very little opportunity to make decent money long term. I was thinking along the lines of “I want to get married at some point, but what happens if I don’t? What career would I need to support myself adequately, and has more possibilities for making decent money?”

That’s fine, but if no one went into speech therapy your brat would never learn how to enunciate properly. Guess it’s good some people are more selfless.

I don’t think people go into OT or ST because they’re selfless. I think they’re possibly interested in it and probably are attracted to the flexibility of it, being that these are female dominated girls. It’s just a gamble in the sense that it’s generally low paying and you need to bank on marrying a significantly higher earner to have a middle class life in any HCOL area.

That said, I have a child in speech therapy and occupational therapy. The therapists charge 125 and 170 dollars for 45 minutes, respectively, and they don’t accept insurance. So maybe they’re not doing too poorly.

But yes, generally I think it’s silly to choose a low paying career out of “selflessness” and I think it’s equally silly to assume that’s why people choose these fields.

Yes, a ST/OT who goes into private practice can make decent money. Most do not deal with insurance and are able to charge like you stated and have as full of a client list as they want, because there is a shortage of ones with insurance. Most of us don't want to pull our 2nd grader out of school for 3 hours for a 45 min appt weekly, so we pay for the afterschool private therapist if we can afford it.

Most choose the field because they love it, but also do assume they can work part time/flexible schedule once they have kids.

[Anonymous]

Kids are expensive. Daycare is expensive. The cost / benefit analysis of lost earnings and limitations on future earnings growth due to time out of the workforce in some industries is such that staying home for a few years doesn’t make sense.
For some families, diapers, formula, and feeding or clothing another mouth is expensive.
For some families it’s private school, travel soccer, and Disney vacations that are too expensive.

Poor people have kids because they often can’t afford not to. Birth control, access to medical care, and abortion all cost money. Poor people also likely grew up poor and see no issue raising a child the same way they grew up.

People who actually say they can’t afford kids - and have the means and education to actually prevent having kids - are saying “I can’t afford to provide a child the lifestyle and childhood I grew up with.” Or if they grew up poor, they are not interested in repeating that experience for their own kids.

Middle class wages have not kept up with inflation for a long time before the pandemic and last few years of inflation. It’s not possible to raise kids in a simple middle class lifestyle with median wages like it was in the 1950s or even the 1980s. Combine that with the rise of the internet. In the 90s before the internet and social media, I didn’t know what I didn’t have until I went to college and met kids from vastly different backgrounds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op sounds like a troll.

This is a troll post for sure. Thinking everyone can "make $150k by their 30s". Should we just not have teachers, professors, physical therapists, nurses in DC? There are plenty of professional jobs that don't make $150k.

Understand your point but, as a woman, I purposely didn’t go into a a more flexible but lower paying field like physical therapy, speech therapy, social work etc. I know MANY women who did this, banking on getting married to someone making multiple times their salaries, and then ultimately staying at home with their kids before maybe going back to work. at 22, I didn’t see the ROI- those low paying fields, while extremely noble and possibly fulfilling, require grad school and very little opportunity to make decent money long term. I was thinking along the lines of “I want to get married at some point, but what happens if I don’t? What career would I need to support myself adequately, and has more possibilities for making decent money?”

Interesting take. I suppose some of it depends on your background/upbringing? My dad worked a blue collar job, my mom was a school para. Teaching and other public sector jobs like the federal government were viewed as desirable, decent paying professions. Although I will say my hometown offered a rare combination of a lower COL city but relatively higher teacher salaries compared to the US as a whole.

I do think that for some fields, you need to have that conversation with yourself earlier than 22 however. Most young adults have finished undergrad by then and some degrees would likely be less useful for the high salary pathway you chose.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think OP is a troll because I took her post to be specifically targeted toward white collar professionals. She mentioned talking to people she knew.

So for that group, I think the claim that they cannot afford kids refers to the fact that they cannot afford to raise kids without significantly altering their standard of living or in the manner they believe kids should be raised.

I say this with appreciation for how expensive it is to raise kids. I had my first my senior year of college and my second three years later. H and I had a combined income of $75K and lived in a close in DC suburb. We made it work, but it was tight for a long time. And my kids had a wonderful childhood (are now 18 and 21 at UVA and WM, so they turned out ok!), but it probably wasn’t the childhood some white collar professional believe is needed to raise a child.

I’ve heard a lot of my friends who had kids later at way higher salaries and in much better positions economically and career wise claim they can barely afford kids. Their version and expectations for raising kids, though, was vastly different from mine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe people who make what you make want a better lifestyle than what you’re living now. You have to pay for childcare, education, food, etc and that is a huge portion of your take home. They want to live better than you.

OP also says they choose public school and inexpensive activities. That's fine, but you never know if public school won't be a good fit for your child, or they have an interest or talent that costs a lot to pursue. You don't want to have to deny them that because of cost.

[Anonymous]

MYOB.

Affording safe care for your children if you are above 150% of the federal poverty level is astronomical in the DMV. You basically have to be able to cashflow tuition room and board for a college just to afford safe consistent daycare for one child of a two parent working family.

[Anonymous]

There is no such thing as public preschool, either, so the public school thing won’t come into play for the first five years. Also, the school day doesn’t last for normal working hours, so you have to provide coverage if you plan to keep working after you have kids in school.