Reply to 4 kids - to be or not to be?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Not to be...[/quote]

Love doesn’t give you extra hours.[/quote]

Or extra money. Let's be blunt here. If you want your kids to go to college (any college, not just "expensive" ones) you are looking at needing a lot of cash--even if they all get financial aid wherever they go.

OP, parents in the throes of loving the baby/toddler/young child stages don't often seem to think far enough ahead to the realities of college (or other educational/vocational training) costs, and don't think about things like their own retirements. Children's years at home pass by very quickly and then you're looking at whether you and DH can afford to retire at all, much less retire without stress about adequate (not luxurious, just adequate) retirement income.

Parents on DCUM don't seem to like this kind of financial talk but it's a very real consideration. Just not one that parents want to hear. I'm not reducing having a child to a numbers exercise. But parents often just don't want to be frank about how it will affect the opportunities for the children they already have, and the parents' own prospects for life after all those children are gone.

As for extra hours, PP is right. You can't create more hours to spend with each child.  if you and your DH want to be able to do any real participation in your kids' activities -- go to the dance recitals, attend the games, be at the school assemblies, chaperone an occasional school field trip, go to a scout event, etc. -- and especially if you ever thought you'd want to volunteer and help out with such things, well, that gets infinitely harder with each child. I know the posters here who want lots of kids will come to say that doesn't matter but to some families it really does. What do you want? What did you picture doing with your kids as they got older? If you pictured doing the kinds of things I listed, what's your plan for that with three kids, much less with four? Not judging either way, but you do need to sit down and weigh what you realistically expect life with four to look like in terms of activities, college costs, etc. [/quote]

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