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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I agree OP. It feels like everything is falling apart and there's very little we can do to fix it. It took everyone too long to realize what was happening. I'm struggling not to resent the older generations around me who let it get this bad. I'm grieving the children I will never have because I cannot afford it and because it feels morally wrong to bring a child into this just so I can experience motherhood. [/quote]

I mean this kindly:
Get a grip. Read history. Look at all of the wars, famine, disease. There is nothing new under the sun. If you want to have a kid, have one. It is no worse now than 99% of human history. It is not objectively worse to have kids now than at any other time in history except maybe the 50s but would you really want to be a woman back in the 50s?

And also with the “I can’t afford kids”. Stop being brainwashed into thinking you have to have all of your financials figured out and perfect before you have a kid. Believe me, DCUM would have judged me quite harshly for having a kid when our HHI was 45k back in 2007, with no house, a crappy old car, and not being able to afford daycare. We did it anyway, and had two. Now they are in HS. I figured out my career once the kids were school aged. We were able to buy a house and sending DC1 to college next year. It hasn’t all been perfect - they didn’t do all the fancy activities, didn’t get the fancy Disney vacations or lots of expensive toys, but I would absolutely do it again, even if it meant using welfare and food stamps and living in a tiny apartment. There is really nothing else that gives life purpose as much as having kids.

[/quote]

I am 57. My kids are 23 and 27. I can tell you that it is SO much more expensive now. Shockingly so. I made a decent living when they were smaller, but housing and everything else was cheaper. Homeownership felt attainable on our salaries. Daycare was attainable on our salaries. My first house in 1998 was $142,000 in DC. It sold for $895k in 2017. Salaries didn't go up that much in that timeframe. I was in law school and my husband worked. We felt fine. That does not exist anymore. Kids are so much fore expensive.[/quote]

People do spend more on kids now, but how much of that is caused by capitalist greed, and how much of it is caused by us trying to outcompete each other trying to launch our kids into the “best” universities and careers? As a current parent of teens heading to college soon, I can tell you it is so, so much. And we are all complicit. [/quote]

Parents are always going to do everything they can to give their kids the best chance at success. The problem is how expensive it has gotten to do that.

A college degree was once a golden ticket to a middle class lifestyle. It's not anymore. The bar kids have to meet to be successful keeps rising, and that means more and more resources are required to get them there. [/quote]

Yes, because it has become a vicious cycle of one-upmanship and no one wants to be the first to drop the rope.
The definition of a “middle class” lifestyle has also changed drastically. 
We are going to drive ourselves to extinction if we continue to insist upon and feed this system as though nothing else is possible. Meanwhile, poorer people will continue to reproduce.[/quote]

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