Reply to Earning Well but Drowning in Debt...how to dig out?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Side note: a foreigner perspective on the 3 kids debate => [b]as a French person I am always struck by how negative Americans are towards people who have 3 children. [/b]It is so often portrayed as a crazy, selfish, financially and environmentally irresponsible choice. I think in France we would think the same way about someone who chooses to have 5 or 6 children but 3?? we need some 3 kid families to ensure natural reproductive rate of the population (2.1 given the number of people who don't have kids or only 1).

Not judging. I am actually stopping at 2 myself because I understand it would be too hard for me to afford 3 children while living in the US. But I never thought 3 children would feel impossible. [b]In France with subsidized day care, free education and full day schools you mostly choose your family size based on what seems the best balance in terms of time and love. It is too hard to raise a 3 kids family here.[/b]

And to finish my thought: people end up criticizing the 3 kids choice almost as a moral failure. From an outsider's perspective it looks more like a [b]society failure[/b]..[/quote]

You answered your own question:  Americans are negative about it because it is very hard to afford children in the United States given the lack of societal supports (certainly compared to Western European countries).

I agree that it is a society failure.  That does not change the fact that for individuals, it makes such a choice very difficult.[/quote]

Yup, sorry I did know the answer. What strikes me is the level of moral judgement in the responses (not just "thats a dumb financial move" ). I was reading the comments on an article in the NYT (the etiquette section  I think)  where people were more sympathetic towards the financial issues of one sister who had drug problems "she didn't choose to become a drug addict" versus the sister who chose to have 2 kids "you put yourself in that situation". Again as a foreigner it is amusingly weird [/quote]

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