Anonymous wrote:I don't think they should have children together because they can't even commit to each other.

Stepmom here and plus 1. Tread carefully or you will be back here bitching about your custody agreement in 6 years. Not complaining about my situation at all - I am the one person in it who had the luxury of choosing it - but there are some very real issues that arise when you parent a child out of marriage and they have potential to be unpleasant not only for your child, but for you. Wait until you are in a committed (and I mean married) relationship.

I don't think they should have children together because they can't even commit to each other.

Since when is living paycheck to paycheck not having your finances in order? It's how most of America lives. It isn't because they are irresponsible with their money. It's because that is all they earn. Should the rest of us not have children because we make $70K or less each year?

Anonymous wrote:I would say that there are myriad reasons why you probably should wait in your situation (a lot of it has to do with ensuring you and your BF are in this thing for the long haul as parents/partners)

BUT at the same time I am going to play devil's advocate and say that people in this area are a little jaded on financial realities. a couple making 70K per year is hardly financially unable to have a child! The "living paycheck to paycheck" part probably means you will need some lifestyle adjustments to happen ASAP so that you can begin making a savings/cushion for your self. (size of your apt and area you live in is the biggie here, but also debt restructuring of student loans and/or other debt, etc is probably something that you should do and put the small surplus in savings).

But lets get real, a couple with 70K a year income is not hovering above the poverty line. I had parents who had to be financially austere, lots of people do. It becomes eerily close to social engineering when we put numbers on who should and should not have a baby at these levels to me.

I don't think they shouldn't have kids because they make 70k per yer. I think they shouldn't because they live paycheck to paycheck. Get your finances in order before choosing to have a kid. That's all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was 28 when I had my first, but our situation was quite different than yours. Here's some of the things that made it work.

1. We had been together 10 years.
2. We had been married for 5 years.
3. We had the support of both our families (by this I mean emotional support, but could have been financial, too, in an emergency)
4. We had saved diligently for 5 years and were able to continue to do so (in a moderate way) after the baby was born.
5. DH had a job that could support us both so I could stay home as long as desired.
6. We both had advanced degrees so strong job prospects should we need to find jobs.

Some practical considerations to keep in mind before you have kids: Do you have medical insurance? Life insurance? Safe transportation? A neighborhood with decent schools? After working one 8-hour shift watching your kid, would you be ready for another, and another, and another, with few breaks?

Good luck--your baby will wait for you to get into the right spot in your life. And you'll be glad you did. Make sure you personally are in a good spot in your life, and make sure you pick the right dad for your kids. As the others have said, having kids is hard on the parents personally and as a couple.

To this poster - whether you came off smug intentionally or unintentionally -- the smugness of your post took my breath away.

Not this poster, but why, pray tell, do you find this smug? Sounds like common sense to me.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thank you all for your advice.
I'm confident in our relationship and I just am in no rush to get married. If it happens, great, but I've just never been a wedding/marriage person. As one PP noted, it makes it easier for the guy to pull a "I'm outta here"- I get that, but that wouldn't happen. And if it did, so be it.

That being said: In my heart, I want a baby. In my mind, we need to wait. Get my act together and our 'ducks in a row', as they say here on DCUM.

Kindly, OP, this type of attitude is the luxury of a romantic partner, not a mother. Aside from all of the legal and financial aspects of marriage, there can be significant emotional repercussions for your children. DCUM is full of threads started by now-single mothers whose children are hurt by fathers who don't show up for scheduled visits, give more attention to subsequent children with other women, show up intermittently for the children's activities, parent incompetently when the children are in their care, etc. Even with an amicable separation, your children will likely have to move between two households. It's one thing to decide on one's own to have a baby as the sole legal parent; it's another ball of wax to raise a child with someone else with whom you no longer have a romantic relationship.

Yes, I agree. Not everyone meets the criteria listed and still manage to have kids and survive. I posted before about being a single mom who had no job and had to temporarily move back home to have my child. Ideal? Nope. But I've never met anyone with an ideal life. Ever. The people whose lives seems ideal from the outside rarely are on the inside. I would suggest the OP save money diligently for the next few yrs and then reevaluate.

Anonymous wrote:I was 28 when I had my first, but our situation was quite different than yours. Here's some of the things that made it work.

1. We had been together 10 years.
2. We had been married for 5 years.
3. We had the support of both our families (by this I mean emotional support, but could have been financial, too, in an emergency)
4. We had saved diligently for 5 years and were able to continue to do so (in a moderate way) after the baby was born.
5. DH had a job that could support us both so I could stay home as long as desired.
6. We both had advanced degrees so strong job prospects should we need to find jobs.

Some practical considerations to keep in mind before you have kids: Do you have medical insurance? Life insurance? Safe transportation? A neighborhood with decent schools? After working one 8-hour shift watching your kid, would you be ready for another, and another, and another, with few breaks?

Good luck--your baby will wait for you to get into the right spot in your life. And you'll be glad you did. Make sure you personally are in a good spot in your life, and make sure you pick the right dad for your kids. As the others have said, having kids is hard on the parents personally and as a couple.

To this poster - whether you came off smug intentionally or unintentionally -- the smugness of your post took my breath away.

Thank you for the kind words 12:08

Anonymous wrote:OP here again. I don't understand why a PP called me selfish and immature. Are you referencing that I don't care that much about marriage? I'm not against it, it's just not on my radar that much. I completely understand, however, what other PP's have mentioned regarding marriage and the importance of it for legal rights, benefits, what-if situations, etc., and the point has been driven home.
So, maybe that's where the 'selfish' comment came from, and so in that sense, yes I guess I was being selfish by turning the marriage issue into how I felt, not what would be doing right by my baby.
I thank all the PP's for giving me their stories. 12:08 - We sound very similar, so I thank you also for sharing that with me.

12:08 again, and I just wanted to say that I hope you end up happy, whatever you decide. I feel grateful that I didn't have to make that decision, though now we face the same thing when thinking about having another. I always imagined being a young mother to at least 2 children, so I'd looove to try to get pregnant again within the year, but knowing our financial situation I just don't know that it's right. but, I don't want to keep putting it off on the hope that we'll end up more secure, because nothing is guaranteed. so....it's tough. but I wanted to tell you what it has been like for us, because my situation is not typical of the common DCUM experience. you can make it work out, no matter how it ends up. good luck.

Anonymous wrote:OP here again. I don't understand why a PP called me selfish and immature. Are you referencing that I don't care that much about marriage? I'm not against it, it's just not on my radar that much. I completely understand, however, what other PP's have mentioned regarding marriage and the importance of it for legal rights, benefits, what-if situations, etc., and the point has been driven home.
So, maybe that's where the 'selfish' comment came from, and so in that sense, yes I guess I was being selfish by turning the marriage issue into how I felt, not what would be doing right by my baby.I thank all the PP's for giving me their stories. 12:08 - We sound very similar, so I thank you also for sharing that with me.

You got it.

OP here again. I don't understand why a PP called me selfish and immature. Are you referencing that I don't care that much about marriage? I'm not against it, it's just not on my radar that much. I completely understand, however, what other PP's have mentioned regarding marriage and the importance of it for legal rights, benefits, what-if situations, etc., and the point has been driven home.
So, maybe that's where the 'selfish' comment came from, and so in that sense, yes I guess I was being selfish by turning the marriage issue into how I felt, not what would be doing right by my baby.
I thank all the PP's for giving me their stories. 12:08 - We sound very similar, so I thank you also for sharing that with me.

sorry, I just realized how many times I used the word "like" in that post. embarrassing.

hi, OP.
I'm 28. I had a baby last year with my then-boyfriend (technically fiancé, but, we got pregnant like, literally the day we got engaged). I also was not one for marriage/wedding, but it was important to my boyfriend, who I was already planning on being with forever, so, whatever. like a previous poster said, it is (legally) good for our family for us to be (legally) married.
so, got pregnant unexpectedly. we were living pretty close to paycheck-to-paycheck. I am athe saver, so I was putting like $200 in savings a month, but the rest was going to food and bills. once I got pregnant, I ramped it up to $500 a month straight into savings, because my maternity leave was going to be unpaid. over the course of the pregnancy, I saved enough for 4 months of maternity leave, while also getting us accustomed to spending far less than we had been.
by the time I went back to work (service job), it took a month to realize that basically I was bringing home like $10 a month - which, to some people, is still worth it if they love their careers, need that time away, can't leave the workforce without screwing up their professional opportunities - but I was selling coffee, and that was really not worth handing over my paycheck for someone else to spend time with my baby. (I also have spent a lot of time in childcare, and loved it).
so now I'm home with my son and my husband brings home about $2200/mo. we're fine. are we saving? not much. are we living paycheck to paycheck? yes. are we suffering? not one bit. we have a 10k emergency fund should something happen, families who would be willing to help us out in a bad situation, and we haven't yet cut all our lifelines (I.e. we still rent in dc, we still shop at the farmers market, we still can buy some organics, we still use smartphones...all stuff we could drop in a heartbeat to save some more cash. and, I plan to find work this year now that my son is a toddler and daycare will be easier to find/less expensive).

all of this is just to say, it's doable. if we had waited to DECIDE to have a child, we would not have one now. but accidents happen, we ended up pregnant, and we're making it work. and we are SO happy.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thank you all for your advice.
I'm confident in our relationship and I just am in no rush to get married. If it happens, great, but I've just never been a wedding/marriage person. As one PP noted, it makes it easier for the guy to pull a "I'm outta here"- I get that, but that wouldn't happen. And if it did, so be it.

That being said: In my heart, I want a baby. In my mind, we need to wait. Get my act together and our 'ducks in a row', as they say here on DCUM.

OP, tip number one: If and when you have a baby, it will no longer be all about you and what you want. To bring a baby into the world in your current situation, and with your "whatever" attitude about what is best for a CHILD is selfish and immature.