[nitemice]

But it's not just about work/home balance. It's also about being in a financially sound position, in a strong enough relationship with the "right" person, to be able to have a child. And that's increasingly hard for young people today, with the cost of living being higher than ever, wage growth hitting a wall, and attitudes towards relationships changing. Having a baby isn't as simple as deciding to do it.

The problem is that society has been moving in basically the exact opposite direction for quite a while now. Anyone married under 25 is seen as weird and rushing into something, and anyone with a child at that age is assumed to have gotten themselves there by accident.

[fy20]

> being in a financially sound position

As a newish parent (nearly two years), the only real costs I see are for childcare. Yes clothing and food costs something, but it's not that much (and plenty of people will give you old clothes if you ask). We share a bedroom, and it's not a problem. This can be solved by having the right support structures in place by the state. I live in an EU country, but my country doesn't do very well with this.

Although my SO does not work (they were studying before our child was born), we do not have family living nearby that can help with childcare, which seems to be how most people cope here. Ideally the state would provide free childcare to all families, regardless of whether parents are working or not. It should be at a high enough standard, that state childcare is the norm (like schools), not the exception.

[raydev]

> It's also about being in a financially sound position,

I'll completely agree with your point about finding the right person, which is absolutely true.

But honestly a lot of stable couples are less precarious than they think. Especially people in the tech industry. You're making more than 100k/year on your own, you're set. But from a bunch of conversations, they imagine sending their kids to a $200k/year college or read the worst possible stats about how much raising a kid costs, without understanding people make parenting work with so much less to no detriment of their kids. If anything, I'd argue being rich makes you more likely to mess up your kids but I should move on.

Instead, I think people should consider whether they want to raise a baby when they have a fraction of the energy they had when they were in their 20s. They should consider whether they want to raise a toddler when just stepping out of their car weird tweaks their ankle, making it hard to walk for a couple days. Or whether they want to stress about their kids while they have to start taking blood pressure meds for the simple reason of "it's genetics and you're 50, this is just how your body works now."

Obviously, if you can't pay your water bill, maybe don't have kids. But even then, if you're smart and kind, you could probably pull it off and the world would be better for it.

[bradlys]

It varies on your standard of living and region. If both partners are in tech or equivalent then there usually isn’t a struggle but as soon as one isn’t, it can be tough in some regions to find sustainable living for the traditional American dream. Where I live (SV - peninsula) and for my age (30), I have no hopes of having children anytime soon in my current circumstance unless FAANG finally takes me in or I can get another startup to IPO. (As it seems wasting years of your life for one startup IPO wasn’t sufficient enough, sadly)

I couldn’t possibly imagine having kids earlier. Even now, it still seems like a pipe dream. And I have no interest in Ivy League schools or private elementary, etc.