[janalsncm]

Yes, too expensive. In fact I think your “Starbucks and annual vacation” analysis dramatically underestimates the cost of kids.

You need space for kids, meaning your 1 bed apartment isn’t gonna cut it. Look at the cost of housing these days.

You will need to pay for childcare. This could easily be $1000 per month for the first 5 years.

Transportation. You may need to get a larger vehicle. Plus food, clothing, healthcare.

Oh and then there’s tuition costs.

To summarize, this country has done approximately nothing to make childcare more accessible lately and is wondering why kids don’t magically appear.

> There are plenty of poor countries having children

You’ve hit the nail on the head. In an advanced economy, making a worker costs more. We have offloaded this cost onto parents, and wonder why parents aren’t doing it as much.

[darth_avocado]

Let’s not forget, adding dependents on health insurance (even if paid by the employer), the uncountable doctor visits because children are sickness magnets, cost of moving to a more expensive neighborhood if you want better schools, or paying for private one, books, toys, going to Disneyland once in their lifetimes which costs $1000/day for a family of 4, paying for all the hobbies and clubs, and basically all the costs of paying for an extra human being that won’t earn any money for the next 20 years.

Like having kids and making sure they are able to survive adulthood come with two separate sticker prices. And if you’re not going to do the second, might as well not do the first.

[janalsncm]

Yes, definitely. So the “daily latte and beach vacation” is actually more like “a new car every 2 years”.