[siren2026]

There is surely a spectrum between small apartment with asbestos and 5m$ house.

I read on HN all the time that once you have kid it is unavoidable to spend 300k$ a year. But yet 99.9% of the world and the US manages to raise kids with a fraction of that income and they turn out mostly fine. (Before you ask, yes I have kids and yes we still live simply)

[codeadict]

I have 2 kids and we have a single Kia soul and a little house I do most of the work. I pay for a good private school mostly out of fear of big schools and gun violence in the US and giving my kids multilingual education. I can assure the rich kids have a lot of problems and have a schedule like a company CEO, they go to our place and have a blast, free range fun. The kids need money thing is mostly a marketing thing the system puts into parents minds.

[gedy]

> There is surely a spectrum between small apartment with asbestos and 5m$ house.

That's exaggerating a bit, but some places near offices are kind of that way. (Why I love working remote, which absolutely increases the spectrum of choices.)

[GloriousKoji]

The mental gymnastics I've seen kids enable is Olympic level. Need to upgrade to a bigger house, need to upgrade the car to a SUV, need keep traveling 2-3 times a year, need to sign up for some crazy sports league and coach which means domestic flights and hotels every other week.

[siren2026]

Have seen that as well. Kids is the convenient excuse to go spending. Marketers have well understood that for multiple decades.

Meanwhile I would bet there is an inverse correlation between spending for the kids and kids happiness.

[deadbabe]

Friend had a baby.

She went out and bought a massive Cadillac Escalade.

To haul around a 10 pound infant.

[lazyasciiart]

American trucks are an arms race. You need one to protect the occupants from the other trucks on the road, unless someone legislates to stop all of you from driving them.

[hermitcrab]

I feel we are engaged in the same race to the bottom in the UK, although it is not as extreme as it is in the US. One of the few constraining factors in the UK is that our car parking spaces are generally quite small and no-one wants to buy something they can't park anywhere.

[tonyedgecombe]

I wonder how safe they look when you take into account the people running over their own kids in the driveway.