[koolba]

> Even the ones that really want kids simply cannot afford to have one, because the price of living is simply absurd.

Perhaps the price of living to which you are accustomed to is absurd.

> I'm extremely fortunate to be working at a large tech company and I have good money, but even with my income having a kid would be financially ruinous for us.

Would it though? Couples having been raising children with much less for millennia.

> Daycare costs alone are ludicrous, somewhere in the region of 2000-3000 euros PER MONTH.

Children have a lot of economies of scale. If one spouse stays home to watch them, that covers as many kids as you have.

Spending time with grandparents is also common. This is both cost effective and facilitates generational knowledge and culture transfer.

[vasac]

> If one spouse stays home to watch them, that covers as many kids as you have.

That's debatable ;)

I have two kids, and taking care of both during the day is vastly harder - both mentally and physically - than working two jobs. As they say, it takes a village to raise a child, and I don't think many people have that village anymore. As a result, a lot of kids are being raised by TV or the internet, and if you don't want that, you'll find yourself occupied with them almost 100% of the time.

Another issue is that the spouse who stays home can effectively kiss their career goodbye if they spend seven or eight years out of the workforce. Given current divorce rates, that's not a trivial risk.

I wish I had grandparents living nearby, but that's not the case either.

I'm not saying it's impossible - I have two children myself and would probably have had more if I'd started earlier - but it's not easy. And, judging from my admittedly small sample size, it seems to be getting harder.

[somenameforme]

This varies majorly by child, parent/caretaker, and environment. For instance with my children if we go outside, then they are on full auto mode. They could play in the yard by themselves pretty much all day long as long as at least one parent's nearby watching them. But if we're indoors then they demand full attention. On the other hand somehow our nanny has got them to be able to happily play indoors while she mostly just chills out doing stuff on her phone or whatever - and I have no complaints since it works out great for everybody.

[inglor_cz]

> Perhaps the price of living to which you are accustomed to is absurd.

That is not really an actionable observation. The Netherlands is an extremely dense country already, what is OP exactly supposed to do to make their cost of living non-absurd?

> Couples having been raising children with much less for mill

It wasn't just couples then, though. It was the entire village or neighbourhood: cousins, aunts, neighbours, godparents. Nowadays our society is so fragmented that you indeed usually are alone to tackle everything. This change from extended family to nuclear family model definitely has some impact on total fertility.

> Children have a lot of economies of scale. If one spouse stays home to watch them, that covers as many kids as you have.

Which also means that there is no spouse's income anymore. Unless your spouse makes really little money, you will end up in a similar financial hole either way.

> Spending time with grandparents is also common. This is both cost effective and facilitates generational knowledge and culture transfer.

If people have kids in their 30s, the grandparents are quite often too old and sick to help. They may also live way too far to be able to visit daily or even weekly.