Bret Piatt

Coming from the Bay Area 5 years ago I left behind what seemed to me as a crazy culture.  People would be together and married for 10-20 years before having children “because they couldn’t afford them.” From the 1990-92 Consumer Expenditures Survey indexed forward based on the CPI we spend between 7-15k per year per child.  This means if you’re an affluent couple and you eat out 10 times a week and switch from a soda to water, you go to Starbucks 3 times less a week, and you no longer get a massage once a week you can afford a child.  Those activities add up to ~$6,250 per person annually.  Around a third of the child expense is housing costs and most already have a guest bedroom that is a shrine to Ethan Allen used twice a year when each of your parents visit.  What it amounts to is are children a priority for you or is that double chai latte?

“But if I don’t have X, Y, and Z, my kids won’t be happy, or well adjusted, or ….!” Those statements are all just excuses to continue living what is comfortable and easy.  Change is never easy and bringing a child into your family is certainly a significant change.  I’m not a child development expert; I’m just a parent half way through raising two kids but the only way I’ve ever been able to make them really happy is by giving them love and stability.  Love comes in a form of letting them know you find them interesting, that you care about their activities, and that no matter what you’re there for them.  Love doesn’t come in the form of ensuring they have the fall collection from Baby Gap or that you already have enough money in your savings to send them to college.  Love also doesn’t mean not setting boundries or never saying ‘no’.  Boundries provide stability as well as saying ‘no’ because it is the adults responsibility to know what is in the best interest of a child.

So the real cost in affording children isn’t money, it is time.  I’ve given some of it over the past 10 years but looking back I don’t ever regret not having enough money for them.  I do regret not having enough time.  So unless your “waiting to have kids” includes saving up a piggy bank full of time to spend with them you’re saving for a false goal.