The Banned said:
Rocag said:
But you're not the one that gets to decide for other people whether they think they can afford to have more kids. I have a pretty good engineering job and would probably be solidly considered a part of the middle class. My wife and I have two kids. Could we have afforded a third or a fourth? Yeah, probably. But two additional kids would have brought lots of added expenses with it and taken away time we would have otherwise spent with each other or the kids we already have. In the end, we decided against more kids.
I'd imagine lots of couples are making similar decisions.
THIS!! This is the primary driver. In general, people prefer more vacations, more space, nicer vehicles, more me time, and to focus their resources on giving one or two kids everything they can versus having more kids that may cramp their lifestyle a bit. Hard to do travel ball for everyone with 5 kids.
We were going to stop at 3. The 4th came along and showed us how stupid of a decision that would have been. Completely opened our eyes to what we would have said no to. A new child, completely unique, adding even more love to our home. Which led to number 5.
End of the day it's a heart issue. People crave comfort and kids are are anything but comfortable. It totally changes your day today as well as your future plans. And Rocag, I'm not judging you at all and hope it doesn't come across that way. It's just something I'm very passionate are about since converting to my new way of thinking. My financial and day to day comfort seemed more important than "another baby". But once that new life showed up I realized how wrong I was.
This is my biggest regret in life. My wife and I got married young (I was 22, she was 20). We had a great time on our own for a long time, and put off having kids. We finally decided to start trying in our mid-30s. First pregnancy ended in miscarriage at about 6 weeks. The second pregnancy resulted in our daughter being born 10 weeks early due to my wife's preeclampsia. I was 36, she was 34 (if the girl had come on her due date, she and my wife would have had birthdays two days apart).
Being parents was a much more amazing experience than we could have ever imagined (kinda like everyone had told us), so after a year we decided to try again. We went to my wife's lady-doctor, who told us my wife would have a 50/50 shot at surviving another pregnancy. Her history of miscarriage and preeclampsia combined with her age (she would have been 37 by the time another baby came along) were just too big of a risk.
Our daughter is now 8 years old, and is an incredible little girl. I wish we had started much sooner, and had a couple more.
"Well, if you can’t have a great season, at least ruin somebody else’s." - Olin Buchanan