Do you have a family Barney? I find the run rate costs of raising a family are astounding even with a very healthy two incomes. It doesn’t shock me that most households barely scrape by at the end of the month without any reserves to save.
I suspect you can support a family pretty cheapily. The problem is everyone wants to "do everything possible" for their kids -- pay for the best child care, the best schools (or housing in a good school district), clothes and phones to keep up with the Jones' kids, $500k to bribe your way into USC, college tuition, etc. Yes, that all adds up, but I suspect you can also allocate an appropriate percentage of your income to retirement and just pay less for some of those things.
Kid is too young to stay at home by himself and we don't live by family. So we pay for before/after care (school hours are from 9-3:30). This is astonishingly $600 a month, a relatively cheap option around here (there's cheaper but not by much).