We _definitely_ wanted it. Badly. It was not a case of “not wanting it.” It was a case of:

- a lack of time

— a lack of resources (just two folks, no expendable income)

- a lack of cognitive energy, probably stress induced from managing the above two.

I think this is a particularly rich western country thing though, the method of being poor you describe works great when you have an extended family who can pool resources. But for a single mom and young child, you can’t smart your way out of it. It’s like trying to optimize a triple a game to run on twenty year old hardware —- just ain’t the cycles, have to reduce the workload.