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Comment by echelon | Hacker News Reader

Kids aren't expensive. They're a distraction from dopamine and career advancement.

My peers are all wealthy and they'd rather jet set than settle down. By all means they could raise families of two to four kids and still be incredibly comfortable. Vacation home comfortable.

Instagram is the anti-child. Instagram and the endless feed of social media, internet, and things to do.

Once you have children, the dopamine ends and the self-directed path takes a backseat. Nobody I know wants to give that up.

It's not just the wealthy. I know upper middle class people in their 40s who are partying on the weekends and taking trips all over the world. It's the life they want for themselves, and children put an end to that.

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> Kids aren't expensive. They're a distraction from dopamine and career advancement.

They really are.

You can pay for some of it by letting your and their quality of life suffer, instead of with money (cram 3 kids into the 2-bedroom you already own; don’t worry that the schools are bad and dangerous and that’s why the place was cheap; that kind of thing) but not all of it, and most people don’t find making those compromises acceptable either, if they have the means not to.

The main costs are lost income OR childcare; housing; and healthcare. The rest isn’t exactly cheap (man they eat a lot as they get older) but those are the worst bits, and they’re very expensive.

I have four kids in one room and it's a blast. After family prayers we turn off the lights and tell stories and their imaginations go wild! The joy is palpable.

Bedrooms are for sleeping, there is other space to spread out :)

I can't imagine what puberty would've been like if I'd not had a room of my own. Even just experimenting with goth aesthetics would've been so different.

Hope it works out for them.

> cram 3 kids into the 2-bedroom you already own; don’t worry that the schools are bad and dangerous and that’s why the place was cheap; that kind of thing

Everyone used to do exactly that.

Yes. And if you do that today, it’ll reduce one of the major costs. You still have the rest.

> They really are.

I'm 50 this year. I've been an avid reader all my life, and back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I'd read the newspapers my grandfather would bring home. I would've still been in highschool (at the latest), so call this 1990 +/- 1 year. Even then I remember the classic newspaper article, claiming how much it'd cost to raise a child to age 18. I think back then they were calling that number $250,000. Now days, I think they set it at $1 million even.

For the longest time, they'd reprint that article every 2-4 years, just changing up one or another factoid. The logic was always specious. Every single thing anyone ever believed anyone needed for a baby/toddler/kid was always priced brand new and name brand. From dressers and chest of drawers, to baby strollers (this was even past the point where most people would ever use the damned thing).

They told the lie so often and from so many direction, ever since you were a child yourself, that you can't help but believe it. You're even telling it for whoever it is that wants that lie told.

I have three kids. I reckon the first cost more than $200,000 by age 5. No major medical problems (kids are also a reverse lottery ticket, in that regard—sometimes they just take all your money indefinitely because they’ve got a serious chronic illness). And we were far from extravagant in our spending. The bulk of it was in the three categories I listed.

[edit] I agree with you, actually, that there are a lot of dumb ways to spend extra money on kids. Dressers? Used. Clothes? Cheap, garage sales and thrift stores. Toys? Ditto. Half the “new parent” shit is useless. Changing table? ROFLMAO you have a floor, unless you’re infirm in some way that makes it hard to get down there, just throw a little blanket down and use that—they can’t roll off the floor!

> I have three kids. I reckon the first cost more than $200,000 by age 5. No major medical problems

That is certainly not typical.

Most of the people having kids where I grew up don't even see that amount of money. They're having kids just fine.

You can drop costs by having a parent stay home in the early years (math only works out if that parent earned very low wages and you have at least two kids in quick succession—then, yes, it saves money).

More efficient may be living near non-working family and having them take care of the kids, but that can mean compromising on school quality (unless you move again) and probably salary. Plus it requires a kind of capital that not everyone has.

You can drop costs by skipping medical check-ups and care. Not uncommon.

It can be done cheaper if the circumstances are right and you’re ok with some compromises that most people can’t stomach unless they absolutely cannot afford it.

> That is certainly not typical.

I was thinking the same, but then I re-read the original list: Lost income.

US$40 lost income per year for the first 5 years sounds extremely plausible.

That's $3,300 per month. How is that possible? The most expensive daycare? Is that the equivalent rental cost of a child-sized room in Manhattan?

One parent staying home for about two years, who had a low salary, factoring in lost retirement contributions, is about half of that, we could have cut that part to $30,000 or so if not for that, true. That’d drop my (conservative!) napkin math to more like $130,000.

About $15,000 for the pregnancy and birth (we split it over two deductible years—whoops, didn’t make that mistake again). Daycare costs for the rest of that time, tens of thousands more. Probably $3,000ish a year (maybe a bit more) in extra medical spending on average (copays on check-up visits, added insurance costs, medicine occasionally, a couple visits that involved stitches or an x-ray over that time span)

That’s before food, clothing, furniture (you do kinda need a bed at some point—we go pretty cheap on furniture and clothes, but it’s still probably $3-4k over that five years, mostly clothes). Diapers (or a lot of extra power use, though sure, cloth diapers would have been net-cheaper anyway). Adds up.

So yeah, it was certainly over $200k for us (conservative estimate). Could have gotten it down to merely over-$130k by putting a weeks-old to 2-year-old kid in daycare, but we didn’t, maybe we should have.

[edit] I should add that it does get better after the first one; there are efficiencies and shared costs (daycare may give you a discount, even!). Getting all three to age 5 wasn’t $600k, probably closer to $400k. You also can do it cheaper, yes, but our choices were ones that nearly anyone who can at-all afford it is gonna make, like having one parent stay home the first year or two, going to all the medical check-ups, moving to an area with good schools (if you don’t already live in one), et c.

So 130K in opportunity cost?

No that would have been raw spending. The difference was about $70k in imputed wages because of what we chose to do (which, again, I think almost anyone who can remotely afford not to send a kid to daycare in that first year or two, will have trouble not making that choice).

Because these costs are so front-loaded, so tend to hit earlier in one’s life, you really don’t want to start doing a more-expansive opportunity cost accounting, unless you want to get depressed (I have. Trust me, don’t—sigh, so long very-comfortable-retirement-at-55!).

130K in raw spending in 2 years...on what?

Five years. Health care, child care, and everything else. At least that much. Child care would be about half of that.

Average day care in bay area is already 2500, before feeding and clothing the kids, or any after school activities.

And that's the most expensive place in the country, no? Most people don't live in the Bay area and if you need daycare, it's presumably because you have a well paying job and it's a tax deduction.

We bought a used changing dresser for £10, my back is very thankful.

It's not even the schools that have that dynamic first. Lots of daycares are sketchy as hell and they also charge crazy high prices so you can't just pay for better. You have to take time out of your day and go suss them out and dig up inspection reports.

Availability is another big issue. You find a daycare that's great for your kid and safe. Then some staff turnover and you're not thrilled with it anymore.

In my area, the wait is around 18 months for a slot in a different daycare center. In-home daycare offers a lower price and some better availability, but are often unlicensed. You are best off signing up for a couple waitlists before you plan to have a kid and hope the one you choose works out well.

And of course, switching childcare providers is way harder than switching grocery stores. Your kid has feelings, grows attached to the caregivers, and make friends. There's a huge risk making a switch, and you most likely can't undo it if the new provider isn't a good fit.

> In-home daycare offers a lower price and some better availability, but are often unlicensed.

This is the problem. You're wanting a first class experience for your kid, and this probably causes you to overlook other viable options that are less expensive.

> In my area, the wait is around 18 months for a slot in a different daycare center.

Wait lists? There's likely service available, you're just setting a quality threshold.

> And of course, switching childcare providers is way harder than switching grocery stores. Your kid has feelings, grows attached to the caregivers, and make friends.

We have de-risked our species so much that we now care about children's daycare preferences.

Some other commenter mentioned spending $200,000 on their five year old kid. This is not typical.

As a species, we used to have multiple kids because we just accepted that some of them would die. We are so far on the other end of the spectrum now that children are being treated as princes and princesses.

Kids can be as expensive as you want them to be. People are buying their dogs and cats ridiculous things like treadmills these days, so of course it figures that some parents must be doing even crazier stuff for their human children.

This is learned consumer behavior.

Children are being over-invested in to a degree that some would-be interested people just aren't even bothering to get started (one of several reasons this is happening). I'm not saying don't love your kids, but it looks like having them has become a perfectionist goal that can't be reached.

Accept imperfection and less than perfect.

Yes. This. People are insane around their kids and the de-risking etc. We've gone with a childminer (in-home childcare, but is govt. registered here in the UK) and local school-attached daycare for two days a week each. Saving us hundreds of £'s over the coprorate daycare we were with otherwise and giving him more! The childminder is a husband and wife duo, they love all their kids so much. It's like dropping him with grandparents and cousins/friends for a couple of days a week. He reaches out to be picked up by them when I drop him in off in the morning (traitor, but I digress...)!

Follow and optimise for love.

In most other OECD states the actual and risk-factor costs of child and maternal healthcare are a ton lower than ours, too. Mine is a US perspective. Healthcare for kids eats a lot of money, here, and exposes you to a ton of risk of very-high medical spending.

I'm not even a parent and I have to deal with this shit. You can't be around adults with kids in daycare for more than an evening in a ventilated space and not immediately get sick. I kinda doubt it but I sincerely hope other places are better. It's easier to count the days my in-laws aren't sick.

It's probably just the reality of lots of really young germ factories in a confined space together but I count my blessings that my mom was out of work until I was in 3rd-4th grade because I got to avoid daycare.

You know what is also anti-child? Having parents that were completely unprepared to be parents. Stop with this dopamine epidemic nonsense excuse for everything that isn't working the way you want

This is rather judgemental.

I don't follow anyone on social media, and I don't post anything about my lifestyle there. It's not a driving force in my life.

I just don't want children. Even if I was bored out of my mind and incapable of travelling, I still wouldn't want them.

People's values have changed. Having babies isn't everyone's cup of tea.

> Once you have children, the dopamine ends and the self-directed path takes a backseat. Nobody I know wants to give that up.

Except for all those parents that neglect, or worse, abuse their kids.

Man this is so true, not sure why this is getting downvoted? Most people without kids just don’t want to change their (very fun) lifestyles and commit to something with a very long and uncertain but (hopefully) rewarding payout. It’s certainly scary.

That said the amount of dopamine/happiness I get playing with my child is more than any social media feed could ever provide. But in between those moments there’s a lot of work and sleepless nights for sure.

You got downvoted because you speak the truth.

The cost to raise a child from 0-18 is $310k per the Brookings Institute. This does not include daycare or college.

Honestly, no real productive thing to say here I just think you're a judgemental asshole and I hope your underwear itches forever.

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