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Comment by kraig911 | Hacker News Reader

It's just hard now. Before I had kids I had a network of friends and had a great social life. Now it's just me and my wife. If I want more friends I'll have to have more kids I guess? I have 4 now. One (my first) is severely autistic.

Financially the cost? I pay about 6,000 a month in daycare. 2k a month in healthcare expenses.

Then community wise. Every time I've gone to take them to the movies, or to a restaurant or hell now even the grocery store I always get shafted. Everything is so overstimulated and kids get in the way to strangers trying to ignore reality with their phones. So when one of my kids throws a tantrum everyone's looks and disdain doesn't help. It's a part of growing up that I think most young adults don't realize.

Then for your career it's the most destablizing thing there is. Everyone around me who doesn't have kids the sky is the limit. Midnight PR's and no problem handling oncall. I missed a pagerduty alert when I was careflly bottle feeding my 8 month old who caught pertussis from some idiot who thought they were above that. I had no choice in getting out of pagerduty because 'it's only fair'

Don't get me start on dog/cat people who equate their struggles to mine... or people who have no idea how hard life is already for a kid who is disabled.

Having a family sucks hard sometimes. But I wouldn't change my past for the world. They are my everything. The advantages of having kids are lost on most but I'll let others provide input if they feel like it.

View on HN

As a dad of 3 I have huge respect for your 4 and I doubt there is much I can offer you in terms of information but I think I would have more complaints similar to yours had my wife not been a lot wiser and more proactive than me, so I'll share.

First is where you live. I would have picked based on access to nature and cost, she made us pick based on where other families live and proximity to family. In my town everyone is either actively parenting kids or had raised kids already, so the residents (and businesses) are super accommodating of families with kids. To the point where if I have to take a little one to the bathroom in a restaurant, people often invite my big one (5 year old) to hang out at their table so I don't have to worry about it.

Similar for social circle. Because everyone is my town is roughly dealing with the same things it's relatively easy to bond with new people. We've met people talking at the park, at t school drop off, while waiting at the martial arts place etc. Most people are nice if not super interesting but you meet enough people you like.

And living close to family (my wife's family in this case) means you have more network around etc.

Obviously it's not easy to just pick up and move but I am sharing this because the benefits of living in the right, family oriented, place would have been lost on me. Thank G-d my wife was wiser.

Do you live in the US?

To add to my previous comment. There's nothing about "the US" that makes precludes any of this. Lots of people chose to remain (or move back to) close to their families especially when they have kids on their own.

EG when we bought the house because it was closer to the in-laws, the previous owners were moving to SC to be closer to their family. It's just a decision you make or not bother to make.

And then to make an extreme point - before this I used to live in Hell's Kitchen in NYC. When I visit my old hood now, it's basically one continuous giant Grindr date going on. That was totally fine when I lived there as a single person but as a family person it would be a tough situation (e.g. businesses not geared to kids, most neighbors aren't parents - eg there was no kids in my old building). Now I live maybe 30 miles away and it's all parents all around me. The idea of "go where parents are" and "go where other young families are" is relevant to absolutely anyone in the world, so I don't understand why whether I live in the US is even a question?

>so the residents (and businesses) are super accommodating of families with kids. To the point where if I have to take a little one to the bathroom in a restaurant, people often invite my big one (5 year old) to hang out at their table so I don't have to worry about it.

My experience so far with a kid is most people will just tolerate your child. I'm surprised your running into that attitude.

Other new parents I know that are in the suburbs aren't all surrounded by family's either. I think aging people aren't downsizing their houses and moving around. Careers scattered and cheap homes scattered everyone around.

Maybe NYC is just different. I mean I'm 100% sure it's different. I'm grew up in a NYC suburb lol

I mean I think it depends on the suburb. If you moved your family to a place where everyone is a shut-in boomer (vs the grandfatherly types that I somehow meet in my area) then... why would you move there to have kids?

To me that's like going to a badly reviewed restaurant and then complaining about the food. If you knew you were moving to a place hostile to kids, why move there?

With the housing market competitive as it is you don't really get to much of a choice and it's not like there's yelp reviews for neighbors.

I don't think that's right. There's a difference between "I hadn't tried to do that"(which would have been the case for me, if not for my wife's wisdom) and "it's hard"

Like literally a starting point could be -where do your friends and coworkers with kids tend to live? Or ask a realtor which parts of town have turned over with young families.

When you are checking out the house you can literally tell which houses have kids and u can ask about it.

The housing market it what it is but you get a very different outcome if you search in a a family friendly town vs not to begin with. Obviously?

Doesn't sound different than most of the neighborhoods in Brooklyn

I am in a suburb that's closest to NYC without being a part of the city.

I grew up in a place like that (Port Washington, NY), and it was pretty ideal; I'm raising my own two kids in a suburb of Boston that feels very, very similar along almost every axis.

You're not alone, Kraig911. It's very hard to be a parent in modern society. My wife and I's friends have basically vanished from our lives, they have zero initiative or interest in coming over to see the kids or help in any way. They say they do, but they rely on us to take the initiative and make social things happen. After dozens of rejections or silence from dozens of them, it's rejection fatigue with the friends...unless they also have kids, in which case we play DnD together when the kids go to bed.

Going out to eat? Going on vacations? Sleeping? Your own health? Your finances? Say goodbye to all of that for 5+ years if you have kids, even more if you have a special needs child.

And despite all that, we love them and we want to have them, and probably the vast majority would do so again. And we will have our children to keep us young-at-heart, learning, active, and to help us in old age. Many of our child-free friends are going to go through a lot of loneliness when they're old, while we'll have the vibrancy of a family life.

> Many of our child-free friends are going to go through a lot of loneliness when they're old

I've seen this "kids are insurance against loneliness" logic repeated often, but I don't believe this bares out in reality. I personally know plenty of child-free older couples who remain quite happy and social. I also know plenty of parents whose kids don't speak to them anymore or whose children have lives on the other side of the country/world. Anecdotally the loneliest older people I know are ones who have put it upon their children to keep themselves from loneliness.

> And despite all that, we love them and we want to have them

As a parent I always find it funny that we need to add this to every statement of frustration of family life (I'm not critiquing you, I also say this every time I mention any frustration about parenting). It is worth recognizing that saying the contrary is fundamentally taboo. I find this to be another under-discussed challenging of parenting: you can never even entertain the idea that "maybe this wasn't what I wanted"

<< I find this to be another under-discussed challenging of parenting: you can never even entertain the idea that "maybe this wasn't what I wanted"

You can absolutely think it as long as it stops there. There is a reason. At that point in the game, your needs and wants are supposed to be subordinate to those of the kids' long term survival. I could maybe understand this sentiment, oh 50 years ago, when you maybe could plausibly claim you had no idea that child rearing is not exactly easy, but unless a person is almost completely detached from society, it is near impossible to miss the "pregnancy will ruin your life" propaganda.

Consequences. They exist. Some are life altering and expected to last a long time.

Some of my friends and family who had kids at a young(er) age - and by that, I mean late twenties or early thirties - seemed totally oblivious to the hardships of parenthood.

You’d think by your thirties you’d do some basic research. Most people just have kids because it’s just “what your supposed to do” and don’t give much thought beyond that.

I don’t know what they thought to themselves, but outwardly they projected rainbows and unicorns until reality eventually hit them.

> You’d think by your thirties you’d do some basic research.

I've often had thoughts like this, but had to just accept that people often don't do basic research. For another example, consider how many people work full-time (160+ hours per month) to make money, but have never bothered to take even a 2-hour course on how to manage it well. They spend all that time making money but no time on how to use it wisely. And then they make obvious mistakes. Unnecessary debt, lack of investments, complain that they never learned this stuff in school, etc. Not trying to sound judgmental, but I always found that surprising.

in my case i made money to not have to think about it, the whole managing money thing was/is repulsive to me.

i only started learning about that when i had kids, so i have something to leave them when i die.

>You can absolutely think it as long as it stops there.

If that's the attitude it renders virtually every discussion about the topic moot and the people in question better stop trying to give life advice to anyone else.

My wife and I don't want kids and we've heard our fair share of (unsolicited) opinions on the topic from people who clearly weren't always happy. I've only ever known one woman I worked with, who was a brilliant scientist, tell me straight up she regrets having children and wished she could have focused on her research.

If that's not something you can honestly say without being berated then clearly the 'propaganda' still works mostly in one direction.

I agree with you but I don't really see what the alternative is. If you openly go around stating that you regret having children, what are people supposed to say? It's better to keep those thoughts to yourself because there, quite frankly, is nothing helpful anyone could say even if they wanted to. Not to mention that it would be unfair to the kids if they got the feeling that you regret having them.

This!

Unfortunately, my soul brought me into that bucket :-( I can speak about it with other (men) friends without children, and to some women without children. But if you ever say that you didnt want children when others with children are around, they see you as an alien.

Esp it gets hard if you are single (what happenend to me now) and you meet new women and tell them that the only reason for the last breakup was that I couldnt bear the stress with out children.

I knew from the beginning of my life on, that it will totally crush me if this happens - coming from a "not supportive family" makes it really hard to >actually want children<, esp. if the same stories now repeat :-(

What even is this? People will say what they will say when they listen to it. It’s not like you are complaining to the kids.

This is a hilariously narrow view of family life.

Life is a lot more complicated and there's essentially limitless possibility between living a life you feel is solely about "paying consequences" or "completely abandoning all responsibility" (which, btw, is still an option. Not great, but neither is the former)

But I do appreciate you providing an object lesson in just how taboo it is to even entertain the thought publicly!

You can entertain it. You just did. But don't expect standing ovation is my very subtle point.

<< This is a hilariously narrow view of family life.

Quite the contrary, it allows for a very broad range of outcomes, because it deals with reality of the human condition.

<< which, btw, is still an option. Not great, but neither is the former

Everything always is. Why, tomorrow I could quit my job and start a bar in Hawaii. As arguments go, this one was pretty weak.

<< Life is a lot more complicated and there's essentially limitless possibility between

Why am I getting this feeling that you completely misread what I wrote.

"But don't expect standing ovation is my very subtle point."

that's the exact reasoning why parents who complain about how hard it is to be a parent get no sympathy from you. You blew a load in somebody (or had a load blown into you) and another human popped out. That's a choice you made for yourself, nobody forced you to, and there is a big giant swath of people out there who couldn't care less.

I sense there is some confusion, but I can't pin point where it is coming from. Is it possible you are not replying the person you thought you were?

>I find this to be another under-discussed challenging of parenting: you can never even entertain the idea that "maybe this wasn't what I wanted"

Because there's no point in thinking about it. Your wife will ask if you want to leave, your children will hate you, and society will hate you, it will make you feel depressed, and meanwhile it won't accomplish anything. It's a dialogue only for yourself, once you acknowledge that, it becomes far less challenging to deal with and you can move forward with dealing with challenges in solvable ways.

My mothers' friends have to fund vacations for their adult children and grand children in order to spend time with them. They wont let her stay at their home.

My mother was giddy when my father died; so I have strong boundaries in our relationship.

My brother moved to colorado after the service and never returned.

I'm not convinced having children is the answer alone. (I say as a childless 35yo)

> They wont let her stay at their home.

There are many reasons this could be the case. The internet (and Reddit in particular) is abound with AITA type discussions around boundaries within families.

Being a parent is orthogonal to being someone people want to spend time with. Unless I knew for sure I was not in the latter group, I wouldn’t use it as a justification for not having kids.

About your first point, I understand why it happens, but I get frustrated at these debates nowadays. Both sides cannot talk about their experiences without having to add something that invalidates the other side choice. They cannot fathom that the other side may prefer the disadvantages of their choice instead of the disadvantages of yours. Maybe it's the human condition to try to point out how the other side will regret their choices to validate our life decisions

Well said. I appreciate people on both sides that can simply acknowledge having kids is great for some people, and not having them is great for others, and the world is big enough for all of us.

Indeed. There was a CBC radio episode last year that had parents discussing regrets. It felt weird to hear people saying these things out loud.

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/audio/9.6661746

Being able to hook up with random strangers on apps might be fun in your 20s and 30s. When you're old and wrinkly, it's not going to be the same. I hate to say it, but this is especially true for women entering their twilight years. A lot of childless people in our generation are headed to a very sad and lonely future.

COVID was exceptionally hard on these people. A lot of the weirdness of the COVID years was just people going crazy in isolation. Trading random stocks, or ordering crazy nonsense off of Amazon. Being alone is literally psychological abuse and a lot of them were subjected to it for months at a time.

And wife and I are both old and wrinkly and happily child free. Childfree people aren't just hedonists.

So why do you have children? Can't synthesize a reason?

have kids because i wanted to.

and life is beautiful.

> My wife and I's friends have basically vanished from our lives, they have zero initiative or interest in coming over to see the kids or help in any way

I completely believe that’s been your experience, but want to highlight that his is a difficult asymmetry in these friendships. I in no way mean to imply that the below is the experience your friends had with you, just that the challenges are not one-way.

In my own circle, my wife and I have often felt like it was our friends with kids who vanished. We knew they were busy, we kept extending invites or asking for time. Things often didn't work especially as new parents are figuring their lives out, things are changing all the time, etc. We'd meet up here and there, but it was - necessarily - always on their terms. And so of course, our outreach tapered down incrementally but consistently.

But I do wonder: do they feel we detached from them, or do they have any inkling that we feel they detached from us? We've discussed it with one couple who we were always closer to, but it doesn't feel an appropriate topic to resurface uninvited at any given moment.

It's simply hard to plan. Before kids I'd typically meet up with friend around 8 or so maybe 9. Now bedtime rules my evenings. When my kids are asleep I'm exhausted. Most of my friends evenings are just starting at that time! (lol) and I completely understand. The other thing is I can't go out and get drunk or party because being hung over with a 3 year old pissing the bed after they crawl in to sleep/cuddle with you - nothing better/worse.

It's simply hard to relate. I have some very good friends who we've stayed in touch. I'm forever grateful for them. But when you're out and about and you meet a random person and try to strike up a friendship say at a conference. The second I mention I'm a dad I feel I'm relegated to the back of the bus.

Speaking from the other side, but having been on your side for most of my 20s and 30s and felt exactly how you do, they probably do feel you detached from them.

Their lives fundamentally changed to the extent that as you say, any gathering necessarily must be on terms that allow them to parent.

And the level of last-minute cancellations and apologies increase.

And on top of that, they’re just not prioritising reaching out to you. Mainly because parenting occupies 25 hours of most days and they’re exhausted, but they’re also probably assuming that any activity in reach for them, like simply getting coffee at a playground while they try to make sure their kid doesn’t eat too much sand, is not your idea of a fun time.

So your outreach tapered down in response, but that is ultimately your choice.

The alternative requires you to quite selflessly keep up the outreach and be OK with a lower hit rate, and lean into the fact that you have far, far greater flexibility to meet on their terms than they do to meet on yours.

Not doing that is not an unreasonable choice, but they probably miss you and want you to be part of their kids lives.

Anyway, thanks for sharing this point of view. It’s a hard situation.

I think it's a fair response, and I can appreciate the truth in one's own life that leads you to write it. But this situation is a complex dynamic, no two situations are precisely the same either factually or subjectively. The same couple with a new child may stay close to one, drift away from another for totally different reasons that may not have one thing to do with intention or effort.

At any rate, I'm never too proud to reach out to old friends even if the time between attempts increases. Relationships may change again!

> You're not alone, Kraig911. It's very hard to be a parent in modern society. My wife and I's friends have basically vanished from our lives, they have zero initiative or interest in coming over to see the kids or help in any way.

Similar to what I wrote in the other reply: How far went _your_ initiative to stay in actual contact with them, in a way it's not a boring duty call, but something _actually_ nice?

If I have friends with children, sure I'm also interested in them. But if it turns out that these friends have no desire to spend time with _me_ anymore - without any kids involved - and they mostly expect from me that I constantly want to see the kids and "help in any way", well, where do I profit from that friendship?? It often gets quite asymmetrical and boring.

> But if it turns out that these friends have no desire to spend time with _me_ anymore - without any kids involved

See the problem is the kids. You can't quite make them go away that easily. My guess would be your friends would love to spend some time with you but can't, because logistics.

> where do I profit from that friendship?? It often gets quite asymmetrical and boring.

Friendships are not for profit. If you want profit, start a business.

> See the problem is the kids. You can't quite make them go away that easily.

You can't, sure. You shouldn't at least. But what does it mean to me? It leads to the fact that the friendship is pointless. So why should I take a lot of initiative, when I don't get anything back anymore? For a reason that they've actively decided for (typically), btw.

> Friendships are not for profit. If you want profit, start a business.

I'm not talking about commercial/monetary/material profits. I'm talking about profits in terms of social lives. If my wording is unfortunate, I hope that it's still clear what I mean. One important (not the only one) currency in that regard is: Timeslots in the calendar.

PS: If the other side shows at least some remote awareness of the situation and indicates a little goodwill, it's already a different thing. In my personal experience, even that isn't common, though.

I understand why they do it, but I cannot ignore that you lose the incentive of visiting your friends and their kids when they always take that visit as a way to treat you like a babysitter. Yes, I accept sometimes looking at your kid while you take a nap, just don't make that the usual experience for years on end, though. I'm lucky, as my friends always understood when I pointed that out to them, but I'm aware that this may not be the common reaction.

Admittedly, I don't know that particular case from practical experience, but yeah, well, that sounds very symbolic for what I meant.

I cut my parents out of my life as soon as I was able. Depending on the 'vibrancy of family life' when you're old is often a bad gamble.

It's not that being a parent is harder - it's actually easier (excluding the post-WWII American boom years which were a fluke).

It's that the floor of being single has risen to stratospheric highs.

Being single used to be: boring (no internet, tv, constant dopamine drip. Having kids was an escape from mundane boredom.)

Being single used to be: lonely (now we have dating and hookup apps, online games, tons of in-person events - cities are filled with concerts and music festivals, you name it, more Michelin Star restaurants than anyone could visit, etc. etc.)

Being a woman used to be: limited choice (now we fortunately have tons of options for women - careers, etc. They can enjoy the same freedoms, fun, and personal investment as men.)

Not to mention that parents have all kinds of new social stigmas.

Having children used to be: free labor, send them off to do whatever (now you'd be accused of child abuse)

Basically, the problem is single life is too good now. We have smartphones, internet, and the economy revolves around the single experience.

The minute you have kids, you lose access to the exciting single life that the modern society has built itself around and catered itself to.

Society glorifies single life, and the signalling is so strong you know you'll lose it if you have kids. It's not like you have time anyway with the doomscrolling and dopamine addiction.

> Being a woman used to be: limited choice (now we fortunately have tons of options for women - careers, etc. They can enjoy the same freedoms, fun, and personal investment as men.)

This is the real reason that birth rates are dropping. Women’s prime childbearing years are spent working in an office (usually through economic necessity), and the decision to have kids becomes “oh we’ll get to that later”. Once the switch flipped to DINKY (double income, no kids) being the norm, house prices inflated and that’s where you have to be as a couple to keep up.

> It's not that being a parent is harder - it's actually easier (excluding the post-WWII American boom years which were a fluke).

Why would it be easier today?

You used to just open your door and go let your kids run around and hope they're back before dinner. Absolutely nothing like today's ultracompetitive, ultra-regimented world.

This. I know me and all my peers roamed the neighborhood and my wife's life was not that different despite being born on different continents. Doing the same now risks a visit from state child neglect referral, which is enough to give most a pause. Parents seem to get all the risk and less benefits, while getting the stink eye when kid is not behaving properly.

In short, I am entirely confused on what would be easier today. If anything, things have gotten exponentially worse.. if you care enough to do it right.

> You used to just open your door and go let your kids run around and hope they're back before dinner.

Still works this way in my suburban Ohio world

> today's ultracompetitive, ultra-regimented world.

though yes I see this in the childhood sport arena, club teams, traveling teams, etc.

>Still works this way in my suburban Ohio world

I don't mean this in a derogatory fashion... but to be blunt I've only seen this in black and impoverished neighborhoods. There needs to be enough working single moms releasing their kid out of necessity that the Karens can't snitch on everyone and the police/CPS fatigue of fielding the calls after investigating and not finding anyone they can force into keeping the kids inside.

Kids aren't dying in childbirth, for one.

Well sure, that doesn't really make parenting itself easier/harder.

Agreed. By just about every measure, we're much better off than the past, yet have fewer kids. Statistics have supported this correlation (richer -> fewer kids) for a century, across the board around the worldwide, yet people often still get the causality exactly backwards: it's too expensive to have kids.

Real median incomes have risen, decade after decade.

And because of this, consumption in key categories has improved. For example:

Housing floor space per person, same trend.

Life expectancy, same trend.

Leisure has increased.

Tourism has increased.

Yet the common discussion is that it is unaffordable or impossible to have kids. It's backwards. My grandparents were dirt poor and each came from families with 8-10 people. I'm comparatively very rich and have no kids. The explanation that it's so unaffordable I think is mostly wrong. It's that not having kids for many people is a better deal than before.

The cost of kids isn't unaffordable per se, but rather opportunity cost is too high.

As an example I just came back from travelling the world for six months. I'm rich enough to do that. Which also means the opportunity cost is so great, that it's a lot to sacrifice to have kids. My grandparents had none of that opportunity cost precisely because they weren't rich.

> The cost of kids isn't unaffordable per se

Deopends on country and social support Id say?

In western EU countries, parental-costs are estimated to 180.000 - 200.000 EUR per head that parents will pay for the first 25 years.

Will pay because these societies can afford it. If they had 10k they're not spending 200k, period.

That's the whole point in these affordability discussions.

Take homes, We often speak of homes being so expensive, $1m average in Silicon Valley or whatever. That's not because it's unaffordable, but precisely because for the people who bought these homes, they were able to afford $1m or whatever the number is. If people there could only afford $500k, they'd be 500k.

If it's 200k it's because that's what we can and believe should spend. And that's completely different from the past, when we could spend less, and decided we should spend less. My grandparents generation for example who had 5-10 kids certainly wasn't spending 1-2m on their children.

Fact is that median income has gone way up, while children per person went way down. We thus have more to spend per child, we can afford MORE, to spend more. And the fact that we do (evidenced by the 200k per child figure), is not evidence of unaffordability, to the contrary!

> post-WWII American boom years which were a fluke

No fluke. A deliberate policy

There's certainly some flukiness to being the only major country on the planet that hadn't been shelled and bombed to smithereens in the preceding decades. That's not the whole story, but it's certainly part of it.

We can't return to a place where America is the only manufacturing country in the world, where every other country is in ruins and rebuilding and taking loans from America. That was a very weird set of circumstances that gave America unprecedented tailwinds that no other country has ever had.

I was young and cool once. I traveled, I did wild things that make good stories, and I did wild things that I will never tell a soul. I think that I had all the adventures that I could handle without having a criminal record. But once I had my first child, all of those things seemed so petty and inconsequential. I don’t miss the night life, the hobbies, or the drinking buddies. My life revolves around the little people I brought into this world, and nothing I’ve ever done has made me more fulfilled. If I had the chance to give up all of my 20s and all those hedonistic pursuits and settle down 10 years earlier, I would do it without hesitation. I know some people resent being parents, but seeing my kids is a rewarding feeling in a way that I never could have understood until I had experienced it. Don’t let the TV tell you what joy is.

> I was young and cool once. I traveled, I did wild things that make good stories, and I did wild things that I will never tell a soul. I think that I had all the adventures that I could handle without having a criminal record.

yes me too

> My life revolves around the little people I brought into this world, and nothing I’ve ever done has made me more fulfilled. .... I know some people resent being parents, but seeing my kids is a rewarding feeling in a way that I never could have understood until I had experienced it. Don’t let the TV tell you what joy is.

yes me too absolutley

> If I had the chance to give up all of my 20s and all those hedonistic pursuits and settle down 10 years earlier, I would do it without hesitation.

Total opposite for me, no way. Whilst i dont want to do them now, I am so SO glad i had those experiences. I know I would be deep in a mid life crisis today wondering "what if" if i had missed the fun and gone straight to having kids in my 20s. Like, id probably be blowing up my life over it now, doing something stupid, out of FOMO for never having tried living other lives. Different people are different, but it would have been a TERRIBLE choice for me. (im also not the only one - witness the commonality of the old mid-life-crises sportscar and mistress trope that was born out of a period having kids young)

Yep this is 100% it -- my partner and I who stayed single and lived out our 20s and early 30s "experiencing life" only wish we could have met and settled down 10 years earlier. Its way more important and rewarding than all the shallow stuff that people talk about. Of course sometimes you miss the freedom, but sometimes I missed high school when I was in college -- didn't mean it was a step down. Sometimes I missed college and my old job when I got a "real job", of course, it was still a strict upgrade, but you can always look back and appreciate what was good about the old days.

It’s literally the only purpose of life to pass on our genetics to our offsprings in a Darwinian sense.

$6,000 / month in daycare for 4 kids? You have a sweet deal my friend. At the daycare in my neighborhood this does not cover even 2 kids : https://www.kidspaceseattle.org/enrollment - click on Tuition link at the bottom and weep.

Only two are in daycare. LOL I wish it was for all 4. My autistic girls insurance cost I hit the OOP max in 2 months but still.

Those prices are weird. Why would somebody ever pay that much rather than just hire a private nanny?

> Why would somebody ever pay that much rather than just hire a private nanny?

In my experience the price distribution for nannies and infant/toddler daycares in the same area are largely overlapping bell curves so the decision typically comes down to logistics rather than cost.

Also, a nanny is not the same ecosystem as child-care. It's not nescessarily a substitute. If what's desired is a private-private child-care, I suspect you'll be paying a lot more than the price of a nanny.

One challenge with hiring a nanny is if they need to take a sick day (or if they quit!) you can end up in a tough spot. In contrast a day care center usually has backups built in so you don’t end up scrambling.

Because a nanny in Seattle charges $30/hr.

Something's not adding up there unless you mean 30/hr/kid

At $30 an hour, $6,000 would cover 10 hours a day for 20 days per month.

A private nanny isn't realistic for 4 kids. You need 2.

The few people that I've known with private nannies (usually au pairs) have had only one and also each had 3 or more (up to 6) kids.

$30 / hr + federal payroll taxes is 5,700 / month ($30 / hr x 40 hrs/week x 4.33 weeks in month x 1.1 for federal payroll taxes). Who has this kind of money on top of mortgage, car payments, food, utilities, etc...? In my circle of friends only one family affords this (the dad is a Director at Meta)

The trick is that au pairs are nowhere close to that expensive. (Though the US becoming radically less attractive of a place for foreigners to live and work may be changing the availability of that option.)

I agree, it's the public attitudes that are most disheartening and probably some of the reason young people are less inclined to have children. All over society people are seeing kids as a kind of personal indulgence that shouldn't be allowed to impact other people - whether its a lack of sympathy that parents have higher priorities at work, or looking down on kids who act like kids in public. At the same time parents who let their kids look at screens in public are demonizes, as apparently only kids who are perfectly behaved without distractions should be allowed out.

Meanwhile when dogs bite people there's an outpouring of 'well why did you bother that dog?'.

It’s literally the only purpose of life to pass on our genetics to our offsprings in a Darwinian sense.

Speak for yourself.

I am? Why else would I share that perspective. It’s a fact of life, pass on your genes or end your lineage.

I live to be happy, but you do you.

Your experience sounds exactly like mine. My son is very autistic as well. I've had to cut off friends with families because either their didn't understand meltdown and were incredibly judgy because they were blaming my parenting for his ASD meltdowns, or others because my autistic son was a "bad influence". God forbid their (later diagnosed) kid have some exposure to a child with different neurodiversities.

That's not even going into my traumatic health care experience to getting my son help when he needed it.

So now I have all the hardships of raising a family, and I'm restricted friendship within the small ND accepting community of my area. So my support network is incredibly small and I barely get any support. It sucks.

Reading the responses to your story that are nitpicking it over your daycare experience is a perfect representation of the problems that families face.

When I read things like this I find it confusing in so many ways. I've been out of the US for a while now so perhaps there's some contemporary issues I'm just not considering? For $6k a month, why not hire a private nanny? You could also work with other parents in your area to setup something for a bit more socializing depending on their age.

Similarly, I find it practically impossible not to meet people literally every single time we go to e.g. the park. The kids want to play with other kids, we meet their parents, and it's basically an endless source of friendships - even better because it's other parents who probably live relatively close to you enabling you to start setting up aforementioned ideas.

My childcare cost is $52k/year for two kids. To hire a private nanny for TWO kids, it'll be at least $35/hour with benefits (insurance, paid time off etc) in my area. That'll be around $80k/year for a private nanny. And once the kids are older, the value of a nanny isn't as good IMO since they don't provide the variety of social challenges that a daycare can provide (group working, relationship building, conflict resolution etc...). We have friends with kids of the same age that don't go to day care and have nannies instead, and the differences in social interaction are significant - maybe we just get lucky but I think our kids build a lot of skills being in a bigger group.

I wish I could accord private nanny. Do you know of good resources to find this? Esp in the USA I'm in texas.

> 52k/year

LOL, this is my income after taxes before paying anything! :-X

Say you hire a nanny for $6k/mo... What problem have you solved? You're still paying the six grand, and you had better hope the nanny is good, because that is your kids' whole world now for a chunk of their existence.

It depends on the area, but a nanny is typically nowhere near $6k/month. If desired you can also generally arrange something with other parents in your area to do a cost share with the side benefit of also getting a bit more socialization for your kids. There's endless differences with nanny vs daycare. A big one is that most studies show children do best when raised by a small handful of consistent figures. In daycares they're going to have rotating workers with relatively unfavorable ratios.

It's also done at your house so there is no transport, you can create play areas and the like to your own imagining, set the standards for what is expected, have easier access to the exact foods/etc you want your children consuming, and so on. You also have a lot more freedom for your children to experience things you want them to. For instance if you want your kids to go to the park on Wednesdays, you can set that up.

There's also small things like the fact that most kids are going to get endlessly and repeatedly sick in daycare due to close contact with a large number of other children and relatively premature immune systems - when anybody gets sick, most of everybody gets sick. Some of those will be one-time-only sicknesses that everybody will get, sooner or later, but a lot are just colds and other things that kids will catch endlessly. And so on. There's plenty I'm leaving out but basically you get better, more personalized, care over which you have much more control, and pay less.

---

One thing I'd also add on. I'm not even entirely sure a "good" nanny is required. They obviously need to know how to care for a child and so having one who has had at least one child on her own is good, and bordering on a requirement, and they should know basic first aid and emergency treatment (like what to do if a baby is choking), but beyond that - I think the most important thing for a child is simply the personal connection. If somebody gets into nannying they presumably already love children and, at least for me, that's mostly what I'm looking for.

A good nanny for four kids is definitely more than $6k / month in lots of parts of America, you're ignoring the downsides of nannies (like when they get sick, or need time off, etc), you're ignoring a lot of the upsides of daycare (like socialization), and the research does not support your claim that kids do better being raised by a nanny than daycare.

It's totally fine that you've chosen a nanny over daycare. I did for my first, and I think we'll go with a nanny for my second, but you're presenting a wildly misleading perspective here.

> It depends on the area, but a nanny is typically nowhere near $6k/month.

Agreed that it depends on the area. In high cost-of-living areas, both nanny and childcare can be (significantly) higher than $6k/mo, and in lower cost-of-living areas they're typically a bit less. In my experience having lived in different areas the price ranges for infant/toddler daycares and (legal) nannies are closely correlated.

> I'm not even entirely sure a "good" nanny is required.

Having employed a couple of bad nannies, I strongly disagree with this statement.

Real median personal income in the US is $45k which is $3750 gross per month. [1] Nannies are obviously not making more than the vast majority of Americans. What was your experience with bad nannies?

[1] - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N

> Nannies are obviously not making more than the vast majority of Americans.

Experienced nannies in high-cost-of-living areas do. Many charge $35 to $55 per hour [1][2][3] and at 45 hours a week, that is $82k to $129k a year or $6,825 to $10,725 a month.

> What was your experience with bad nannies?

Not wanting to pay the aforementioned prices and dealing with strong cigarette smoke smell on clothing, strong perfumes, buying them age-inappropriate toys, issues with timeliness, general messiness in our home, questionable unemployment claims, even a DUI. All the problems of an employee and roommate rolled into one.

All of them had prior experience, first aid training, and loved children so in retrospect I may have been overly harsh to refer to them as "bad nannies". But I still think it was absolutely worth the time and effort it took to find a good nanny.

[1] https://www.lighthouse-careers.com/blog/complete-nanny-salar...

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/NannyEmployers/comments/1irv28o/nyc...

[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/Nanny/comments/urmmqj/its_apparentl...

You originally said: "In high cost-of-living areas, both nanny and childcare can be (significantly) higher than $6k/mo, and in lower cost-of-living areas they're typically a bit less."

You're now limiting your price to high cost of living areas with extremely experienced nannies (even that 'hire for your yacht here' page you dug up only gets into these $72k+ prices at 8+ years of experience and specialized skills), and working overtime every week. And in those conditions - sure, but that is quite atypical. A normal search for 'us average nanny salary' turns up about a million hits in the $19-$23 hourly range. I imagine off the books is rather lower yet still on average.

And yeah it sounds like you had some remarkably bad luck with nannies. I take most of those, like showing up on time, completely for granted, and would certainly never hire a nanny who smokes. And it's not just the stink. I mean I don't even understand how that's supposed to work - how do you even nanny while also taking smoke breaks? Yeah, just ridiculous.

"people who have no idea how hard life is already for a kid who is disabled"

I have two disabled siblings out of the four kids my parents had - I didn't really appreciate what that meant for my parents until I had kids - I can only guess at the stress they must have gone through.

So yes, having kids sucks sometimes, but its also the most important thing that most of us do. And yes, as a dog-owning empty nester, I can confirm its not the same, not even close.

> It's just hard now.

I completely sympathize with the challenges, though I don't understand (and might completely misunderstand) the word "now". Do you meant 'in the current world'? What is different that makes it harder? And what defines now - the social media age? Post-WWII?

Now to me I think is a point in time earlier than now. I'm thinking somewhere when people didn't need to get out and do stuff with another. I think when I was a kid it was normal to have grandparents, and church settings, and just after school programs at the Y or kids in general would find each other in the neighborhood and play. I don't see much of that the same in the 'now'

> So when one of my kids throws a tantrum

If you're with your spouse, what I do is pull them out of the store until they calm down. Sometimes I wait in the car and my wife comes to the car because she is done shopping. I then remind them that they put themselves into that situation.

Thanks for sharing.

I feel a big part of what you experience is based on where you live. Having a family seems incongruous to the fast paced corpo world, sadly.

I moved to a small, uninteresting town years ago, mainly to escape the hustle and crowds. Honestly, I don't like it much, it's a bit too small and dull for my tastes. But more on point, the people here have all been so mind bendingly kind and patient with the kids that it makes it really hard to leave.

I wish every place were so patient, but there's probably a pretty direct negative correlation between that and 'getting ahead', whatever that means.

> Don't get me start on dog/cat people who equate their struggles to mine... or people who have no idea how hard life is already for a kid who is disabled.

I’d never have believed this until it happened to me.

Yep, but people can only understand the stresses and challenges they have faced, its very hard to understand something you haven't experienced. Even if you try to imagine it, you really can't understand it until you're living it. But yeah, after kids I think any rational parent would instantly without question abandon or sacrifice a pet for a child. A pet is literally 0 out of 10 compared to a child -- no comparison whatsoever. But I appreciate the "I have a cat" people are at least trying to relate. But its a bit like when my plumber came over and tried to tell me how he's really into programming because he's dabbled in a bit of HTML on his drag and drop website. I was friendly and appreciated relating to it, but he's only grazed the surface. I'm sure in his circles he's the "computer wiz".

Not sure how old they are, but we found that this loneliness phase got better once they were in school (and better as they got into middle, then high school.)

"don't get me started on dog/cat people who..." listen dude, you chose to have kids. You and your partner made the conscious decision to produce life, maybe instead of complaining about it, just live it and stop vilifying people who made different choices than you did.

You talk about your children as if they're a burden and that's sad.

>who equate their struggles to mine...

Perhaps they don't like the fact that someone is equating pet struggles to human struggles.

Doesn't sound like they are talking about them being a burden, just how their life has changed and how they can't do all the things that those without kids do.

> their life has changed and how they can't do all the things that those without kids do.

This is true of people with pets, too.

Everyone's struggles are equally their struggles. I too get a little miffed when someone invokes the struggle Olympics, especially when their struggles are the consequence of their choices.

I have plenty of friends with young kids that are super social. They invite people over, take their kids to restaurants and invite people to come, go to picniqs, festivals, and other things. We love their kids (or at least all the people that show up do).

You have the agency to make it happen.

You and your love for and acceptance of their kids and willingness to show up to family-friendly activities are very likely the key to their ability to do this.

If your friends suck, get new friends.

Lack of sleep when they are young makes you into a zombie

> It's just hard now. Before I had kids I had a network of friends and had a great social life. Now it's just me and my wife. If I want more friends I'll have to have more kids I guess? I have 4 now. One (my first) is severely autistic.

Maybe this disappointment is at least a bidirectional thing?! For me it's quite hard to find somebody in my contact list who has children today AND did not turn into a mostly pointless contact.

There's often the expectation that you're super interested and excited about their children. But even if you'd try. You'll never get something back. Not because they turned into bad persons. But because there are just no spare resources for it (e.g. in terms of calendar slots) on their side anymore.

Do I have to be infinitely sympathetic with them? Or is there some limit at which I am allowed to say: This friendship just doesn't give me anything anymore.

since i had kids my friends come more often to my place since i can go less often to theirs. and we have a great time, because we are friends...

really depends on what you call friends. i am not very social and have very few friends (i don't have a "contact list"), but these are strong friendships.

$6000 a month for daycare? Either you're really bad at math or you're a sap!

"There's a sucker born every minute!" - P.T. Barnum

This is such a great comment. I think people don't realize how much harder it is to raise kids now than the 90s or even early 2000s.

When I was young in the 80ies, my mum worked part-time 4h as basic clerk, mainly for fun and having people around her so that she doesnt have to take care of us for the whole day. My dad worked fulltime as an engineer, the bought a house.

Today, you need 2 top tier salaries to make childcaycare and rent even possible

> I pay about 6,000 a month in daycare.

My sister did this too until it got to be nearly as much as her entire salary so then she stopped working again and became the daycare. And that is super hard when your children have special needs. I think the worst may be that in-between area, where working and paying for daycare still seems to make sense financially because you take home more than you spend on not being at home but the net practical result is working for a very low effective salary to also spend less time with the children, which is its own kind of utterly draining.

The tipping point isn’t just take home pay. Peak daycare expense is generally only for a few years. Quit the workforce for a decade and you see long term effects.

Further if either parent loses their job you can quit daycare until they get a new one. Single income families are far less resilient.

I feel kids need that sense of community and social setting. I know it's hard to get a handle on when there's nothing I went through that with my other two during covid. The difference is night and day with dealing with anxiety in social settings.

Midnight PRs sounds really sad. Pager duty; I mean you’re not saving people in the ER. Everything you’ve written comes off as profoundly selfish and self-centered. God forbid your 8 month old needs to be a priority over pager duty.

Raising kids is hard, I have 3 but it’s not sad. Blowing off some steam is something every parent needs. But it sounds like you are in desperate need of some perspective on life.

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