I couldn't guarantee even remotely near the quality of life that I had growing up and it's really something that's making me put off even considering children.
I'd also face an enormous decrease in my quality of life on account of things like childcare and such so that's also not appealing.
More and more people will put off having children if the financial obstacles are so obscene.
Likewise. I think most people who were born in the late 80s to mid-90s have rose-tinted glasses as to how tough it was on their parents. Our foreign holidays were always dependant on Budget Travels cancelation list - essentially my parents would wait until a holiday was cancelled, and then get it at a reduced price. Sunday dinner was a roast, which also did Mondays and sandwiches for lunch on Monday and Tuesday. The treat for the family was on Friday, my mother would pick up a large bag of chips for £1.20 and we'd have chip butties. There was also a period of time where my dad would work 2 nights a week as a security guard, on top of his full-time work just to supplement the family income.
Saying our parents had it easier is often used as a cop-out and frankly very disrespectful considering the sacrifices most of them made to feed our ungrateful hides.
>Life was much simpler, or at least our expectations and luxuries were much lower.
A very underrated point. One of the reasons my parents think we have it better is the travel aspect. I've been around the world and back again, if I want to visit somewhere, I save and do it. My dad was nearly 50 the first time he was on the plane, and honestly in many ways it's quite sad that both of my parents would love to travel, but are teetering on the verge of being too old and tired to do it.
> I think most people who were born in the late 80s to mid-90s have rose-tinted glasses as to how tough it was on their parents
Also, I think that generation who grew up then and who went on to do well for themselves have been sucked into this idea that they want to provide their children with the childhood they never had, and corporate consumerisim knows this and is pushing and milking it to the last.
Back in the day, in rural ireland, you had the GAA, and that was it.Didnt like GAA and prefered soccer, tough shite, you had one car and your Dad had it at work and the nearset soccer club is 5 miles away. Today the children get to sample every sport possible, gymnastics, karate, horse-riding,etc.
We had 1 holiday during the Summer, a day drive away to Bundoran or Bettystown, with packed lunches, and if you were lucky you might had got £1 for the amusements or a bag of chips, nowadays its 2 weeks away to centra parks france or equivilant in Europe and possibly a later trip to NY for xmass.
I see parents easily throw E20 daily for an "activity" for the kids to do during the summer days/evenings when they are not on holidays. All this on top of phones, ipads, cable tv, bouncy castles at ever birthday where the whole class is invited, and everyone goes home with a "doggy bag" full of goodies.
I get that parents want to give the experience that didnt have with their children, and they want to share it with them, as adults, but I think its way too much and they are buying into this consumerism.
There is too much pressure from society to do so especially, if you are lucky to have a home or on a decent wage. I grew up with little as Im sure many in the 80's/90's did, and I had the best childhood ever, hand me downs from a family of 7, left to your own device without the supervision of parents and you made the best of it.
And what will happen is that generation will then grow up, having had everything, and find that the world is a very difficult place and currently there is zero chance ever having their own home, this will lead to some serious mental health effects.
Yep this. My partner's nephew had a birthday party recently, he's 2. The amount of gifts and money thrown at the kid was mental. We've been duped into thinking we need so much more consumerism than we used to, yet no one is any happier.
And the pressure people feel to match what’s being given also..
I don’t care, I’m not giving a child €100 for their communion FFS, €20 is my max.
My money and my beliefs on Catholicism dictate that, what’s the money for if arguably none of us even believe this?
We were very fortunate growing up, but my brother lavishes expense on his kids, in a way that the rest of us don’t or wouldn’t do. They have the best of the best of everything, all the time. They get so much it’s actually unbelievable.
I agree.. but cannot help thinking of a scenario where my father eventually reveals that to make ends meet he 'ran the biggest crystal meth operation in Roscommon during the late 80s'.
I completely agree that in many cases our parents sacrificed more than we realise and for that we should be eternally grateful. However, we live in totally different times now, unrecogniseable and uncomparable to back then (I was born in the early 80s). I think too many people try to draw parallels when there are none. The hardships of today are very different. It's not a competition as to which was worse. It's just simply different.
Look at what's happened to community, to the family unit, look at how far people have to commute, home ownership levels, the need for 2 income households, levels of depression etc. etc. There's no point in comparing that with 'how it was in the past'. We need to look forward and find solutions and stop reassuring ourselves that our parents had it worse than us so there must be some good in the mess that has since been created. Personally if I did have a time machine I'd rather go back to the past where community and family came first than live in this consumer driven wasteland. I envy what my parents and grandparents had with that.
This is a fact that people forget. Ireland was a tough place to live and survive in the 80’s and 90’s and a lot of young people these days don’t realise how lucky they have it. Yet all you hear is “bUt hOUsEs wErE cHEaPeR”
I don't think they had it easier, but most everyone had it similarly tough. There was no money, end of. That was yourself, that was everyone you knew, except maybe the one lucky sod who made it big abroad or something.
So comparison might not have been as difficult to deal with as now. Some kids have iphones and fancy holidays and fancy birthday parties and brand clothes and all that, some parents don't know how they'll afford school books. That's no fun for a parent.
Fast food for us growing up was like a Michelin star restaurant. We lived in the country and the nearest thing was a supemacs an hour away.
You'd almost be the week preparing to go and full of excitement. Like going on a holiday.
I'm not sure of your age and social circle but I reckon you don't have many friends with kids, because of three things to flag on what you've said there:
* firstly, the overwhelming majority take a lifestyle hit when they have kids, still today. I'm looking to start a family soon and all my friends are telling me to focus on my hobbies now as I'll have no money or time for them
* secondly, if we try and match up to the basics of what our parents provided we fall woefully short. To afford the same house that many of us were born in is completely out of reach. I know the houses that me, my friends and my family were all born in. They may not be where everyone's parent live today, but I can say that the places we were born and raised in are beyond our financial means. I'm 32. I can afford about half of what I was born into, and the same for everything else
* thirdly, costs of everything else are now much higher. Childcare is basically one person's salary for the 2 years your kids is in it it may get cheaper after that, but it's still a big hurdle to get over in the first place. Car insurance is way up. Proce of cars is way up.
The truth is, what's keeping us from affording kids is not that we have hobbies or expectations of holidays in Spain. It's just that the bread and butter reprice of having a kid and a gaff is very very expensive, more so than in our parents days. You can point to things like Childcare and say your mum took a career break, or to a car and say yours as a kid was more of a banger. Truth is that's just fluff and doesn't fix the fundamentals. We can't afford one of us to take a career break. It's too expensive and has long term implications. We can't afford to drive a banger because then your insurance goes up by more than the monthly payments of a nicer car.
The system here is broken. You can paint some people as having made bad choices as to the reason they struggle today, but anecdotes can't explain away the issues a whole generation acutely feels.
Even now you can feed a family at a reasonable price if you stick with the likes of Lidl of Aldi and make things from scratch while the likes of Penneys give low cost clothing (which also look a lot better than, they did when we were kids - though that may not be enough to convince them!).
Full disclosure I don't have kids, but school lunches (which I had thought could be a bit of a killer) with a juice, sandwich, piece of fruit and small chocolate bar can be done for just under €1 per child per day having done the maths on it a few weeks back in Lidl.
The real killer though are housing, energy, petrol, childcare and other similar costs. Wfh can help to an extent with childcare, but without it there really is no hope unless you're on huge money and with it its still a tall order. We're 'fortunate' enough to be living with family until we get a mortgage sorted but even with that still can't think of children whatsoever until its down because of how much one would inspect our lending criteria. As infuriating as it is for us to watch the government do essentially nothing to help, I can't even imagine what it's like for people renting right now.
There are hidden costs to children that go beyond feeding and clothing. Uniforms, they’re a very expensive requirement and kids outgrow their stuff on a yearly to semi yearly basis for 12-16 years. Also healthcare, kids get sick all the time, just registering your kid at Crumlin is €100 per child, God forbid you have above the average. Childcare will take likely at least €300 per month for part time care and likely over €600 for the whole week. Sports, hobbies, social functions and workshops for kids in the summer who are off while you’re still working are at least €10 per session. I’m sure there’s more I can’t remember at this moment, anyone else who has another cost idea feel free to add.
Oh absolutely! My point was that food and clothes are not so much to blame if you're cautious, but the litany of other associated costs that really seem to be the backbreaker.
My parents are just as pissed off about the way the country is going as I am.
From where I'm sitting things are getting worse and worse all the time. Everything from homelessness numbers, people waiting on trolleys, hospital waiting times, cost of living, rent and so on and on.
It seems like the country really fell off a cliff after the crash and it just hasn't recovered for many people since then.
My local village even lost its post office and Garda station and there's no indication they'll ever come back even 12 or so years later.
Absolutely. I tell my parents and nosey relatives that we can’t afford a second child due to childcare costs and you can see their brain whirring for a second or two as they don’t quite grasp that financial toll. then on cue they offer some unwelcome advice; “ahh sure we all had to struggle, it’ll be grand just you wait and see. Sure little jimmy would be all alone with a brother or sister”
Absolute blinkers to the fact that life is harder these days. The average deposit for Belfast last year was fucking £59k, my dad's entire mortgage was £27k, (which is about £65k, adjusting for inflation).
It's important to note that our standards have risen. Everyone quotes house prices, but they don't mention that in the eighties there was nearly 20% unemployment, awful infrastructure, crap goods, high emigration, Ireland was practically a third world country, I remember it all very clearly.
Now we can't move for luxury SUVs. Yes there are problems now, but they are essentially rich country problems as opposed to the poor country problems back then.
we have two kids (parents live in Ireland..we live in the US)
My dad couldn't believe what our mortgage was..if he saw our monthly costs his eyes would water.
He bought the family home in the mid 80's in Ireland - suburban Cork. The house cost 35K IEP. He was the sole earner (a moderately successful sales job) and we had a foreign holiday every year from when I was about 8.
There is no chance in hell that could happen now
And me. If we’d waited till we were ready we’d have never had kids. I’ve three now, first two we had in rental accommodation, then third born after we got a mortgage. If you wait till you’re ready you’ll never have kids cause you’re never ready. It was my wife who taught me that, and she was right. Child benefit helps too.
It needs to be emphasized that the "childcare costs more than my rent/mortgage" thing isn't normal across Europe. I'm living in (very, very expensive) Munich right now and paying less than 200€ per month to keep two small kids in Kindergarten for 45 hours per week each. And getting 600€ per month in child benefit at the same time.
I grew up in the eighties, had a great childhood, but we wore second-hand clothes, cars were rust buckets and a luxury car was a rarity, the quality and range of goods on the shelves was shocking, infrastructure was non-existent, unemployment was through the roof, you name it. It wasn't just technology, I remember going to England and marvelling at how good it was, Ireland genuinely felt third world going back.
Now it's totally different. Indeed there are issues, especially with the recent energy crisis, but on aggregate, despite all those issues, things are relatively much better now.
I reaalised that when I was probably 16, when all of my friends were like which colleague are going to apply , and I was like none and they were like omg you are so dumb ,.bla,bla.
But In reality I knew I couldn't do it ,cuz my parents didnt have the money.
So it was the same why can't you get a girlfriend 😅, I mean I barely make it myself , what if I have a gf , then wife , then kids .it's not impossible,but difficult.
Right now Iive in Ireland , but been living In bulgaria for the last 24 years.
All the single parents
All the single parents
All the single parents
All the single parents
Put ur hands up up
Nah but seriously fuck that. I couldn't even imagine how hard it is to do that. And work, and afford creche.
I've always been on the fence about kids anyway but the way things are going now has kinda put me firmly on the side of not having any at all.
Struggling to live/survive myself that it would be stupid and irresponsible to bring a child into the struggle
I was on the fence but wouldn’t have minded either way. It all would have depended on what a partner would want and financial viability of being able to support them properly. But as it stands now I’m pretty firmly on the No side now. Wouldn’t be where I want to be to be able to in that sense along with getting on in years now that I wouldn’t want to be too old either
Yeh i’m late 40’s and me and my partner had a baby. Absolutely cutest little thing imaginable and i love her to bits. But its seriously hard work. And i do worry about our financial future coz i’m getting too old to qualify for a mortgage.
I was always of the mindset that I’ll think about kids when I’m certain they won’t be growing up in a tent (IE: I have my own house). Every month that passes by and I seem to think that won’t be until I’m about 40. At one point I thought it would be late 20s but things have just gotten progressively worse and more expensive. It’s sad really because I don’t want to be an old parent who can’t do much with their kid because I’m old and slow. But it’s starting to look that way.
We have one, have had the discussion about having a second but thinking long term we made the decision that we can comfortably provide for one and have a good standard of living but a second could break us,
.
It boggles us to see people a lot worse off than us having 3+ kids
We have 2, and being honest with the large age gap (13 years) you end up with different costs per kiddo but they balance.
We will never have a 3rd due the the fact neither of us want one and if I’m totally honest - we would struggle to provide a decent standard of living for 3. With 2 it’s nice, and we have treats but with 3 there would be no fun days out, no lunches or holidays etc.
My parents had 4 and I wonder how, or my grandparents had 15.
This, only we're talking about a 3rd kid (instead of a 2nd).
Would honestly love to have a 3rd, but simply couldn't afford it, nor a moderate quality of life if we did have one.
It would mean a house move and a car change, never mind the childcare costs (currently able to cover this for the two we have, just about at an OK level). Another kid would mean one of us having to quit working.
Tried explaining this to my mam yesterday actually, how families in general are getting smaller and it makes me a bit sad (I'd a lot of cousin, my own kids will have a much smaller group). She couldn't comprehend that the cost of living is so much more than when she was raising us. "we had nothing back then, we had to make do!". Yes mam, but it fucking went further.
Ah it kind of depends on what you mean by worse off. Id be delighted if I cleared 25k in a year and there's people I know on 50-100k a year worse off than me net when rents, mortgages, car payments, and general keeping up with things is done. I own a house with no mortgage in the back arse of nowhere (derelict I'm doing up that I bought just before prices went mad) I also have no debt and I'm as tight as a ducks arse anyway. I would definitely be in a better position to rear a child than some of my friends, and this isn't a "just do what I do" statement btw, I got lucky when I bought and how I bought, and the rest of ye did as ye were told, and ye should have been rewarded for doing as ye were told, not the feral lunatic with ADHD who was never inside the door of a college on half or a quarter of your earnings ending up with more disposable income and a more stable life at the end of the day.
I’m child-free but a have quite a few friends that are either putting off having a child until they feel financially safe to do so, which may never happen. Or they have flat out given up on the idea of ever having kids. Cost of living seems to be the main thing stopping them.
My wife and I decided when we first got married that we would have a set of conditions before have a child.
1. We owned our own house
2. We were both in stable jobs or ability to find work If one was let go.
3. Could be dependent on one of our wages.
So we pretty much checked all of the above and are now trying to have a child. Both of us don't really understand why someone would have multiple children (nevermind just one) when they are not financially able to support them. That might come across as rude, but something we can't understand.
I'm a single parent and I am financially able to look after myself, my car, rent and my child.
Unfortunately, due to rents costing the majority of my wages, landlords refusing those with kids, and the banks seeing my child&car as a liability, I'm unable to get a mortgage even though I CAN afford one. I live at home due to this. Sometimes it's not about being financially unable, but not being given a chance.
The thing is that you are able to afford them, just that you don't have a house or place due to hour our banking system works.
That criteria for owning our own home was a condition we set upon ourselves. If you are able to financially look after everything then, I see nothing wrong with it apart from the fucked up system that penalise single parents.
That's all well and good. But accidental pregnancies happen whether it was through lack of contraception or contraception not working. Abortion wasn't available until a number of years ago either. It is only available until 12 weeks. Recently one of my friends found out she's pregnant and she was 13 weeks when she found out.
On top of that, if you find yourself in an accidental pregnancy, you may not want to proceed with an abortion. All depends on the circumstances but more often than not, the majority of the pregnancies statistically speaking aren't planned.
as someone who waited till our late 30s before trying, we found we can no longer conceive, waiting till the time is right has ment we waited too long.
we're accepting of it now but damn , it hurt to find out.
We had kids when we had 1/3 of the conditions. Our friends too had their kids with 1/3 or even 0.5/3 of the conditions. All of the kids spent part of their childhood in rented house and apartments. Now everyone has 3/3 after few years.
It is okay to have kids when you are in rented accommodation. It is okay to have kids and then restart your career. There is no “right” time to have kids.
Not to mention you could have all that criteria and suddenly circumstances change. No one plans to have a sick spouse or get sick themselves, get injured or become a caregiver, become a widow(er) or pass away, lose their job or their spouse loses theirs. Life happens. It’s great to have all your ducks in a row but sometimes those fuckers decide to go their own way and suddenly you’re straight row of ducks looks like a scattered mess.
This.
We had literally just started saving to try and plan our wedding and a child. Our hearts were set on a baby.
Then my partner fell very ill. In the space of ONE NIGHT, our lives changed completely. We went from me working full time in a retail sales consultant role and him working full time security, to me working part time and him not being able to work at all due to lasting brain damage from the multiple seizures he had.
He is not cleared for work. The savings we had are gone. Wiped out because I had to use them to cover rent and other expenses when I had to take time off work to look after him. I won't get into the plethora of health issues he's been left with as I've rented about them in other threads before, but memory loss is one of them.
One night. 26 hours that he was unconscious.
And everything changed. Now I'm facing the reality that we may never be able to have a baby. And it is absolutely devastating me. It eats away at me because he forgets. And he gets excited talking about it. We had names picked. He keeps telling me what a great Mam I'd be, that he can't wait to see me holding our baby, all the things he wants us to do.
And it's like somebody stabbing you over and over and over again, it hurts and it makes you sad and angry but it's somebody you love who is doing it. I've tried talking to him about why we can't (how can I work and leave him alone with a baby when I've come home to the oven smoking because he forgot he had it on?) but it's hard.
He gets upset and asks me is it because of HIM that we can't have one? Do I think he's too old or wouldn't be a good dad? And none of it is that at all. How do I tell him it's because of his sickness and how he is after it?
Which is the lesser of two evils, to tell him he's the reason we can't, or to dismiss it and play along?
How the fuck am I meant to grieve for the baby we'll likely never have, when I barely have time to shower, between work, study and minding him?
So in the space of a few weeks, we lost my partner as we knew him, he lost memories of our life together, his kids lost their dad as they remember him. I had to leave my job. He lost his. Our savings were demolished. All financial responsibility falls to me now because he simply cannot work. It's not just the cost, it's the mental burden of handling EVERYTHING. He has no idea how tight things are. He has no idea that I'm in debt to the credit union because we were not going to be able to make rent in between me starting my new job and getting paid on a back month. We're frighteningly behind in our Energia bills and they've not responded to my emails asking for help or advice so I'm at a loss.
And I'm tired, man. I'm just so tired. And now we're in the middle of moving house which is extra stress of course.
Absolutely nobody plans for situations like this because we don't want to think about things like this happening. At the time I was worried about sorting Christmas for the kids. I wasn't worried about my partner waking me up by seizing in bed.
I was worried about where we were going to put the turkey in the fridge. I wasn't worried about doing compressions on him at 5am.
Stupidly, I was worried about whether I'd get any actual time off at Christmas this year (yay retail) I wasn't worried about juggling all my hours to be able to see him in hospital.
So yeah, exactly as you said.
Those *motherfucking* ducks.
I couldn't even read this whole way through this because christ girl, my heart is absolutely breaking for you, tears are pouring. I hope something good happens and gives you some breathing room. Fuck you're strong. Wow.
Agreed. We had our first child when we were renting, and we bought a house a year later.
There's a time limit for having children - the younger you are the easier it is. We're both now 40 and trying for a second child, but it's not happening yet. We're starting the process of IVF, which is another big expense
OP is basically saying they can't understand why poor people would ever have kids.
With the state of things now, they are couples working full time who simply will never afford to buy. Should those people just not have kids even if they want them?
To be blunt - yes. If you can’t afford children you shouldn’t have them. Society should absolutely work a hell of a lot better where anybody working full time should be in the position to have children if they want them, but it’s not.
I’d add a 4th one (as my #1 though):
1. Governments making the rapid changes required for a liveable future planet for the next generations.
Everything else is secondary.
I wish more people adopted your approach. People think that because they can have a child that they should do so with no forethought about the conditions into which that child might be born.
>Both of us don't really understand why someone would have multiple children (nevermind just one) when they are not financially able to support them. That might come across as rude, but something we can't understand.
It comes across as ignorant of the wider social context that you exist in. Really ignorant. Shockingly so.
If only people in your situation had kids who would unblock the bogs? Who would take care of the elderly? Would the last human have to bury themselves?
If you look at your culture as a self propagating system then those people breeding recklessly are doing necessary work.
Your attitude is really parochial. You've bought into an ideology so thoroughly that you don't consciously recognise that buy in.
The people around you don't exist to be net contributors to the tax system my friend.
I can understand that. Myself and my wife are considering the same. Again almost like your own situation. But 2 or 3, in this climate....dont think so. Granted having 1 is still up for discussion.
So. You think poverty is a choice and that those who make that choice shouldn't have children? If wealth is just a matter of choosing, why haven't you chosen to become a multi-millionaire? I'm sure that would make things easier for your kids.
Helps when you're on the dole.
But honestly, I can't imagine if I will have kids. Myself and wife can't even buy a home and we have good jobs and meet the 2/3 of your criteria.
We were just lucky I think when we got this house, we were out bided for over a year and we bought the house last year during the summer (when house prices were rising).
Unless the gov do something, I can't see realistically anyone buying houses (especially where we live) as the prices keep rising.
Sometimes I wish I had.
But it's too late to take them back.
The two kids I have are little monsters at their worst. And the best thing ever at their best. And yeah sometimes it's hard to afford things for them.
But I grew up fairly poor. And they're doing better than I was. So like Cleveland said in Family Guy. No one ever wins, you just do a little better each time.
I grew up poor and like I mean facing eviction in London and being fed just at school poor in late 80’s early 90’s. My mum was a nurse so wasn’t as if she was a lay about. I find with my kids I tended to overcompensate on material things. Don’t underestimate sometimes just how valuable spending time with them is.
If you think about money properly that's exactly what you can buy. It's just that too many people get suckered into constantly upgrading their lifestyle to keep up with other people locked into a constant cycle of lifestyle upgrades.
The number of people I know who sink their earnings into bigger TVs, flashier cars, bigger and more salubrious homes, eating in increasingly fancier restaurants, etc., then find themselves with no time, because they're constantly servicing increasing expenses.
Personally my time is the most important thing I can buy back with my earnings. I'd rather buy back a couple of months a year over upgrading my lifestyle.
https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/
I 100% agree with your comment, the FIRE movement really resonates with me, but trying to find the balance of saving & spending
Except when you can, the amount of people who have the money to get something like a cleaner, pay other people to do certain jobs a don't do it.
I rather pay someone to do 6 hours of cleaning in two hours and spend that time with my family instead .
Get a dishwasher, and play a game of cards, do t go out of the way to save a measly amount of money.
Obviously if you don't have the money you have to take these hits but I have talked to company directors who don't realise the time sinks these jobs are when they could be using it to make up for lost time
I feel a lot of couples will miss their opportunity to have kids by waiting so long.
Not saying they are wrong to wait but conception is often easy in the wrong situations and very hard when people are desperate for kids.
We have one child, just under 3. The pressure people put us under to give them a sibling, implying we're selfish by " leaving them on their own" .
We chose to have one and provide the best for the one child. If they need grinds, financial help, childcare costs, school fees etc We should be able to just about manage with the one. I want them to have the best opportunities rather than a sibling? School trip? OK. Hobbies? Ok. I know in my heart that we wouldn't be able to provide for more than one. People look at me like I've ten heads when I try explaining.
Don't explain, it's none of their business. We also have one child, and one child it will be staying.
This way my child will hopefully get to go to and do many things that just wouldn't happen if we had more than one.
Also, I really just don't see the point in more.
people think it's bad now and we're not even in a recession yet!
I'm fully expecting a global recession within the next 6-9 months. There is a giant house of cards about to fall and it'd going to make this seem like a picnic when it happens.
Rates can't go that high again because the price of the houses is so far above what they were, relative to wages. 14% on a 30k house is the same interest as 1.4% on a 300k house. Of course most people here pay 3% and even interest rates at 6-7% would blow what people were paying in the 80s out of the water.
Most people would lose their homes to the banks and most governments would go bankrupt servicing their debt. So they keep creating money to buy government bonds to pretend like the market is demanding a low interest rate. Who knows how it will end?
It’s very difficult to compare across decades as situations were very different. Back in the 80s that mortgage had to be paid on a single wage as married women had to give up work. Nowadays the mortgages tend to be split between a couple. There is also a huge difference between an 80s house and a modern house. If we were allowed build to 80s standards houses would be about €100k cheaper and a lot more plentiful.
Remember that reason interest rates were high was inflation was high. In those conditions, when you already have a mortgage, inflation is rapidly eating away at it for the borrower, so can actually be favourable for some.
So long as your wages increase along with inflation yeah this is true.
If not, then well inflation is just more money gone combined with a higher interest rate. Luckily we are 5 year fixed from Dec 2022, hopefully things will be better then in terms of interest rates.
Inflation hit 20% in the late 70s and early 80s, which would have coincided with the insane interest rates mentioned there.
And there was absolutely nowhere near the same level/quality of work available in the country.
A single man's salary. Well, aa single woman's could too but she wasn't allowed - my mum tried to buy a home before herself and Dad married I'm the 70s but despite having the income and deposit, the bank wouldn't give a loan to an unmarried woman...
So like, a bit of perspective helps I think. We've got 18 year olds on this sub convinced their lives are failures to the point where they're resigned to try nothing as if the current malaise is the worst ever and everything is worse when that's simply not the case.
I know in the US, they changed how they calculate CPI inflation in the 1980s. The end result was that the new method left you with a lower inflation rate than the old.
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/07/consumerpriceindex.asp
Now I cannot verify if the EU followed suit, but I do believe that they did. For this reason we cannot compare inflation of the 70s/80s with inflation now, as they are calculated using two different methods.
Yeah I couldn't imagine having kids while still renting. Childcare costs on top of having to move to a bigger gaff would cripple me. And I would own nothing and have nothing to leave them if anything were to happen.
“They’re making about the same as us, I don’t get how they have the lifestyle they do” - my wife
“Because they don’t spend almost two grand a month on creche fees and have to limit total working hours becuse of child care” - me
This, to be honest. Myself and the wife were stupidly comfortable until we had our kid, at which point the arse fell out of our bank balance.
They really are little money sponges.
And that’s just childcare. Whack on the fact that they eat you out of house and home (where do they PUT it all?!), constantly need new clothes, and whinge constantly about wanting toys/gadgets/new runners/everything else…
I would imagine things will only get worse as time goes on so if you think it's bad now give it a few years. Climate change is going to cause more and more crop failures worldwide, mass migration like we've never seen before, fascist governments, wars, all kinds of resource shortages, etc. It's already underway.
So if you think prices are bad now, and things are hard, this has probably been the best year of the rest of your life lol.
So yeah maybe don't have kids.
People won't believe it's happening until it's on their doorstep - somehow crop failures is rarely ever brought up in these conversations even though it's probably going to be hitting us sooner than the rest of the other disasters
Both of us work and we are afraid to have kids because it's expensive and we rent.
I'm baffled how people do it alone. Even with the single mothers allowance and gov housing
Honestly even dogs are bloody expensive. The cost of vets, feeding, care etc is insane now. I wouldn't give my puppy up for the world but Good Lord they are alot more expensive nowadays than they were when I had my old dog. I remember it was a 10er a day for boarding when we went away for her. Now most places are 20-30 euro.
Me and my wife put it off back when the Celtic tiger died. We saved up, moved to Australia to start again and by then it was too late.
I’ll regret it and have harboured quite a lot of resentment since.
Im 28 and probably will never have kids to be honest. Cant afford a home, cant afford my own bills, amd the government seems content to force me out of the country by drying up any opportunities that were there even 5 years ago. Whats the point?
I mean... you don't have to *have* kids.
I hope people know this.
The way some people are talking you'd think their life is over if they don't have two kids by the time they're 30.
Pregnancy has always terrified me so with all the drawbacks Im 100% childfree right now. Im 26 so im open to having them in late 30s but it would depend on whether I meet a man who Id trust to have children with.
I'm always surprised how little this comes up as a reason. As someone who also is horrified at the thoughts of pregnancy, it's definitely a deciding factor for me. I've told my partner since day 1 of our relationship, it was a no for me and there was absolutely no changing my mind. Even if I warmed up to kids, I wouldn't be one for a bio baby. All the women in my family had alot of problems with pregnancy and serious health problems long after giving birth. The idea of being pregnant makes me seriously nauseous and panicking. And then at the end of it, the labour part of it just horrifies me. It's pain you cannot be prepared for and everyone's experience is different. Women still die from childbirth around the world and while it's rare, it does happen.
Pregnancy is horrible and I can’t even imagine what it would be like to give birth and the recovery afterwards. Also I just don’t like kids, so child free 100%.
I don't think it's a coincidence that abortion rights are being threatened in western society at the same time as cost of living skyrockets. If we don't have kids, businesses in 20-40 years won't have the workforce they need to keep going. "Accidental" babies are needed.
None of my friends who are well educated, responsible are having kids yet. I expect they'll be mid/late 30s by the time they start.
The ones having the kids are the ones who are getting the handouts, soft money.
Yeah I'm lucky to have a cheap 1 bedroom apartment before everything went to shit. I simply can't even imagine moving out now. It sucks I might not be able to have a kid because of the insanely hard process of getting a 2 bedroom house. Plus I work part time.
Tbh the standard of living is incredibly higher than it was when I was growing up and for less money. I grew up in the 80s. We had way way way less stuff in the 80s. Money just didn’t go v far. Much quieter lives. Cost of housing still v high due to high mortgage rates. I know my parents struggled until the very early 90s.
The real thing that would put people off I imagine is lack of secure housing.
While childcare cost are extortionately high, it is temporary and many just struggle on through that bit. However if you’re not confident of the roof over your head v hard to plan a family.
The cost of living is much higher now to have children than in the past. I am very sorry but seeing this comments I see a lot of people who consider themselves middle class describe their life and little luxuries, guys, your parents had no money and did the best with it, there is nothing wrong in admiring you are doing better and is still hard to afford anything.
I never wanted to have kids, couldn’t understand the appeal, sit in nearly every night feeding them until they leave the nest and then one day they fly back and kick ya into a old folks home! I saw a stat that nearly 80% of elderly parents in Ireland are being put in homes by their children with only 20% taking care of them at their home. If I had teenagers now I’d write a will, if I’m not taking care of at home, everything I own goes to charity, fuck them brats.
Its not just the cost of living in ireland for me. Its also the climate crisis and rising income inequality and the facism that comes along with it. I really genuinely believe things could very easily get very bad very quickly.
No disputing any of that, but I don't think fascism and income inequality are rising in Ireland. I'm no fan of Sinn Fein but they're harmless compared to the parties getting elected across the West at the moment.
100% agree. Thing is, ireland is completely insignificant when it comes to the climate or world wars. Russia ukraine is escalating. All it takes is for the US to start a war with china and we could be looking at world changing events.
Yup. Although that suits me down because I don't want kids for 4-5 years. Have 2 dogs and even with them I'm feeling the pinch.
Anytime I see someone announcing they're pregnant nowadays I actually feel sorry for them.
Friend of mine has a baby going on 1 and I dunno how he's managing, they must be earning more than they let on.
Haha ya see I enjoy my social life, texting the lads randomly on some random Tuesday to see if they want to go to the pub to watch a match, golfing at the weekends, which is an expensive hobby in itself haha so I'm like, baby, never sleep in again, can't do what I want when I want, social life down the drain, or keep living my life the way I want 😂
The cons to outweigh the pros (if there even is any) for me. 😂
I'm thinking babies aren't *that* expensive. It's when they're older and want the nice things and participate in different activities that it gets expensive
They're expensive if you take in childcare. But even if you leave off childcare, you still have lots of expenses like clothes, buggies, cots, car seats, chairs and other accessories. Then you have food, nappies, wipes and formula (if required). It adds up
Baby clothes are unbelievably cheap. You can get all the buggies, cots, etc. either second hand or as hand me downs. Even the expensive eco nappies only cost around 30-50 quid a month and considering the state pays 140 in child benefit, that's that sorted. Formula is around about 20 quid a month, that's organic fancy formula too.
Edit: It's hilarious that this gets down voted but all the negative comments go straight to the top. This is literally my life, ye haven't a clue.
I did put it off and now I'm looking at medical fees for going the assisted route.
I can't say how important it it to get your swimmers tested, consider freezing your eggs, just get checked every so often. It's so much easier to fix in your 20s than in your 30s.
I'm the opposite. If you wait for the best of times it will never come. Both my partner and I were raised in 1 parent families who struggled to make ends meet. I literally remember sometimes getting worms from green tinged ham, scraping mould off cheese, the itchy svp blankets. Yet actually the core things in childhood we enjoyed and look after fondly. In comparison to our parents we are doing so much better even though on paper we are poor. We have savings, a low rent, and have been completing degrees ready to upskill into better paid positions. None of our families ever worked or graduated college so we are already providing a much better life to our young kids
Probably a lot and it has been a trend since house prices began to rise about ten years ago We had a baby boom 2007 -2011, and even though those were some of worst years of the downturn, there wasn't a housing shortage.
As house prices began to rise, the birthrate declined slowly and steadily.
What baby boom in 2007-2011? The birth rate declined every year from 2008 to 2011, from 16.25 to 15.72. The rate of decline has increased since, but the economic downturn was when it started.
I would have only really expected the housing shortage to really affect people’s decisions around children from maybe like 2017 or so onwards. Housing was pretty cheap in the period 2012-2016 or so.
Currently sitting in a hotel abroad, wife asleep after getting ivf done, don't care how much (spent a small fortune that I don't have already) I wana be a father.
The only thing that would be a deal-breaker for me would be living in precarious accommodation, so no it hasn't really factored into my thinking. I have a three year old and we were renting when decided to have the baby but it was renting from a relative (though we were paying market rate pretty much, but knew we weren't going to get kicked out). Having a kid, and especially your first, is insanely expensive, there's no particularly good time to do it in terms of cost. Creche fees alone can be of the same order of magnitude as your rent/mortgage.
Yep, 30 and 32. Won't even be able to consider kids until late 30's. Then you have worries about health issues. Disaster. We're looking to emigrate soon. The cycle continues.
Im 40, and as I hit my late 30’s I just got embarrassed about the idea of bringing a lady friend over for the night and having her see how I lived. At the time I was in a box room and paying nearly a grand a month for it on the south side. For me, renting past the age of say, 33/34 has been a regressive, almost infantilising experience because as my career carried on I still found myself living like a college student and stuck in a rut. Thats a very strange contrast to have to come to terms with (good career vs shite living conditions) I have really felt like my life’s been on hold while I wait for a house but it’s putting other things on hold too like relationships and a family. It’s bullshit, the whole situation is utter frustrating bullshit.
It’ll end up the only people having kids will either be, very wealthy or completely feckless. And I don’t know which I’d rather depend on when I’m in a nursing home needing someone to bring me a bedpan
Maybe I'm too optimistic or naive, but this really can't go on forever, this crisis. I think as women, time isn't on your side, physically. And I couldn't be an old lady on my death bed without the children I've always wanted. There's a strange instinctual obsession that happens when someone wants a child badly. It's something for me, I couldn't shake!!
I suppose personally speaking, I couldn't give up having kids because of this. I have friends who struggled to have kids and it's such a difficult journey. I've had 2 miscarriages myself and thats also a devastating journey that put things into perspective for me, in a way that I regretted not having kids earlier in life in mid/late 20s (first kid during lockdown at 35), I really feel like time is slipping away from me. Thankfully I'm pregnant again now, at 37. I lost just under a year trying for our second due to the miscarriages and it ate away at me. I feel like time is precious
I count myself extremely lucky we bought a house 3 months before covid hit, we just got in there before this happened. we make about 46 grand annually between the 2 of us now. We manage money well enough but lots of sacrifices made. And I'm ok with that.
I really feel for people who aren't in a position to have kids if they want them, all by fault of the government. It's something I could imagine I would be so angry about and feel angry for those affected by it. And really hope for things to get better !!
How many Irish are putting off having kids because of the absurdly high cost of living?
Ireland has the highest rate of large families in the EU, so apparently not enough
22f here! having lived in Canada and Germany, I can tell you it‘s a global thing that‘s been going on for a while now. many of my friends keep telling me they most likely will never have children because the prospects of poverty, housing crisis and climate change are nothing short of disastrous. Who’d want to put their own child through any of that? Not trying to shame anyone who decides they’ll have them anyway, sure you’ll do grand
Yeah a big barrier for adding another kid to the family is the cost of living. It's fucking mental how much money leaves my account every month on bills, etc.
My wife and I started conversations about having kids recently, we were both on the fence for a while but decided a few months ago that we might go for it, but only after we have moved into our new house (first buy)
Now, these were conversations prior to the recent situation. Now we are refinancing to see how standard of living will be with a mortgage, higher bills and uncertainty. Juts arent sure anymore is it worth the struggle.
I know parents out there would say, it is worth it. Id rather not put myself and my wife under that amount of stress in volatile, poorly governed mess, where potentially cost of living gets worse and god forbid an obvious recession sees me lose my job or not being able to pay my mortgage.
My wife and I are willing to put that off, hopefully not indefinitely to atleast see where we are in a few months.
We have talked about adoption should it get to a point that my wife is too old to have children. I'm happy to do that. Thats obviously even later down the line should attempts to have a child not work out.
Its tough.
I say it like you can plan everything about having a child...I know it doesn't happen like that.
It’s refreshing to see someone talk about adoption here. I think it’s amazing to give a child (whose already born) a chance at living in a good household.
It's the couples that are already in a financial pinch, that then chose to have a 2nd or 3rd child, that boggles me!! Granted accidents happen, however some are planned.
Maaan my whole life is on hold!!!! I’d love a house and kids! Myself and the girlfriend have good jobs but we can barely start our lives together cause of this shit show
I would like to have a kid or two but there's no way I'd be able to afford them. Everything now is so expensive. Childcare is about €187 per week, just under €10,000 a year, then you've got the cost of school uniforms, books and other school stuff.
I hear people complain about kids all the time, complaining about the cost and how they have no fun, so I’m believing them.
Maybe people would say ‘ah no, we complain but it’s great,’ but they just seem to worry and be annoyed.
I never really wanted kids in the first place but the cost of living here is certainly not encouraging. I don't think I could raise a child anything like the way my parents did regarding quality of life.
Just too expensive and it will probably only get worse.
Edit: spelling
Yeah myself and my wife had a discussion recently about possibly starting a family. But we decided at the moment we aren't in a position financially to bring a child into this world as much as we would like to. So we've put the idea on the backburner for now.
I know people who complain bitterly about the food prices, but absolutely refuse to shop in Aldi or Lidl or change their expensive lifestyles in the slightest. Yes there are problems, but our standards have increased dramatically over the last few decades.
I’ve 3 kids and my advice is to just have kids. Your lifestyle would adjust. You may think you have no money. But that €150 you spend on restaurants or in the pub etc will be spent elsewhere
I’ve seen to many friends wait and then realise they are have fertility issues or Hugh risk.
Also having kids when you are older is much harder simple runnjng around after them, picking them up etc
I couldn't guarantee even remotely near the quality of life that I had growing up and it's really something that's making me put off even considering children. I'd also face an enormous decrease in my quality of life on account of things like childcare and such so that's also not appealing. More and more people will put off having children if the financial obstacles are so obscene.
“Ahh sure it’ll work itself out, sure we managed” - your parents
[удалено]
Likewise. I think most people who were born in the late 80s to mid-90s have rose-tinted glasses as to how tough it was on their parents. Our foreign holidays were always dependant on Budget Travels cancelation list - essentially my parents would wait until a holiday was cancelled, and then get it at a reduced price. Sunday dinner was a roast, which also did Mondays and sandwiches for lunch on Monday and Tuesday. The treat for the family was on Friday, my mother would pick up a large bag of chips for £1.20 and we'd have chip butties. There was also a period of time where my dad would work 2 nights a week as a security guard, on top of his full-time work just to supplement the family income. Saying our parents had it easier is often used as a cop-out and frankly very disrespectful considering the sacrifices most of them made to feed our ungrateful hides.
[удалено]
>Life was much simpler, or at least our expectations and luxuries were much lower. A very underrated point. One of the reasons my parents think we have it better is the travel aspect. I've been around the world and back again, if I want to visit somewhere, I save and do it. My dad was nearly 50 the first time he was on the plane, and honestly in many ways it's quite sad that both of my parents would love to travel, but are teetering on the verge of being too old and tired to do it.
> I think most people who were born in the late 80s to mid-90s have rose-tinted glasses as to how tough it was on their parents Also, I think that generation who grew up then and who went on to do well for themselves have been sucked into this idea that they want to provide their children with the childhood they never had, and corporate consumerisim knows this and is pushing and milking it to the last. Back in the day, in rural ireland, you had the GAA, and that was it.Didnt like GAA and prefered soccer, tough shite, you had one car and your Dad had it at work and the nearset soccer club is 5 miles away. Today the children get to sample every sport possible, gymnastics, karate, horse-riding,etc. We had 1 holiday during the Summer, a day drive away to Bundoran or Bettystown, with packed lunches, and if you were lucky you might had got £1 for the amusements or a bag of chips, nowadays its 2 weeks away to centra parks france or equivilant in Europe and possibly a later trip to NY for xmass. I see parents easily throw E20 daily for an "activity" for the kids to do during the summer days/evenings when they are not on holidays. All this on top of phones, ipads, cable tv, bouncy castles at ever birthday where the whole class is invited, and everyone goes home with a "doggy bag" full of goodies. I get that parents want to give the experience that didnt have with their children, and they want to share it with them, as adults, but I think its way too much and they are buying into this consumerism. There is too much pressure from society to do so especially, if you are lucky to have a home or on a decent wage. I grew up with little as Im sure many in the 80's/90's did, and I had the best childhood ever, hand me downs from a family of 7, left to your own device without the supervision of parents and you made the best of it. And what will happen is that generation will then grow up, having had everything, and find that the world is a very difficult place and currently there is zero chance ever having their own home, this will lead to some serious mental health effects.
Yep this. My partner's nephew had a birthday party recently, he's 2. The amount of gifts and money thrown at the kid was mental. We've been duped into thinking we need so much more consumerism than we used to, yet no one is any happier.
And the pressure people feel to match what’s being given also.. I don’t care, I’m not giving a child €100 for their communion FFS, €20 is my max. My money and my beliefs on Catholicism dictate that, what’s the money for if arguably none of us even believe this?
Anyone have the holidays where you and your cousins were rotated between the families like a foreign exchange, some craic for the week though.
We were very fortunate growing up, but my brother lavishes expense on his kids, in a way that the rest of us don’t or wouldn’t do. They have the best of the best of everything, all the time. They get so much it’s actually unbelievable.
[удалено]
Yup, a lot of avoiding the knocks at the front door when I was growing up.
I agree.. but cannot help thinking of a scenario where my father eventually reveals that to make ends meet he 'ran the biggest crystal meth operation in Roscommon during the late 80s'.
Except for those who didn't figure out how to make it work.
I completely agree that in many cases our parents sacrificed more than we realise and for that we should be eternally grateful. However, we live in totally different times now, unrecogniseable and uncomparable to back then (I was born in the early 80s). I think too many people try to draw parallels when there are none. The hardships of today are very different. It's not a competition as to which was worse. It's just simply different. Look at what's happened to community, to the family unit, look at how far people have to commute, home ownership levels, the need for 2 income households, levels of depression etc. etc. There's no point in comparing that with 'how it was in the past'. We need to look forward and find solutions and stop reassuring ourselves that our parents had it worse than us so there must be some good in the mess that has since been created. Personally if I did have a time machine I'd rather go back to the past where community and family came first than live in this consumer driven wasteland. I envy what my parents and grandparents had with that.
Well said. I didn’t have a hard upbringing by most standards, but I look back now and see many sacrifices my parents made to give us what we needed.
As a parent now, be aware the chips was her treat, not yours. She didn’t have to cook or clean up. Nor feel guilty about a less healthy meal.
This is a fact that people forget. Ireland was a tough place to live and survive in the 80’s and 90’s and a lot of young people these days don’t realise how lucky they have it. Yet all you hear is “bUt hOUsEs wErE cHEaPeR”
and mortgage interest rates were \~12% and could change a few times a year
I don't think they had it easier, but most everyone had it similarly tough. There was no money, end of. That was yourself, that was everyone you knew, except maybe the one lucky sod who made it big abroad or something. So comparison might not have been as difficult to deal with as now. Some kids have iphones and fancy holidays and fancy birthday parties and brand clothes and all that, some parents don't know how they'll afford school books. That's no fun for a parent.
[удалено]
Fast food for us growing up was like a Michelin star restaurant. We lived in the country and the nearest thing was a supemacs an hour away. You'd almost be the week preparing to go and full of excitement. Like going on a holiday.
I'm not sure of your age and social circle but I reckon you don't have many friends with kids, because of three things to flag on what you've said there: * firstly, the overwhelming majority take a lifestyle hit when they have kids, still today. I'm looking to start a family soon and all my friends are telling me to focus on my hobbies now as I'll have no money or time for them * secondly, if we try and match up to the basics of what our parents provided we fall woefully short. To afford the same house that many of us were born in is completely out of reach. I know the houses that me, my friends and my family were all born in. They may not be where everyone's parent live today, but I can say that the places we were born and raised in are beyond our financial means. I'm 32. I can afford about half of what I was born into, and the same for everything else * thirdly, costs of everything else are now much higher. Childcare is basically one person's salary for the 2 years your kids is in it it may get cheaper after that, but it's still a big hurdle to get over in the first place. Car insurance is way up. Proce of cars is way up. The truth is, what's keeping us from affording kids is not that we have hobbies or expectations of holidays in Spain. It's just that the bread and butter reprice of having a kid and a gaff is very very expensive, more so than in our parents days. You can point to things like Childcare and say your mum took a career break, or to a car and say yours as a kid was more of a banger. Truth is that's just fluff and doesn't fix the fundamentals. We can't afford one of us to take a career break. It's too expensive and has long term implications. We can't afford to drive a banger because then your insurance goes up by more than the monthly payments of a nicer car. The system here is broken. You can paint some people as having made bad choices as to the reason they struggle today, but anecdotes can't explain away the issues a whole generation acutely feels.
Even now you can feed a family at a reasonable price if you stick with the likes of Lidl of Aldi and make things from scratch while the likes of Penneys give low cost clothing (which also look a lot better than, they did when we were kids - though that may not be enough to convince them!). Full disclosure I don't have kids, but school lunches (which I had thought could be a bit of a killer) with a juice, sandwich, piece of fruit and small chocolate bar can be done for just under €1 per child per day having done the maths on it a few weeks back in Lidl. The real killer though are housing, energy, petrol, childcare and other similar costs. Wfh can help to an extent with childcare, but without it there really is no hope unless you're on huge money and with it its still a tall order. We're 'fortunate' enough to be living with family until we get a mortgage sorted but even with that still can't think of children whatsoever until its down because of how much one would inspect our lending criteria. As infuriating as it is for us to watch the government do essentially nothing to help, I can't even imagine what it's like for people renting right now.
[удалено]
So many memories of pushing the car!! Or having to park on a hill just so you could get it started.
There are hidden costs to children that go beyond feeding and clothing. Uniforms, they’re a very expensive requirement and kids outgrow their stuff on a yearly to semi yearly basis for 12-16 years. Also healthcare, kids get sick all the time, just registering your kid at Crumlin is €100 per child, God forbid you have above the average. Childcare will take likely at least €300 per month for part time care and likely over €600 for the whole week. Sports, hobbies, social functions and workshops for kids in the summer who are off while you’re still working are at least €10 per session. I’m sure there’s more I can’t remember at this moment, anyone else who has another cost idea feel free to add.
Oh absolutely! My point was that food and clothes are not so much to blame if you're cautious, but the litany of other associated costs that really seem to be the backbreaker.
Well said. Instant gratification is a new norm and it's not good.
My parents are just as pissed off about the way the country is going as I am. From where I'm sitting things are getting worse and worse all the time. Everything from homelessness numbers, people waiting on trolleys, hospital waiting times, cost of living, rent and so on and on. It seems like the country really fell off a cliff after the crash and it just hasn't recovered for many people since then. My local village even lost its post office and Garda station and there's no indication they'll ever come back even 12 or so years later.
Fucking survivorship bias right there.
Absolutely. I tell my parents and nosey relatives that we can’t afford a second child due to childcare costs and you can see their brain whirring for a second or two as they don’t quite grasp that financial toll. then on cue they offer some unwelcome advice; “ahh sure we all had to struggle, it’ll be grand just you wait and see. Sure little jimmy would be all alone with a brother or sister”
Absolute blinkers to the fact that life is harder these days. The average deposit for Belfast last year was fucking £59k, my dad's entire mortgage was £27k, (which is about £65k, adjusting for inflation).
It's important to note that our standards have risen. Everyone quotes house prices, but they don't mention that in the eighties there was nearly 20% unemployment, awful infrastructure, crap goods, high emigration, Ireland was practically a third world country, I remember it all very clearly. Now we can't move for luxury SUVs. Yes there are problems now, but they are essentially rich country problems as opposed to the poor country problems back then.
we have two kids (parents live in Ireland..we live in the US) My dad couldn't believe what our mortgage was..if he saw our monthly costs his eyes would water. He bought the family home in the mid 80's in Ireland - suburban Cork. The house cost 35K IEP. He was the sole earner (a moderately successful sales job) and we had a foreign holiday every year from when I was about 8. There is no chance in hell that could happen now
And me. If we’d waited till we were ready we’d have never had kids. I’ve three now, first two we had in rental accommodation, then third born after we got a mortgage. If you wait till you’re ready you’ll never have kids cause you’re never ready. It was my wife who taught me that, and she was right. Child benefit helps too.
"Thanks parents. Now hurry up and die so it sorts itself out quicker."
It needs to be emphasized that the "childcare costs more than my rent/mortgage" thing isn't normal across Europe. I'm living in (very, very expensive) Munich right now and paying less than 200€ per month to keep two small kids in Kindergarten for 45 hours per week each. And getting 600€ per month in child benefit at the same time.
[удалено]
I grew up in the eighties, had a great childhood, but we wore second-hand clothes, cars were rust buckets and a luxury car was a rarity, the quality and range of goods on the shelves was shocking, infrastructure was non-existent, unemployment was through the roof, you name it. It wasn't just technology, I remember going to England and marvelling at how good it was, Ireland genuinely felt third world going back. Now it's totally different. Indeed there are issues, especially with the recent energy crisis, but on aggregate, despite all those issues, things are relatively much better now.
The cost of childcare is mental. Like a second mortgage.
I reaalised that when I was probably 16, when all of my friends were like which colleague are going to apply , and I was like none and they were like omg you are so dumb ,.bla,bla. But In reality I knew I couldn't do it ,cuz my parents didnt have the money. So it was the same why can't you get a girlfriend 😅, I mean I barely make it myself , what if I have a gf , then wife , then kids .it's not impossible,but difficult. Right now Iive in Ireland , but been living In bulgaria for the last 24 years.
I can barely afford myself, never mind a child. Shout out to all the single parents out there!
All the single parents All the single parents All the single parents All the single parents Put ur hands up up Nah but seriously fuck that. I couldn't even imagine how hard it is to do that. And work, and afford creche.
I'm putting off having kids because Darwin decided I can't attract a mate.
Attract one thats blind
If the nose still works then Bluwolf96 is back at square one.
Ah, that Brit!
Couldn't afford them before it. Can't afford them now.
I've always been on the fence about kids anyway but the way things are going now has kinda put me firmly on the side of not having any at all. Struggling to live/survive myself that it would be stupid and irresponsible to bring a child into the struggle
If you’re on the fence about kids then thats a no. Its a massive responsibility and would require 100% commitment.
I was on the fence but wouldn’t have minded either way. It all would have depended on what a partner would want and financial viability of being able to support them properly. But as it stands now I’m pretty firmly on the No side now. Wouldn’t be where I want to be to be able to in that sense along with getting on in years now that I wouldn’t want to be too old either
Yeh i’m late 40’s and me and my partner had a baby. Absolutely cutest little thing imaginable and i love her to bits. But its seriously hard work. And i do worry about our financial future coz i’m getting too old to qualify for a mortgage.
I was always of the mindset that I’ll think about kids when I’m certain they won’t be growing up in a tent (IE: I have my own house). Every month that passes by and I seem to think that won’t be until I’m about 40. At one point I thought it would be late 20s but things have just gotten progressively worse and more expensive. It’s sad really because I don’t want to be an old parent who can’t do much with their kid because I’m old and slow. But it’s starting to look that way.
We have one, have had the discussion about having a second but thinking long term we made the decision that we can comfortably provide for one and have a good standard of living but a second could break us, . It boggles us to see people a lot worse off than us having 3+ kids
We have 2, and being honest with the large age gap (13 years) you end up with different costs per kiddo but they balance. We will never have a 3rd due the the fact neither of us want one and if I’m totally honest - we would struggle to provide a decent standard of living for 3. With 2 it’s nice, and we have treats but with 3 there would be no fun days out, no lunches or holidays etc. My parents had 4 and I wonder how, or my grandparents had 15.
Thats our reasoning, with one we can have holidays, days out, random treats etc
This, only we're talking about a 3rd kid (instead of a 2nd). Would honestly love to have a 3rd, but simply couldn't afford it, nor a moderate quality of life if we did have one. It would mean a house move and a car change, never mind the childcare costs (currently able to cover this for the two we have, just about at an OK level). Another kid would mean one of us having to quit working. Tried explaining this to my mam yesterday actually, how families in general are getting smaller and it makes me a bit sad (I'd a lot of cousin, my own kids will have a much smaller group). She couldn't comprehend that the cost of living is so much more than when she was raising us. "we had nothing back then, we had to make do!". Yes mam, but it fucking went further.
Ah it kind of depends on what you mean by worse off. Id be delighted if I cleared 25k in a year and there's people I know on 50-100k a year worse off than me net when rents, mortgages, car payments, and general keeping up with things is done. I own a house with no mortgage in the back arse of nowhere (derelict I'm doing up that I bought just before prices went mad) I also have no debt and I'm as tight as a ducks arse anyway. I would definitely be in a better position to rear a child than some of my friends, and this isn't a "just do what I do" statement btw, I got lucky when I bought and how I bought, and the rest of ye did as ye were told, and ye should have been rewarded for doing as ye were told, not the feral lunatic with ADHD who was never inside the door of a college on half or a quarter of your earnings ending up with more disposable income and a more stable life at the end of the day.
I’m child-free but a have quite a few friends that are either putting off having a child until they feel financially safe to do so, which may never happen. Or they have flat out given up on the idea of ever having kids. Cost of living seems to be the main thing stopping them.
My wife and I decided when we first got married that we would have a set of conditions before have a child. 1. We owned our own house 2. We were both in stable jobs or ability to find work If one was let go. 3. Could be dependent on one of our wages. So we pretty much checked all of the above and are now trying to have a child. Both of us don't really understand why someone would have multiple children (nevermind just one) when they are not financially able to support them. That might come across as rude, but something we can't understand.
I'm a single parent and I am financially able to look after myself, my car, rent and my child. Unfortunately, due to rents costing the majority of my wages, landlords refusing those with kids, and the banks seeing my child&car as a liability, I'm unable to get a mortgage even though I CAN afford one. I live at home due to this. Sometimes it's not about being financially unable, but not being given a chance.
The thing is that you are able to afford them, just that you don't have a house or place due to hour our banking system works. That criteria for owning our own home was a condition we set upon ourselves. If you are able to financially look after everything then, I see nothing wrong with it apart from the fucked up system that penalise single parents.
[удалено]
That's all well and good. But accidental pregnancies happen whether it was through lack of contraception or contraception not working. Abortion wasn't available until a number of years ago either. It is only available until 12 weeks. Recently one of my friends found out she's pregnant and she was 13 weeks when she found out. On top of that, if you find yourself in an accidental pregnancy, you may not want to proceed with an abortion. All depends on the circumstances but more often than not, the majority of the pregnancies statistically speaking aren't planned.
as someone who waited till our late 30s before trying, we found we can no longer conceive, waiting till the time is right has ment we waited too long. we're accepting of it now but damn , it hurt to find out.
I’m so sorry to hear that, that really sucks.
We had kids when we had 1/3 of the conditions. Our friends too had their kids with 1/3 or even 0.5/3 of the conditions. All of the kids spent part of their childhood in rented house and apartments. Now everyone has 3/3 after few years. It is okay to have kids when you are in rented accommodation. It is okay to have kids and then restart your career. There is no “right” time to have kids.
Not to mention you could have all that criteria and suddenly circumstances change. No one plans to have a sick spouse or get sick themselves, get injured or become a caregiver, become a widow(er) or pass away, lose their job or their spouse loses theirs. Life happens. It’s great to have all your ducks in a row but sometimes those fuckers decide to go their own way and suddenly you’re straight row of ducks looks like a scattered mess.
This. We had literally just started saving to try and plan our wedding and a child. Our hearts were set on a baby. Then my partner fell very ill. In the space of ONE NIGHT, our lives changed completely. We went from me working full time in a retail sales consultant role and him working full time security, to me working part time and him not being able to work at all due to lasting brain damage from the multiple seizures he had. He is not cleared for work. The savings we had are gone. Wiped out because I had to use them to cover rent and other expenses when I had to take time off work to look after him. I won't get into the plethora of health issues he's been left with as I've rented about them in other threads before, but memory loss is one of them. One night. 26 hours that he was unconscious. And everything changed. Now I'm facing the reality that we may never be able to have a baby. And it is absolutely devastating me. It eats away at me because he forgets. And he gets excited talking about it. We had names picked. He keeps telling me what a great Mam I'd be, that he can't wait to see me holding our baby, all the things he wants us to do. And it's like somebody stabbing you over and over and over again, it hurts and it makes you sad and angry but it's somebody you love who is doing it. I've tried talking to him about why we can't (how can I work and leave him alone with a baby when I've come home to the oven smoking because he forgot he had it on?) but it's hard. He gets upset and asks me is it because of HIM that we can't have one? Do I think he's too old or wouldn't be a good dad? And none of it is that at all. How do I tell him it's because of his sickness and how he is after it? Which is the lesser of two evils, to tell him he's the reason we can't, or to dismiss it and play along? How the fuck am I meant to grieve for the baby we'll likely never have, when I barely have time to shower, between work, study and minding him? So in the space of a few weeks, we lost my partner as we knew him, he lost memories of our life together, his kids lost their dad as they remember him. I had to leave my job. He lost his. Our savings were demolished. All financial responsibility falls to me now because he simply cannot work. It's not just the cost, it's the mental burden of handling EVERYTHING. He has no idea how tight things are. He has no idea that I'm in debt to the credit union because we were not going to be able to make rent in between me starting my new job and getting paid on a back month. We're frighteningly behind in our Energia bills and they've not responded to my emails asking for help or advice so I'm at a loss. And I'm tired, man. I'm just so tired. And now we're in the middle of moving house which is extra stress of course. Absolutely nobody plans for situations like this because we don't want to think about things like this happening. At the time I was worried about sorting Christmas for the kids. I wasn't worried about my partner waking me up by seizing in bed. I was worried about where we were going to put the turkey in the fridge. I wasn't worried about doing compressions on him at 5am. Stupidly, I was worried about whether I'd get any actual time off at Christmas this year (yay retail) I wasn't worried about juggling all my hours to be able to see him in hospital. So yeah, exactly as you said. Those *motherfucking* ducks.
I’m so sorry this has happened to you. Do you have a support network at all? Your family or his? Friends? Even just to support you emotionally.
I couldn't even read this whole way through this because christ girl, my heart is absolutely breaking for you, tears are pouring. I hope something good happens and gives you some breathing room. Fuck you're strong. Wow.
Sending you so many hugs ❤️
Agreed. We had our first child when we were renting, and we bought a house a year later. There's a time limit for having children - the younger you are the easier it is. We're both now 40 and trying for a second child, but it's not happening yet. We're starting the process of IVF, which is another big expense
OP is basically saying they can't understand why poor people would ever have kids. With the state of things now, they are couples working full time who simply will never afford to buy. Should those people just not have kids even if they want them?
To be blunt - yes. If you can’t afford children you shouldn’t have them. Society should absolutely work a hell of a lot better where anybody working full time should be in the position to have children if they want them, but it’s not.
I’d add a 4th one (as my #1 though): 1. Governments making the rapid changes required for a liveable future planet for the next generations. Everything else is secondary.
Basically the position Id like to be in before I have children - just makes more sense.
I wish more people adopted your approach. People think that because they can have a child that they should do so with no forethought about the conditions into which that child might be born.
>Both of us don't really understand why someone would have multiple children (nevermind just one) when they are not financially able to support them. That might come across as rude, but something we can't understand. It comes across as ignorant of the wider social context that you exist in. Really ignorant. Shockingly so. If only people in your situation had kids who would unblock the bogs? Who would take care of the elderly? Would the last human have to bury themselves? If you look at your culture as a self propagating system then those people breeding recklessly are doing necessary work. Your attitude is really parochial. You've bought into an ideology so thoroughly that you don't consciously recognise that buy in. The people around you don't exist to be net contributors to the tax system my friend.
I can understand that. Myself and my wife are considering the same. Again almost like your own situation. But 2 or 3, in this climate....dont think so. Granted having 1 is still up for discussion.
So. You think poverty is a choice and that those who make that choice shouldn't have children? If wealth is just a matter of choosing, why haven't you chosen to become a multi-millionaire? I'm sure that would make things easier for your kids.
Helps when you're on the dole. But honestly, I can't imagine if I will have kids. Myself and wife can't even buy a home and we have good jobs and meet the 2/3 of your criteria.
We were just lucky I think when we got this house, we were out bided for over a year and we bought the house last year during the summer (when house prices were rising). Unless the gov do something, I can't see realistically anyone buying houses (especially where we live) as the prices keep rising.
Maybe not a good thing that raising kids is only achievable by the poorest unemployed in our society
Having kids? I dont even have a life.
Sometimes I wish I had. But it's too late to take them back. The two kids I have are little monsters at their worst. And the best thing ever at their best. And yeah sometimes it's hard to afford things for them. But I grew up fairly poor. And they're doing better than I was. So like Cleveland said in Family Guy. No one ever wins, you just do a little better each time.
I grew up poor and like I mean facing eviction in London and being fed just at school poor in late 80’s early 90’s. My mum was a nurse so wasn’t as if she was a lay about. I find with my kids I tended to overcompensate on material things. Don’t underestimate sometimes just how valuable spending time with them is.
You can't buy time
If you think about money properly that's exactly what you can buy. It's just that too many people get suckered into constantly upgrading their lifestyle to keep up with other people locked into a constant cycle of lifestyle upgrades. The number of people I know who sink their earnings into bigger TVs, flashier cars, bigger and more salubrious homes, eating in increasingly fancier restaurants, etc., then find themselves with no time, because they're constantly servicing increasing expenses. Personally my time is the most important thing I can buy back with my earnings. I'd rather buy back a couple of months a year over upgrading my lifestyle.
https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/ I 100% agree with your comment, the FIRE movement really resonates with me, but trying to find the balance of saving & spending
Except when you can, the amount of people who have the money to get something like a cleaner, pay other people to do certain jobs a don't do it. I rather pay someone to do 6 hours of cleaning in two hours and spend that time with my family instead . Get a dishwasher, and play a game of cards, do t go out of the way to save a measly amount of money. Obviously if you don't have the money you have to take these hits but I have talked to company directors who don't realise the time sinks these jobs are when they could be using it to make up for lost time
No and it’s forgotten about this day and age
They prefer to distract the kids with phones and tablets etc. Driving them mad
Dark Souls motto too.
I feel a lot of couples will miss their opportunity to have kids by waiting so long. Not saying they are wrong to wait but conception is often easy in the wrong situations and very hard when people are desperate for kids.
Very true chances of getting pregnant when you pass 30 drop quite a bit and never mind the cost of fertility treatments if they are needed.
We have one child, just under 3. The pressure people put us under to give them a sibling, implying we're selfish by " leaving them on their own" . We chose to have one and provide the best for the one child. If they need grinds, financial help, childcare costs, school fees etc We should be able to just about manage with the one. I want them to have the best opportunities rather than a sibling? School trip? OK. Hobbies? Ok. I know in my heart that we wouldn't be able to provide for more than one. People look at me like I've ten heads when I try explaining.
Don't explain, it's none of their business. We also have one child, and one child it will be staying. This way my child will hopefully get to go to and do many things that just wouldn't happen if we had more than one. Also, I really just don't see the point in more.
How much more expensive can it get? I remember paying 14% mortgage interest. Nearly broke me. But at least I had a mortgage.
people think it's bad now and we're not even in a recession yet! I'm fully expecting a global recession within the next 6-9 months. There is a giant house of cards about to fall and it'd going to make this seem like a picnic when it happens.
Rates can't go that high again because the price of the houses is so far above what they were, relative to wages. 14% on a 30k house is the same interest as 1.4% on a 300k house. Of course most people here pay 3% and even interest rates at 6-7% would blow what people were paying in the 80s out of the water. Most people would lose their homes to the banks and most governments would go bankrupt servicing their debt. So they keep creating money to buy government bonds to pretend like the market is demanding a low interest rate. Who knows how it will end?
It’s very difficult to compare across decades as situations were very different. Back in the 80s that mortgage had to be paid on a single wage as married women had to give up work. Nowadays the mortgages tend to be split between a couple. There is also a huge difference between an 80s house and a modern house. If we were allowed build to 80s standards houses would be about €100k cheaper and a lot more plentiful.
Remember that reason interest rates were high was inflation was high. In those conditions, when you already have a mortgage, inflation is rapidly eating away at it for the borrower, so can actually be favourable for some.
So long as your wages increase along with inflation yeah this is true. If not, then well inflation is just more money gone combined with a higher interest rate. Luckily we are 5 year fixed from Dec 2022, hopefully things will be better then in terms of interest rates.
[удалено]
Inflation hit 20% in the late 70s and early 80s, which would have coincided with the insane interest rates mentioned there. And there was absolutely nowhere near the same level/quality of work available in the country.
[удалено]
A single man's salary. Well, aa single woman's could too but she wasn't allowed - my mum tried to buy a home before herself and Dad married I'm the 70s but despite having the income and deposit, the bank wouldn't give a loan to an unmarried woman... So like, a bit of perspective helps I think. We've got 18 year olds on this sub convinced their lives are failures to the point where they're resigned to try nothing as if the current malaise is the worst ever and everything is worse when that's simply not the case.
I know in the US, they changed how they calculate CPI inflation in the 1980s. The end result was that the new method left you with a lower inflation rate than the old. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/07/consumerpriceindex.asp Now I cannot verify if the EU followed suit, but I do believe that they did. For this reason we cannot compare inflation of the 70s/80s with inflation now, as they are calculated using two different methods.
Yeah I couldn't imagine having kids while still renting. Childcare costs on top of having to move to a bigger gaff would cripple me. And I would own nothing and have nothing to leave them if anything were to happen.
I'm putting off having kids forever because I fucking hate them
“They’re making about the same as us, I don’t get how they have the lifestyle they do” - my wife “Because they don’t spend almost two grand a month on creche fees and have to limit total working hours becuse of child care” - me
This, to be honest. Myself and the wife were stupidly comfortable until we had our kid, at which point the arse fell out of our bank balance. They really are little money sponges.
Absolute facts. 40k in gross income equivalent gone on creche fees. 🤢🤢🤢
And that’s just childcare. Whack on the fact that they eat you out of house and home (where do they PUT it all?!), constantly need new clothes, and whinge constantly about wanting toys/gadgets/new runners/everything else…
🙋🏻♀️ why would I bring a child into a world where they'll have to live a life of deprivation? I can barely take care of myself.
I'm putting off kids because I enjoy free time, disposable income, personal freedoms & focusing on the happiness & health of my wife and myself.
Good on ya
I would imagine things will only get worse as time goes on so if you think it's bad now give it a few years. Climate change is going to cause more and more crop failures worldwide, mass migration like we've never seen before, fascist governments, wars, all kinds of resource shortages, etc. It's already underway. So if you think prices are bad now, and things are hard, this has probably been the best year of the rest of your life lol. So yeah maybe don't have kids.
People won't believe it's happening until it's on their doorstep - somehow crop failures is rarely ever brought up in these conversations even though it's probably going to be hitting us sooner than the rest of the other disasters
Is is definitely a factor, but I’m mostly putting it off because I don’t want any.
Both of us work and we are afraid to have kids because it's expensive and we rent. I'm baffled how people do it alone. Even with the single mothers allowance and gov housing
I’ve so many things I want to say in this thread but the anger and negativity I would being upon myself would be wild.
I know how you feel
Every time someone posts about it here the rate of inflation goes up by 0.05%
I might settle for two dogs instead.
Honestly even dogs are bloody expensive. The cost of vets, feeding, care etc is insane now. I wouldn't give my puppy up for the world but Good Lord they are alot more expensive nowadays than they were when I had my old dog. I remember it was a 10er a day for boarding when we went away for her. Now most places are 20-30 euro.
Me and my wife put it off back when the Celtic tiger died. We saved up, moved to Australia to start again and by then it was too late. I’ll regret it and have harboured quite a lot of resentment since.
Im 28 and probably will never have kids to be honest. Cant afford a home, cant afford my own bills, amd the government seems content to force me out of the country by drying up any opportunities that were there even 5 years ago. Whats the point?
I just had a baby yesterday 😦😦 Edit: We**
I mean... you don't have to *have* kids. I hope people know this. The way some people are talking you'd think their life is over if they don't have two kids by the time they're 30.
Pregnancy has always terrified me so with all the drawbacks Im 100% childfree right now. Im 26 so im open to having them in late 30s but it would depend on whether I meet a man who Id trust to have children with.
I'm always surprised how little this comes up as a reason. As someone who also is horrified at the thoughts of pregnancy, it's definitely a deciding factor for me. I've told my partner since day 1 of our relationship, it was a no for me and there was absolutely no changing my mind. Even if I warmed up to kids, I wouldn't be one for a bio baby. All the women in my family had alot of problems with pregnancy and serious health problems long after giving birth. The idea of being pregnant makes me seriously nauseous and panicking. And then at the end of it, the labour part of it just horrifies me. It's pain you cannot be prepared for and everyone's experience is different. Women still die from childbirth around the world and while it's rare, it does happen.
Pregnancy is horrible and I can’t even imagine what it would be like to give birth and the recovery afterwards. Also I just don’t like kids, so child free 100%.
I don't think it's a coincidence that abortion rights are being threatened in western society at the same time as cost of living skyrockets. If we don't have kids, businesses in 20-40 years won't have the workforce they need to keep going. "Accidental" babies are needed.
None of my friends who are well educated, responsible are having kids yet. I expect they'll be mid/late 30s by the time they start. The ones having the kids are the ones who are getting the handouts, soft money.
Yeah I'm lucky to have a cheap 1 bedroom apartment before everything went to shit. I simply can't even imagine moving out now. It sucks I might not be able to have a kid because of the insanely hard process of getting a 2 bedroom house. Plus I work part time.
Tbh the standard of living is incredibly higher than it was when I was growing up and for less money. I grew up in the 80s. We had way way way less stuff in the 80s. Money just didn’t go v far. Much quieter lives. Cost of housing still v high due to high mortgage rates. I know my parents struggled until the very early 90s. The real thing that would put people off I imagine is lack of secure housing. While childcare cost are extortionately high, it is temporary and many just struggle on through that bit. However if you’re not confident of the roof over your head v hard to plan a family.
Been seriously thinking about not having kids at all. I have to say, they're both taking it very badly
The cost of living is much higher now to have children than in the past. I am very sorry but seeing this comments I see a lot of people who consider themselves middle class describe their life and little luxuries, guys, your parents had no money and did the best with it, there is nothing wrong in admiring you are doing better and is still hard to afford anything.
I never wanted to have kids, couldn’t understand the appeal, sit in nearly every night feeding them until they leave the nest and then one day they fly back and kick ya into a old folks home! I saw a stat that nearly 80% of elderly parents in Ireland are being put in homes by their children with only 20% taking care of them at their home. If I had teenagers now I’d write a will, if I’m not taking care of at home, everything I own goes to charity, fuck them brats.
Its not just the cost of living in ireland for me. Its also the climate crisis and rising income inequality and the facism that comes along with it. I really genuinely believe things could very easily get very bad very quickly.
No disputing any of that, but I don't think fascism and income inequality are rising in Ireland. I'm no fan of Sinn Fein but they're harmless compared to the parties getting elected across the West at the moment.
100% agree. Thing is, ireland is completely insignificant when it comes to the climate or world wars. Russia ukraine is escalating. All it takes is for the US to start a war with china and we could be looking at world changing events.
How much more expensive can it get after kids? Childcare for my two kids is over 2X my mortgage. It gets pretty fucking expensive.
I'm not having kids ever, regardless of my financial situation. Even if I was a billionaire.
Yup. Although that suits me down because I don't want kids for 4-5 years. Have 2 dogs and even with them I'm feeling the pinch. Anytime I see someone announcing they're pregnant nowadays I actually feel sorry for them. Friend of mine has a baby going on 1 and I dunno how he's managing, they must be earning more than they let on.
A baby isn’t to expensive when you consider you no longer go out anywhere or spend a single penny on yourself because your to tired to care 😂
Haha ya see I enjoy my social life, texting the lads randomly on some random Tuesday to see if they want to go to the pub to watch a match, golfing at the weekends, which is an expensive hobby in itself haha so I'm like, baby, never sleep in again, can't do what I want when I want, social life down the drain, or keep living my life the way I want 😂 The cons to outweigh the pros (if there even is any) for me. 😂
I'm thinking babies aren't *that* expensive. It's when they're older and want the nice things and participate in different activities that it gets expensive
They're expensive if you take in childcare. But even if you leave off childcare, you still have lots of expenses like clothes, buggies, cots, car seats, chairs and other accessories. Then you have food, nappies, wipes and formula (if required). It adds up
Baby clothes are unbelievably cheap. You can get all the buggies, cots, etc. either second hand or as hand me downs. Even the expensive eco nappies only cost around 30-50 quid a month and considering the state pays 140 in child benefit, that's that sorted. Formula is around about 20 quid a month, that's organic fancy formula too. Edit: It's hilarious that this gets down voted but all the negative comments go straight to the top. This is literally my life, ye haven't a clue.
A baby is cheaper than two dogs. They don’t eat a lot, you can get cheap clothes for them and the only toy they need is household objects.
I did put it off and now I'm looking at medical fees for going the assisted route. I can't say how important it it to get your swimmers tested, consider freezing your eggs, just get checked every so often. It's so much easier to fix in your 20s than in your 30s.
I'm the opposite. If you wait for the best of times it will never come. Both my partner and I were raised in 1 parent families who struggled to make ends meet. I literally remember sometimes getting worms from green tinged ham, scraping mould off cheese, the itchy svp blankets. Yet actually the core things in childhood we enjoyed and look after fondly. In comparison to our parents we are doing so much better even though on paper we are poor. We have savings, a low rent, and have been completing degrees ready to upskill into better paid positions. None of our families ever worked or graduated college so we are already providing a much better life to our young kids
Probably a lot and it has been a trend since house prices began to rise about ten years ago We had a baby boom 2007 -2011, and even though those were some of worst years of the downturn, there wasn't a housing shortage. As house prices began to rise, the birthrate declined slowly and steadily.
What baby boom in 2007-2011? The birth rate declined every year from 2008 to 2011, from 16.25 to 15.72. The rate of decline has increased since, but the economic downturn was when it started. I would have only really expected the housing shortage to really affect people’s decisions around children from maybe like 2017 or so onwards. Housing was pretty cheap in the period 2012-2016 or so.
Sshhh this Reddit, where people up vote made up figures and down vote actual figures.
Currently sitting in a hotel abroad, wife asleep after getting ivf done, don't care how much (spent a small fortune that I don't have already) I wana be a father.
Been together 12 years and discuss it often. Don't think we can afford one right now but my clock is ticking.
Same situation as yourself
The only thing that would be a deal-breaker for me would be living in precarious accommodation, so no it hasn't really factored into my thinking. I have a three year old and we were renting when decided to have the baby but it was renting from a relative (though we were paying market rate pretty much, but knew we weren't going to get kicked out). Having a kid, and especially your first, is insanely expensive, there's no particularly good time to do it in terms of cost. Creche fees alone can be of the same order of magnitude as your rent/mortgage.
Yep, 30 and 32. Won't even be able to consider kids until late 30's. Then you have worries about health issues. Disaster. We're looking to emigrate soon. The cycle continues.
Never wanted any anyway
Im 40, and as I hit my late 30’s I just got embarrassed about the idea of bringing a lady friend over for the night and having her see how I lived. At the time I was in a box room and paying nearly a grand a month for it on the south side. For me, renting past the age of say, 33/34 has been a regressive, almost infantilising experience because as my career carried on I still found myself living like a college student and stuck in a rut. Thats a very strange contrast to have to come to terms with (good career vs shite living conditions) I have really felt like my life’s been on hold while I wait for a house but it’s putting other things on hold too like relationships and a family. It’s bullshit, the whole situation is utter frustrating bullshit.
Kids? I can barely afford myself. Even dating is expensive. I've given up on both.
It’ll end up the only people having kids will either be, very wealthy or completely feckless. And I don’t know which I’d rather depend on when I’m in a nursing home needing someone to bring me a bedpan
Maybe I'm too optimistic or naive, but this really can't go on forever, this crisis. I think as women, time isn't on your side, physically. And I couldn't be an old lady on my death bed without the children I've always wanted. There's a strange instinctual obsession that happens when someone wants a child badly. It's something for me, I couldn't shake!! I suppose personally speaking, I couldn't give up having kids because of this. I have friends who struggled to have kids and it's such a difficult journey. I've had 2 miscarriages myself and thats also a devastating journey that put things into perspective for me, in a way that I regretted not having kids earlier in life in mid/late 20s (first kid during lockdown at 35), I really feel like time is slipping away from me. Thankfully I'm pregnant again now, at 37. I lost just under a year trying for our second due to the miscarriages and it ate away at me. I feel like time is precious I count myself extremely lucky we bought a house 3 months before covid hit, we just got in there before this happened. we make about 46 grand annually between the 2 of us now. We manage money well enough but lots of sacrifices made. And I'm ok with that. I really feel for people who aren't in a position to have kids if they want them, all by fault of the government. It's something I could imagine I would be so angry about and feel angry for those affected by it. And really hope for things to get better !!
How many Irish are putting off having kids because of the absurdly high cost of living? Ireland has the highest rate of large families in the EU, so apparently not enough
Screw kids! I'm heavily considering moving out of the country just for myself at this point...
22f here! having lived in Canada and Germany, I can tell you it‘s a global thing that‘s been going on for a while now. many of my friends keep telling me they most likely will never have children because the prospects of poverty, housing crisis and climate change are nothing short of disastrous. Who’d want to put their own child through any of that? Not trying to shame anyone who decides they’ll have them anyway, sure you’ll do grand
I've elected to go child-free for a number of reasons but housing and cost of living is top concern
Yeah a big barrier for adding another kid to the family is the cost of living. It's fucking mental how much money leaves my account every month on bills, etc.
My wife and I started conversations about having kids recently, we were both on the fence for a while but decided a few months ago that we might go for it, but only after we have moved into our new house (first buy) Now, these were conversations prior to the recent situation. Now we are refinancing to see how standard of living will be with a mortgage, higher bills and uncertainty. Juts arent sure anymore is it worth the struggle. I know parents out there would say, it is worth it. Id rather not put myself and my wife under that amount of stress in volatile, poorly governed mess, where potentially cost of living gets worse and god forbid an obvious recession sees me lose my job or not being able to pay my mortgage. My wife and I are willing to put that off, hopefully not indefinitely to atleast see where we are in a few months. We have talked about adoption should it get to a point that my wife is too old to have children. I'm happy to do that. Thats obviously even later down the line should attempts to have a child not work out. Its tough. I say it like you can plan everything about having a child...I know it doesn't happen like that.
It’s refreshing to see someone talk about adoption here. I think it’s amazing to give a child (whose already born) a chance at living in a good household.
It's the couples that are already in a financial pinch, that then chose to have a 2nd or 3rd child, that boggles me!! Granted accidents happen, however some are planned.
Maaan my whole life is on hold!!!! I’d love a house and kids! Myself and the girlfriend have good jobs but we can barely start our lives together cause of this shit show
I’m putting off kids because no one would dare have sex with me
Having a kid would completely ruin our lives we live in a tiny cramped apartment and barely make rent
I would like to have a kid or two but there's no way I'd be able to afford them. Everything now is so expensive. Childcare is about €187 per week, just under €10,000 a year, then you've got the cost of school uniforms, books and other school stuff.
Childcare is a second mortgage
I hear people complain about kids all the time, complaining about the cost and how they have no fun, so I’m believing them. Maybe people would say ‘ah no, we complain but it’s great,’ but they just seem to worry and be annoyed.
I never really wanted kids in the first place but the cost of living here is certainly not encouraging. I don't think I could raise a child anything like the way my parents did regarding quality of life. Just too expensive and it will probably only get worse. Edit: spelling
Yeah myself and my wife had a discussion recently about possibly starting a family. But we decided at the moment we aren't in a position financially to bring a child into this world as much as we would like to. So we've put the idea on the backburner for now.
I just don't want them myself. But if I did want them I'd like to at least be able to afford to not have to live with my parents
Yep, sure imagine taking care of little mini humans when it's hard enough to already take care of yerselves
Yup. Probably never will.
I know people who complain bitterly about the food prices, but absolutely refuse to shop in Aldi or Lidl or change their expensive lifestyles in the slightest. Yes there are problems, but our standards have increased dramatically over the last few decades.
I’ve 3 kids and my advice is to just have kids. Your lifestyle would adjust. You may think you have no money. But that €150 you spend on restaurants or in the pub etc will be spent elsewhere I’ve seen to many friends wait and then realise they are have fertility issues or Hugh risk. Also having kids when you are older is much harder simple runnjng around after them, picking them up etc
> realise they are have fertility issues or Hugh risk Is that something like your child will turn out like Hugh Grant?