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pastor_bob | 2 years ago

When people say 'crushing financial burden,' many mean relative to maintaining their current DINK lifestyles

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systems_glitch|2 years ago

$2K/month for two kids in flyover country at what amounts to the only day-care in the area. That's just the day-care costs, not counting the additional missed work from every bowel-voiding illness they bring home! Have to pick them up by 16:30.

moduspol|2 years ago

Our parents' parents were primarily not paying for day-care. It still seems quite odd to their generation to have mom work to pay for someone else to watch the kids.

$2k/mo is a lot, but it can be avoided if one parent stays home. Helps with the illness-spreading and inconvenient pickup times, too. If you're in "flyover" country and there's only one day-care in the area, it's likely that's what a lot of the other households are doing.

shiroiuma|2 years ago

>Have to pick them up by 16:30.

This is what you get for living in a car-bound society. In a walkable society, the kids can just walk home if they're 6 years old or so.

systems_glitch|2 years ago

OK I know I'm doing it wrong because no one on HN misses $2K/month, but what's up with the downvotes?

felipeerias|2 years ago

It would be politically impossible to implement, but I would like a daring economist to compute the exact amount that childless people should be paying as subsidies towards those with kids.

I mean, if someone's pension and social services after they retire depend on the positive externalities generated by somebody else, how much is that worth?

sul_tasto|2 years ago

indeed. social security can be rescued from insolvency by raising the withholding on those without children…