They got married in their mid-30's. Had two kids. Got their home paid off in 20 years. Lived in peace and contentment. Died debt-free, with a modest bequest to my brother and myself.
Tell me: why could they do that then, but it seems so few can do it now?
A-B-O-R-T-I-O-N
Jessica Boer, 26, kissing her cat Kip at her home in Portage, Mich. Like an increasing number of people in her generation, she does not plan to have children. “Now we know we have a choice,” she said.
_____________________________________________________
Glad she likes cats. She’ll be kissing a cat when she’s 76.
And all alone.
Why come no tattoo???
Most young couples i know both work b/c they have to . They cannot afford kids.
Higher expectations. I remember reading - probably in the Wall Street Journal - that the median house of the 1950s could be built today for less (inflation-adjusted) than it cost to build it in the 1950s. However, almost nobody would accept that as an adequate house today.
Housing costs are one big factor. The average middle class family with one wage earner could afford the mortgage on the stereotypical Levittown type house decades ago. Now, affording the mortgage on the same type of house typically takes two wage earners.
And this is not true everywhere in America. But is true in enough of our major cities, that both mom and dad need to work to make the mortgage.
Whatever is causing it, nothing has been able to reverse it. It has been a relentless trend through good times and bad, war and peace.
“why”
Here’s a few things - the average cost of a new car in the 70s was about 10% of the average salary. Now it’s over 50%.
Airbag deployed on your car? You might be surprised to know that due to the replacement cost, many times insurance companies will total your car for that.
Thanks to creeping regs, just about every aspect of day to day life has increased in cost dramatically.
How about those home appliances? Very efficient but more expensive and break down more frequently. More expensive products that have to be purchased more often.
Also in the 70s, medicare was relatively new. That guaranteed captive audience of government purchasing raised cost of medicine dramatically too.
Immigration rates are more dramatic now. Now reason to hire from home when you’ve got all those illegals and H1B visas to choose from. Salaries kept down.
If you’re already “established”, the incremental cost of a thousand here or a thousand there won’t phase you.
But try starting from scratch and you might understand why many folks don’t move out of the house until they’re in their 30s.
- Thomas Jefferson, May 28, 1812 [link]
It’s financial.
Money is tight because we are already supporting several million babies of illegal aliens.
My dad told me if you waited until you had enough money to have kids you’d be too old to have them!
Government convinced us that women’s liberation meant that the wife now had the freedom to work in the marketplace (”you’ve come a long way, baby,” as the cigarette ads said).
Government at all levels then over time doubled taxes so that what a single-taxpayer used to be able to pay now takes two.
I have to agree with this. If you don't live around family, affordable quality child care is a pain. Partly because of overly intrusive government.
Kids aren’t for everyone.
The poor never seem to worry about not having enough money to raise a family of four or six or eight.
OTOH...some Millennials are married, have kids and savings, today, but they are NOT Libtards.
I was talking to a young co-worker once, and she told me that after paying for childcare and taxes, she was basically clearing only about $2,000 a year.
It made absolutely no sense to me. If she quit work, she’d be able to spend all here time with her child and still probably be live off just her husband’s income. But when I asked it she’d ever considered that she looked at me like I was a fossil.
But she’s just had it drummed into her head for the entire 26 or so years of her existence that a woman has to have a career.
They are talking the a word re Sureme picks and single issue voting on talk radio. If I hadn't been waiting for a call, I would have liked to refute the early caller who implied women living with a bf who "tortured" the baby was justification to abort them and host seemed to agree (regular one on vacation wouldn't agree). I don't deny it happens too frequently but (1) it's not justification for killing it (or becoming a criminal, etc.) but it makes me angry with our culture that we have become so permissive about women have a *right* to live with anyone they choose. It has made me angry for a long time that we are so permissive about lapses in morality most of us on FR would consider just plain wrong.
Some couples manaage to time it right, get thru college first then marry and start families but everything has gone topsy turvy in the world. High cost of living, commute costs, job instabillity, blurring traditional roles, food costs dental and medical costs; it's a terrible shame. It's like the cards are stacked against the traditional family.
Many couples I knew did like your parents and the kids turned out great overall. I don't know anyone who could support a family on minimum wage without Government help or relatives.
Was bored so picked up the latest National Geographic off a counter and read its article on demographics. They were almost in glee writing about how China’s one child policy slowed population growth. Their numbers were right but conclusions so wrong. The only place left in the world that has a replacement birth rate seems to be Africa and the Muslim world. Hell, who needs terrorists when the Muslim world were just beat us into the ground demographically.
It used to be if the wife went to work part or full time, the family got ahead. Life was good. The dems saw this and taxed the heck out it. Then the put fees and taxes on everything you need. It costs a lot to just squeak by now. Add a kid and if you are not being subsidized, you can’t make ends meet. So it is welfare or no kids for many.