Dating, Marriage, Kids

[WestUniversity]

We’ve seen this with our own kids and many of their friends as well. Different priorities...

[donheff]

Quote:

Originally Posted by scrabbler1 I don't like the slant in the article which compares those who are not married and/or childfree as still being an adolescent or being a kid into your 40s. I found that rather insulting. Aren't those of us who have made the personal life decision to remain single and/or childfree just as "adult" or grown-up as our married and/or childed counterparts? We still have to pay the bills, put food on the table, work (well, not all of us here in er.org), and do "adult" things such as entering into legal contracts, vote, serve on juries, etc. It irks me to read to hear about some 16-year-old girl who gets pregnant and has a kid claiming to be more of an adult than a 40-year-old childfree person simply because she had a kid. Millennials have simply figured out that they don't have to live by the so-called "Life Script" of the past in order to be an adult. I commend them.

IIRC Hans Rosling's book, Factfullness, has some charts showing that the same trend happens everywhere there is development. (Rosling is the guy with those animated charts that demonstrate how much better the human world is getting over time). It would seem that as soon as people realize they can have a life they do.

[audreyh1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by street ^ true but when we are gone, the only thing that carries on is family our blood.

Immortality via descendants has never ever been important to me.

[street]

^ thanks. To me family is very important going forward from my life here on earth. I won't be remembered, don't have to be, but a beautiful thing for life to continue from generation to generation as a family. Put then again who cares, I get that also.

[marko]

Interesting discussion.
Seems to be a split between those who believe that millennials who are single/childless are so because they want to enjoy the good life and those who believe it is due to economic pressures.

IMO however, once you peel back the wrapping paper it's not much different from when we were kids. In the 60's and 70's you had the kids spending their summers tooling around in their convertibles and other kids busting their butts, bagging at a grocery store.

After college, you had the kids backpacking through Europe for a year or two and other kids out trying to make ends meet.

Personally, our millennial, childless niece and her DH are planning their next adventure: climbing Mt Kilimanjaro.

[imoldernu]

The Axios article cited in the OP had links to associated analyses more directed to the international economic impact of the changes...

https://www.axios.com/the-aging-chil...c96e8277b.html

The rate of change indicates that we can expect an effect on our own economy... NOT in the distant future, but within years, not decades. You can see in how this will take place by spending some time on the interactive statistic chart at the top of the article. Comparing the rates of change and the actual median numbers for different countries (ie. difference between Japan and Rawanda).

Drawing conclusions from these statistics will take more knowledge than I have, but speed of change surely bears concern. Not likely in my lifetime, but I think for those born in the 1970's or later.
.................................................. ..............................................

FWIW.... some numbers that may be interesting. Kind of a reality check... even for me.

In 1958, my weekly pay as an Army 2nd Lieutenant was $62.30/week. Out of this, support for DW and son #1 for all expenses, including housing, car etc. and two complete moves in less than a year. All expenses, except for my own food and clothing.

Just imagine what a relief it was to go to my first after service job, where my pay went to$100/week... enough at the time, to max out my SS earnings.

[Rianne]

Married in 1984, still in love. I asked last night, "Do you still love me?" He said "Of course, peas and carrots." I ask "is there anything about me that gets on your nerves?" He said "Never, only when you talk while I"m watching sports." I say "there's nothing about you that ever irritates me." We laugh out loud for extended period of time.

[TDub]

Thought I’d chime in as a Millennial Representative

I was lucky enough to grow up in a community with a parent/teacher/kid culture that expected college. It wasn’t a question, and if it wasn’t going to be covered by your parents you were going to work or take out loans. People figured it out. But debt is common and many are having trouble paying it off within 10 years (unless they went into particularly lucrative fields).

Only 1 friend from high school got married and had kids before 30, and then stayed at home. This is largely considered an anomaly now. Nothing wrong with the choice whatsoever, if you’re lucky enough to have a choice, but when I look around at my peers, it’s not the norm.

Some things change fast between generations.

Raising kids, and especially *good quality* daycare, can be expensive, even when you shop for used clothing or cut corners in other ways. This is something I’m guessing has not changed as much as the ages at which young people are marrying/having babies. But every penny is worth it, every sacrifice is worth it. Kids are difficult sometimes and $$ but wow are they the stuff of life.

We didn’t delay marriage or kids out of principle. We were just having fun, establishing our careers, often dating our future spouses longer (like my 5 years before marriage to DW), getting financially fit before growing the family because we knew it would be costly. We were happy then and we’re happy now, just a lot more tired...and hopefully wiser!

[Teacher Terry]

People are free to choose children or not. I don’t know anyone that decided not to because of money. People want kids or they don’t. I paid for my college and my kids lived at home to cut costs. 2 years st CC is reasonable and a good way to keep costs down.

[Klubbie]

I am also an older millennial (born in 1982) and feel compelled to respond to the discussion here.

My wife and I married in 2015. I was 33, she was 32. We had our daughter a little over a year later. We chose to try and have kids because we worried we would regret not having children when we were older. But neither of us had a burning desire to have kids. By the time we married we were set in our ways, careers, and lives. We were perfectly content. Fast forward a couple years later and our daughter is a true blessing. I am truly happy that we had her as she brings me joy in so many ways. Just this morning, my wife got up with her and I stayed in bed (we alternate who gets up with her in the morning and today was her day). My daughter came upstairs, on her own, ran into our room while I was reading this thread and climbed into my bed and said, "Daddy, can you get donuts?" We have a little donut shop nearby I occasionally go to on Sunday morning to get donuts. This little interaction melted my heart and made me count my blessings for having had a child.

But all that said, my wife and I will not be having anymore children with the financial aspect being a large portion of it. Daycare costs roughly 1000+ a month for her at age 2, and we will be paying something close to this for the foreseeable future. Even when she's in school we will likely have to pay for some type of aftercare since we both work. So just some back of the envelope math on this, daycare for two children is going to run over $2,000 a month for several years. And we live in Columbus, OH which as of a few years ago, was one of the lowest cost of living major metropolitan areas in the US. I am not sure if that still holds, but the point is that daycare costs are astronomical. I have heard and read that infant care in large, higher cost of living metro's can run closer to 20k per year. here in Columbus, OH infant care runs roughly 260 per week at our daycare, and we are at one of the cheaper daycares in our area. That is over $13k a year just in childcare. If you have multiple kids that obviously doubles as daycares tend to offer measly discounts for having multiple kids attend at once.

Obviously, in some cases it may be more beneficial for one parent to not work for a few years, but that is not always practical based on career trajectories. In our case, my wife is an RN and wanted to keep working. She also carries the health benefits and has the more stable job so we didn't view it as a realistic option for her to quit working altogether. And quite frankly, she did not want to give up her career to be a stay at home mom.

The overall point is that I have not see much mention of childcare in this thread. The cost of daycare is astronomical and it is not always prudent (financially or otherwise) for one parent to become a stay at home parent and give up their career.

The other aspect of this that I have seen brought up is student loan debt. I have posted on this forum before about my student loan debt. I went to a top 40ish MBA program full time and racked up roughly 120k in student loan debt to attend. 9 years after graduation I have mixed feelings on it. I have literally quadrupled my salary from my pre-MBA program, which is great. But I suspect I would have a hard time finding comparable compensation if I were to be laid off, which leads me to question whether or not the MBA was truly worth it. Either way, my point here is that I am someone who took on a ton of student debt to advance my career, and by all objective measures was successful in doing so. It does not change the fact that I am approaching 40 years old and still have a $1400 per month student loan payment to go along with my mortgage and student loan. We began aggressively paying off the student loan and probably 12 to 15 months away from having it paid off, but it is still a ton of money to have towards debt every month. I do not believe that my case is the norm though. Many people take out large amounts of debt for degrees that they believe will help them get ahead professionally, and I doubt the majority end up in the situation I have been fortunate enough to be in where their income is quadrupled (or doubled, or whatever).

From the housing side, we bought our home in 2016 right before prices started going crazy in Columbus. We bought our home in a nice suburb with good schools for about $225k. At the time that was a bit more than we had hoped to spend, but in many ways we got a bargain. As we were getting ready to close other homes in the area started going on the market for 20 to 30k more than what we were buying for. Our next door neighbor just put their house on the market for 285K, and I will be watching very closely to see what their house sells for as ours is very comparable.

I am not asking anyone to cry poor or feel bad for me and my situation. We do quite well and do not struggle. We are very blessed. I am merely trying to show what my experience has been. We do all the things you are supposed to do as an adult. We save adequately for retirement (although I wish we could save more), max our HSA every year to have a buffer for healthcare, own a reasonably priced home in a LCOL area, save in after tax accounts to cover an emergency, have no debt other than mortgage and student loan, don't live extravagantly and are able to do some light travel annually. We don't struggle by any means, but it's not an extravagant lifestyle. But the financial aspect of daycare and student loan debt are very real and impact many choices we make including the choice not to have more children. We are some of the lucky ones who have been able to leverage our education to make good money. Not everyone in the millennial generation is as fortunate as we are.

[aja8888]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Klubbie We are some of the lucky ones who have been able to leverage our education to make good money. Not everyone in the millennial generation is as fortunate as we are.

Thanks for the post (both you two millennials above) and believe it or not, us from other categorical generations have had children, faced those expenses, and ended up in the same place you did, but we did it a different way.

[pacergal]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Klubbie I am also an older millennial (born in 1982) and feel compelled to respond to the discussion here. My wife and I married in 2015. I was 33, she was 32. We had our daughter a little over a year later. We chose to try and have kids because we worried we would regret not having children when we were older. But neither of us had a burning desire to have kids. By the time we married we were set in our ways, careers, and lives. We were perfectly content. Fast forward a couple years later and our daughter is a true blessing. I am truly happy that we had her as she brings me joy in so many ways. Just this morning, my wife got up with her and I stayed in bed (we alternate who gets up with her in the morning and today was her day). My daughter came upstairs, on her own, ran into our room while I was reading this thread and climbed into my bed and said, "Daddy, can you get donuts?" We have a little donut shop nearby I occasionally go to on Sunday morning to get donuts. This little interaction melted my heart and made me count my blessings for having had a child. But all that said, my wife and I will not be having anymore children with the financial aspect being a large portion of it. Daycare costs roughly 1000+ a month for her at age 2, and we will be paying something close to this for the foreseeable future. Even when she's in school we will likely have to pay for some type of aftercare since we both work. So just some back of the envelope math on this, daycare for two children is going to run over $2,000 a month for several years. And we live in Columbus, OH which as of a few years ago, was one of the lowest cost of living major metropolitan areas in the US. I am not sure if that still holds, but the point is that daycare costs are astronomical. I have heard and read that infant care in large, higher cost of living metro's can run closer to 20k per year. here in Columbus, OH infant care runs roughly 260 per week at our daycare, and we are at one of the cheaper daycares in our area. That is over $13k a year just in childcare. If you have multiple kids that obviously doubles as daycares tend to offer measly discounts for having multiple kids attend at once. Obviously, in some cases it may be more beneficial for one parent to not work for a few years, but that is not always practical based on career trajectories. In our case, my wife is an RN and wanted to keep working. She also carries the health benefits and has the more stable job so we didn't view it as a realistic option for her to quit working altogether. And quite frankly, she did not want to give up her career to be a stay at home mom. The overall point is that I have not see much mention of childcare in this thread. The cost of daycare is astronomical and it is not always prudent (financially or otherwise) for one parent to become a stay at home parent and give up their career. The other aspect of this that I have seen brought up is student loan debt. I have posted on this forum before about my student loan debt. I went to a top 40ish MBA program full time and racked up roughly 120k in student loan debt to attend. 9 years after graduation I have mixed feelings on it. I have literally quadrupled my salary from my pre-MBA program, which is great. But I suspect I would have a hard time finding comparable compensation if I were to be laid off, which leads me to question whether or not the MBA was truly worth it. Either way, my point here is that I am someone who took on a ton of student debt to advance my career, and by all objective measures was successful in doing so. It does not change the fact that I am approaching 40 years old and still have a $1400 per month student loan payment to go along with my mortgage and student loan. We began aggressively paying off the student loan and probably 12 to 15 months away from having it paid off, but it is still a ton of money to have towards debt every month. I do not believe that my case is the norm though. Many people take out large amounts of debt for degrees that they believe will help them get ahead professionally, and I doubt the majority end up in the situation I have been fortunate enough to be in where their income is quadrupled (or doubled, or whatever). From the housing side, we bought our home in 2016 right before prices started going crazy in Columbus. We bought our home in a nice suburb with good schools for about $225k. At the time that was a bit more than we had hoped to spend, but in many ways we got a bargain. As we were getting ready to close other homes in the area started going on the market for 20 to 30k more than what we were buying for. Our next door neighbor just put their house on the market for 285K, and I will be watching very closely to see what their house sells for as ours is very comparable. I am not asking anyone to cry poor or feel bad for me and my situation. We do quite well and do not struggle. We are very blessed. I am merely trying to show what my experience has been. We do all the things you are supposed to do as an adult. We save adequately for retirement (although I wish we could save more), max our HSA every year to have a buffer for healthcare, own a reasonably priced home in a LCOL area, save in after tax accounts to cover an emergency, have no debt other than mortgage and student loan, don't live extravagantly and are able to do some light travel annually. We don't struggle by any means, but it's not an extravagant lifestyle. But the financial aspect of daycare and student loan debt are very real and impact many choices we make including the choice not to have more children. We are some of the lucky ones who have been able to leverage our education to make good money. Not everyone in the millennial generation is as fortunate as we are.

Thank you for your perspective. I see much of this in our two millennial kids lives also.

[Chuckanut]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Klubbie I am also an older millennial (born in 1982) and feel compelled to respond to the discussion here.

Your situation sounds a lot like mine 30+ years ago. We did all the right things, struggled financially at times, had a mortgage (12 3/4% at one time!!) , drove cars until the wheels fell off, and of course, had two children. Somehow it all came together in the last 10 years before retirement. Despite a divorce, I managed to retire a few years early. My now ex-spouse retired at her SS full retirement age.

The one thing we did not have was huge student loan debts. There are ways to avoid the loans. One friend of mine got his M.D. by promising to serve four years in the Navy as a doctor on board a ship, and doing two years of providing medical service near an Indian reservation.

Oh, his Navy time was actually spent as a doctor on a 'Boomer' submarine. He jokes a lot about it now. As a doctor he did get his own quarters and, IIRC, his own shower. Rank has its privileges.

[brewer12345]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Klubbie But all that said, my wife and I will not be having anymore children with the financial aspect being a large portion of it. Daycare costs roughly 1000+ a month for her at age 2, and we will be paying something close to this for the foreseeable future. Even when she's in school we will likely have to pay for some type of aftercare since we both work. So just some back of the envelope math on this, daycare for two children is going to run over $2,000 a month for several years. And we live in Columbus, OH which as of a few years ago, was one of the lowest cost of living major metropolitan areas in the US. I am not sure if that still holds, but the point is that daycare costs are astronomical. I have heard and read that infant care in large, higher cost of living metro's can run closer to 20k per year. here in Columbus, OH infant care runs roughly 260 per week at our daycare, and we are at one of the cheaper daycares in our area. That is over $13k a year just in childcare. If you have multiple kids that obviously doubles as daycares tend to offer measly discounts for having multiple kids attend at once. Obviously, in some cases it may be more beneficial for one parent to not work for a few years, but that is not always practical based on career trajectories. In our case, my wife is an RN and wanted to keep working. She also carries the health benefits and has the more stable job so we didn't view it as a realistic option for her to quit working altogether. And quite frankly, she did not want to give up her career to be a stay at home mom.

We went the other route with two kids, namely DW staying home. She started a small practice out of the house in her profession to keep her career prospects alive and maintain licenses and certifications, but for about a decade her earnings were negligible. He earnings rebounded after the kids went to school, but the lifetime effect on her earnings is very large (6 figure easily, possibly 2 comma when all is said and done).

[Scuba]

I am one of those who decided not to have children. I never really wanted kids, partly because my career was important to me and I didn’t think I could do both well - a demanding career with lots of travel and long hours combined with being an attentive and loving parent. I also always wanted to retire young and felt the economic burden of children would delay my retirement significantly.

[Markola]

What's next: Demographers worry about the potential economic impacts from the falling fertility rates — like delayed retirement, overburdened systems for elderly care and slowed economic growth. "We’re pushing a biological limit," Florida said.

The answers to the economic concerns probably come down to:

Free trade: Let stuff get made in the parts of the world where the needed inputs are best available, then ship it cheaply.

Immigration: Energetic newcomers motivated to improve their lot by taking work and starting businesses in niches their predecessors simply won’t work in any longer, one of which is eldercare for the rest of us.

Robots: For example, the US is the first or second top manufacturer in the world but technology increasingly does the labor. You would never know this fact listening to our politicians of both parties.

Public Services: There is a lot of people left holding an empty bag in the modern immigration, technology and free trade oriented world. They pay taxes, deserve help to navigate it and they vote.

[imoldernu]

Excerpts from the Motley Fool article, below.

Quote:

According to the 2018 report from the Social Security Board of Trustees, ongoing demographic changes that include the retirement of baby boomers, increased longevity over many decades, growing income inequality, and lower recent fertility rates will push the program from generating net cash surpluses to net cash outflows very soon.

Quote:

If Social Security were to completely exhaust its asset reserves, it wouldn't go bankrupt or be insolvent. But it does signify the unsustainability of the existing payout schedule. With no excess assets, Social Security would be forced to reduce its monthly payouts to eligible beneficiaries by as much as 21% between 2034 and 2092, assuming Congress fails to raise additional revenue or cut expenditures.

https://www.fool.com/retirement/2019...sal-is-ba.aspx

[Teacher Terry]

Daycare has always been expensive in relation to wages. I and most of my friends stayed home until all 3 were in school and then back to work full time.

[MarieIG]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Teacher Terry People are free to choose children or not. I don’t know anyone that decided not to because of money. People want kids or they don’t. I paid for my college and my kids lived at home to cut costs. 2 years st CC is reasonable and a good way to keep costs down.

That has been my experience as well. My son who doesn't want kids is not strapped financially. He and his wife just don't want them.

[JackJester]

The 'Kids vs No Kids' post shows up on this forum often. We’re 51 and 55 yo and do not have kids. We didn’t just decide at age 30+ that ... “let's not have kids so we can FIRE at age 50ish.” No, we were busy focused in building careers and enjoying life. Then, when the chances of birth complications in the 40s are increasing, and the make or break decision point was approaching, we had to ask ourselves ... “are we prepared to fully devote ourselves to nurturing a human being into this world?.” The answer for us was "NO". So, instead, we enjoy each other, and our 2 labs are our kids. No regrets. We have young nieces and nephews and we enjoy them. But, at the end of the day, we also don’t have to provide for them, and instead we can provide for FIRE. To Each His Own.