Before husband and I (both 33) were married and even after our first kid, we thought we would have anywhere from 3-4 kids. But after the two we already have I really just feel done between my own energy, not wanting to be pregnant again and finally getting my body back, two kids (1F and 4M) who mostly get along, and largely, FINANCES. But he is still set on at least one more and thinks we can make it work because his parents were poor and "made it work" with 6 kids.
Husband and I grew up in very different financial circumstances. I grew up upper middle class, one brother, good public school, etc. My parents were never visibly worried about the essentials (food, mortgage), were able to buy my brother and I our first cars (albeit used), went on "plane vacations" every couple years and driving vacations every year, and I didn't have to take out loans to go to college between scholarships and the amount my parents saved. They were also in a position to retire around 65. The only thing we really wanted that my parents couldn't provide was travel sports.
This sounds awful because my husband's parents and siblings are great - but they had more kids in that house than they could afford. There was a period of time where they were on government assistance. His parents are in major credit card debt and will never be able to move because of it. All six of the kids have 6-figure student loans, minus his two brothers who went military (mostly because they were poor and not strong students). Each gender of siblings had to share a room (3 kids per room with large age gaps in some instances) in a 3-bedroom/1.5-bathroom house. His oldest sister was parentified from age 8 to help with the younger kids. In childhood or highschool, they couldn't do activities outside of what was provided by the school. His parents will work part-time jobs in their retirement. But they all love being together as a big family, and my husband loves that environment and refers to it as controlled chaos.
I do not want to raise my children to end up with anything less than what I had. Ideally, I want them to have MORE. I want them to pick whatever college they want to go to, to be able to pay for travel sports if that is what they care about, etc. I especially want them to not owe a $1500 bill every month to pay back college and be able to pursue a lower-earning field if they want to, and not just doctor, engineer, businessperson, lawyer, etc. just to pay their bills. However, if we are putting food on the table and from the outside are a "big happy family", that is succeeding to my husband.
We are both engineers and he feels that because we are higher earners, we can easily afford more children. We make $160k before taxes in a MCOL city suburb. However, we've run the math, and after the two daycare bills we are paying now, two kids 529 plans, our own retirement savings, taxes, and our other expenses like groceries and utilities and other bills, we have about $1000 leftover each month (and sometimes we dig into it quite a bit between healthcare, growing children needing clothes, family outings, etc.). Not enough to even pay for a third kid's daycare. I will also need a new car in a few years (currently mine is paid off so only one car payment). Moving for a cheaper mortgage isn't really an option either. We have a 3-bedroom 1300 sqft home in a good school district (haven't seen any options we'd like to live in for less than we're paying now). Husband suggested waiting until oldest is in kindergarten next year, but it still seems like we'd pinching pennies moreso than I would like to, as right now we have a bit of a buffer. A third kid would all but deplete it and make future activities for existing children (and us as parents) a lot less likely to be attainable. Plus, I'm kind of excited to get a little financial "freedom" back after the daycare years are over.
Has anyone else had this difficult argument?
TLDR: He keeps saying "every boy deserves a brother and every girl deserves a sister." I know parenting requires sacrifices; however, I do not want to be "kid-poor" in the sense that some people are "house-poor" either, if that makes sense. Before anyone asks, we've also run the numbers to become a one-income/one SAHP household, and we'd be worse off than continuing to pay for daycare in the early years. But I also don’t want husband to resent me as I originally wanted more kids.
Submitted November 22, 2022 at 05:36PM by Past-Ad4067 https://ift.tt/K7os8M5
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