Having kids when you aren't wealthy....

[MrMon]

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I may have sounded harsh, but I really dont give a [censored]. I tottally understand putting your family in front of friends, I have no problem with that. But my particular friends, do not do anything, ever. They dont go out, ever, etc. And the only time I receive a call (I stopped calling them a long time ago), is when they need help with something, like sodding their lawn, or painting or something like that. I could tottally understand, if they called maybe once every month, just to see how [censored] is going etc, but they stopped that the second they got married. And these were really godd friends, that I rented a house with for 2 years etc. I just figured thats how everyone reacted when they got pusswhipped.
And you douche bags can call me a selfish jackass all you want, but Im not the one who decided to cut all ties to the outside world, because I have to focus on a relationship. I am not asking to go out and chase tail 5 nights a week, but hell, at least make 1 night a month to go out to a bar or a ball game etc.

BTW, most of my friends dont have kids, they just got married.

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Hmmmm. Newlyweds. What could they be doing without a fifth wheel?

We're not exactly talking rocket science here.

[CCass]

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I think you fit his description of wealthy. KKF chose his words poorly in the OP I think. It seems to me by wealthy he meant not financially distressed and with some discretionary income and security.

You said
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Coaching my children in sports, combing my daughters hair, taking my son to a Titans game - I cant put a monetary value on any of these things. They are truly priceless.

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These are things a lot of people cannot do because they are busy trying to make end's meat. As to taking your son to a Titans game, what does that run all told? A couple of hundred bucks? That is a fortune to some families.

I would argue that one of the reason you can do all these things AND get enjoyment from them is that you are not worrying about things like making rent, your car being reposessed, scraping up a couple of hundred dollars for that emergency, going bankrupt because you needed medical attention and didn't have insurance, etc. Money problems are a huge sourse of marital spats and divorce. I don't think it is a bad idea to not want to have children until you know you are at a place where you can adequately provide for them.

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I agree with most everything you said. I didn't explain this very well in my first post, so I will try again.

I believe that my wife and I have the money to do the things I listed (and others) because of decisions we have made in life. We don't live in an expensive neighborhood. We don't drive expensive cars (our 2 vehicles are paid for, and both have greater than 150K miles on them). We both went to college so we could get decent paying jobs. I chose a job with good insurance benefits to help cover the "emergencies" you mentioned.

I definitely agree with you that money can be a huge problem in a marriage, so I believe that you must manage your money, and not let it manage you.

Lastly, you asked about the cost of the Titans tickets. I have season tickets that cost $1K this year. That is one of the things that I do for myself. But I wouldn't do it if it took food off the table for my children.

[SammyKid11]

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I'm not a parent myself, but many of my closest friends are. I find most of them have forgotten how to be adults. They've been reduced to sick, goofy photocopies of their former selves. And the reason why is because between working and raising their kids, they have no free time/spare money to do anything for themselves, by themselves. This causes them to be bad friends to those in our social circle, bad spouses to each other, and worse parents to their kids than they would be if they maintained their own identities.

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Bolded above is like saying "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV."

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No, it's really not. I don't have kids, but that doesn't mean I don't have an appropriate appreciation for what it's like to have kids, especially when I've been involved in many aspects of helping to raise a friend's child. Your argument is like saying, "you can't talk about the Soviet Union being a bad experiment in Communism because you never lived there."

WRONG.

You can observe behaviors, patterns, etc, and form opinions on those matters without them being completely invalid just because you've never directly experienced it. I didn't experience the Holocaust either, but I can say with a great level of confidence that it sucked ass.

[SammyKid11]

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Sorry that your married friends can't gop out drinking with you anymore. It's possible that they have evolved into adults. It's not a bad thing.

BTW my wife and I always take a week to ourselves every year and also a week alone every once in a while.

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You're a huge jackass that, of course, completely ignored the entire point of my post, belittled one line of that you took completely out of context, and then agreed with the very sentiment I was trying to express (that parents need to take time to be adults together).

Thanks for not paying attention.

[SammyKid11]

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I'm not a parent myself, but many of my closest friends are. I find most of them have forgotten how to be adults. They've been reduced to sick, goofy photocopies of their former selves. And the reason why is because between working and raising their kids, they have no free time/spare money to do anything for themselves, by themselves. This causes them to be bad friends to those in our social circle, bad spouses to each other, and worse parents to their kids than they would be if they maintained their own identities.

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Bolded above is like saying "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV." I'm glad that you at least point out that you don't.

(edited for space)

Kids aren't for everyone. If you don't want to sacrifice, don't have kids. If you think they are too expensive, then no matter how much you make, they are - don't have them. I'd much prefer that none of you douchebags that think $$$ is the only thing never have any kids because I don't want my daughter meeting any of your kids.

~ThisHo

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Very well said.

The head-shaker for me was the comment "This causes them to be bad friends to those in our social circle"

lol, I knew it was a lost cause at that point and went to bed shortly after...

[img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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First of all, that was a small part of what I was saying (and you completely ignored the rest of it and failed to answer whether you thought my 1 night a week, 1 week a year was a reasonable standard). My main point is that parents are better parents and better spouses when they spend time together, alone...and that to do that on a regular basis takes some measure of financial freedom (not wealth, but comfort). Of course you completely ignored all of that.

Secondly, it DOES matter what kind of friends people become. Certainly not as much as it matters what kind of spouses and parents they are...but it still matters. You (and those on this thread that have agreed with you) have acted like you couldn't give two pieces of rat crap what kind of friends people remain once they have a child. And THAT is my very point.

Thirdly, if all you can do is shake your head and go to bed, it's possible you have your head so far up your kids' asses that you've forgotten how to make coherent, adult arguments. You've been saying all through this thread about how WE without kids don't understand, but you don't have the time or inclination to explain it to us. How edifying. Thanks so much for being condescending and never making your point other than in one-liners like, "You sacrAfice your freedoms for your kids" (since you're raising kids and that's the MOST important thing a person can EVER do, please learn how to spell the word "sacrifice" properly so you can teach that to your children) and "if you're not willing to be a slave to your children, don't have them."

Fantastic -- you're being a douchebag and acting haughty about it, all the while refusing to engage people like myself who have actually contributed an opinion WITH reasoning. What a wonderful characteristic to pass onto children. I'm so glad there's going to be more of you in the world.

[mmbt0ne]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">En réponse à:</font><hr />
I may have sounded harsh, but I really dont give a [censored]. I tottally understand putting your family in front of friends, I have no problem with that. But my particular friends, do not do anything, ever. They dont go out, ever, etc. And the only time I receive a call (I stopped calling them a long time ago), is when they need help with something, like sodding their lawn, or painting or something like that. I could tottally understand, if they called maybe once every month, just to see how [censored] is going etc, but they stopped that the second they got married. And these were really godd friends, that I rented a house with for 2 years etc. I just figured thats how everyone reacted when they got pusswhipped.
And you douche bags can call me a selfish jackass all you want, but Im not the one who decided to cut all ties to the outside world, because I have to focus on a relationship. I am not asking to go out and chase tail 5 nights a week, but hell, at least make 1 night a month to go out to a bar or a ball game etc.

BTW, most of my friends dont have kids, they just got married.

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And I mean, come on, who wouldn't want to hang out with you?

[ThisHo]

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I'm not a parent myself, but many of my closest friends are. I find most of them have forgotten how to be adults. They've been reduced to sick, goofy photocopies of their former selves. And the reason why is because between working and raising their kids, they have no free time/spare money to do anything for themselves, by themselves. This causes them to be bad friends to those in our social circle, bad spouses to each other, and worse parents to their kids than they would be if they maintained their own identities.

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Bolded above is like saying "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV."

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No, it's really not. I don't have kids, but that doesn't mean I don't have an appropriate appreciation for what it's like to have kids, especially when I've been involved in many aspects of helping to raise a friend's child. Your argument is like saying, "you can't talk about the Soviet Union being a bad experiment in Communism because you never lived there."

WRONG.

You can observe behaviors, patterns, etc, and form opinions on those matters without them being completely invalid just because you've never directly experienced it. I didn't experience the Holocaust either, but I can say with a great level of confidence that it sucked ass.

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you compared having kids to Communism and the Holocaust, nice.

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Sacrifice! Sacrifice! Sacrifice!

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Get this. If you have alot of money, you can do all that without the sacrifice!

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The happiest moment of my day is when I walk in the door from my suck-ass job look up the stairs and my lil' girl is looking down the stairs with a HUGE smile on her face and my wife is right behind her with a big smile as well.

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If you have money you can do that without the suck-ass job, and enjoy all of your life instead of just half of it. That is the point i am trying to make.

BTW I am poor, so being middle-class is rich to me. this is where I think alot of miscommunication in this thread stems.

I am mainly referring to being poor and having kids, not necessarily having to be ultra-rich to procreate. my comment about having "boatloads" of cash, was probably exadurated out of my resentment of being born into poverty.

[ThisHo]

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Sacrifice! Sacrifice! Sacrifice!

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Get this. If you have alot of money, you can do all that without the sacrifice!

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no. If you have lots of $$$ you still have to give up doing what you want when you want because your kids should come first.


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The happiest moment of my day is when I walk in the door from my suck-ass job look up the stairs and my lil' girl is looking down the stairs with a HUGE smile on her face and my wife is right behind her with a big smile as well.

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If you have money you can do that without the suck-ass job, and enjoy all of your life instead of just half of it. That is the point i am trying to make.

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This is a good point. Given the choice I would rather not have to work, but the OP basically said that because I have to work at a suck-ass job I shouldn't have kids. That point is totally incorrect.


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BTW I am poor, so being middle-class is rich to me. this is where I think alot of miscommunication in this thread stems.

I am mainly referring to being poor and having kids, not necessarily having to be ultra-rich to procreate. my comment about having "boatloads" of cash, was probably exadurated out of my resentment of being born into poverty.

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I agree that the terms "rich" "poor" "wealthy" "boatloads" etc all have different meanings to different people. I would suggest that we include $values in the discussion, but that doesn't get us any closer because you can live pretty well on $50k/year in some (most?) of the U.S. but in large portions of California that doesn't come close to making ends meet.

Kids Rock!
~ThisHo

[Meatmaw]

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IMHO there are two types of guys:
Guy number 1:
Guy is kind of douche baggish, but not that bad. He is just there.
Guy gets a girl, and sings the praises of how its great to have a gf/kids/etc. Of course he is pussywhipped.
Guy gets married too early.
Guy ends up being unhappy after awhile.
Guy gets divorced.

Guy number 2.
Guy is not a douche bag.
Guy is fun, outgoing, has lots of friends.
Guy sleeps with a bunch of chicks, but doesnt stick to one.
Guy ends up getting married later in life 30-40.
Guy lives to be 90 with his wife.

This is from my experience from my friends, and family that I have noticed. It just seems that all the 19-23 year olds who sing the praises of being in a relationship, and make sure you know about it are the ones that [censored] up later in life. Dont be that guy.

[/ QUOTE ] So this is a complete either/or? To not be a douche, you need to be fun, outgoing, and have lots of friends? I'm funny, but I don't arrange social gatherings &amp; [censored]; that's somebody else's job. I need to be alone for at least 4-6 hours a day. Does that auto-paint me with the douche brush?

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This is obviously a gross generalization of two types of people. If the OP of this comment is implying that there are *only* these two types or even that there are *mostly* these two types, then it would follow that OP is claiming that most guys who get married under 30 get divorced among many other claims which are IMO likely to be false.

I don't know what the divorce rate is these days, and I've heard some shocking numbers, and I'm too lazy to google it, but I certainly wouldn't label most or all of my married friends as doomed to divorce.

Or myself, for that matter.