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My sister has 5 children. I have no idea how she manages, but she never sees her husband. He's always working triple overtime.
Childcare costs are by far the highest expense for families with children under 5, according to LendingTree’s analysis. Parents in Hawaii pay an average of $40,342 per year, whereas families in Maryland and Massachusetts pay $36,419 and $34,247, respectively.
So more than half of the cost is childcare. Why?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/24/childcare-daycare-cost-absurdly-expensive
Because there's no public system. Which is understandable because as the president said, US can't afford childcare. It needs money to bomb children in other countries.
Holy shit that's literally my whole gross income 🤯
I think that's on purpose. Gross income is probably the maximum some parents are willing to pay. You're basically not making any money but you're avoiding gaps in your CV. After 6-7 years the kid goes to school so childcare costs go away but you kept your job so now you're back to making money (instead of looking for a job after 5-6 years of unemployment). If you charge people more it makes more sense economically to stay at home and save money. If you charge them less you're leaving money on the table. Same as with healthcare private system is trying to squeeze everything it can out of people.
Childcare costs halve or something but they don't go away. You still need care coverage for an hour to four hours every workday, all school holidays, summers, sick days, half days, snow days... and that's assuming your job doesn't operate outside school hours (which in the US change every few years as children progress), or expect you to be on call.
Usually the type of careers with that kind of flexibility are either top of the field or the very bottom, so it feels kind of hopeless, damned if you work, damned if you don't.
I know things have changed but when I was 7 and started primary school (in Poland) I would walk alone to school and be perfectly fine staying alone at home. I would also spend school holidays and summers running around outside all day with other kids. At what age it is considered that kids don't need any babysitters or childcare today?
But yes, the costs probably don't go to 0 but even if they halve you still start making some money so it still may make sense to make next to nothing for couple of years in order to save your career.
I'm in the US. There's not a legal age where you're allowed to leave your child home alone, but it's generally accepted that you can't until they're 12. Of course you could get away with running an errand, but not a week off school, much less a whole summer. You could be charged with neglect, or worse if something bad happened while they were alone. Hard to find any career that's not gig work that can accommodate 12 years of flexibility :(
Snip snip
I know a dumbass or 2 who are expecting soon. At this point you're not even using any kind of sense in how you live.
Poor children will be American citizens
....or will they....
Depends on the color, these days
And that's why birthrate has dropped to 1.6%
And raising kids sucks even without the prohibitive financial cost.
Raising kids sucks because modern society is incompatible with human-ness in general.
Its gone down? I remember back in 2008 and 2009 the discussion was that raising a kid 0-18 would cost around $400k. Maybe that was a california specific number but it always sounded about right.
this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2026
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