Quote: (12-08-2016 11:51 PM)scorpion Wrote:
And this thread is equal parts hilarious and embarrassing. A lot of guys totally out of their depth here. The age and experience gap is glaring on this issue. The economic issue with children is not the everyday stuff like food, clothes, entertainment, etc... As Atlanta Man and Hell Is Like Newark pointed out, the problem is mostly an issue of the explosive costs of education (with the associated housing expense of living in the right ZIP code or else even more expensive private schools) and healthcare. These things are enormously more expensive than they were a generation ago and wages have declined or stagnated for most people. It's a recipe for disaster.
Atlanta Man is 100% right that the educational and social environment your children are in from age 0-12 will have an enormous, and likely determinative impact on them. To be frank, you're a complete fucking idiot if you choose to send your kid to the average public school these days. A responsible father would do everything in his power to ensure the best environment to raise his children in. And the problem is that securing a good environment in 2016 is multiple times more expensive than it was when most of us were growing up. More and more people are being squeezed out of the middle class, and their kids are paying the price by receiving a godawful public school education, with teachers who don't give a shit and peer groups composed of "students" who care even less.
No one is talking about iPads when they say how expensive it is to have kids now. They're talking about the exorbitant costs it takes to simply avoid having your children sitting in a classroom at age 8 where half of the other children will have criminal records by the time they're 18.
I found a private school (preschool thru 6th grade) that looks interesting for two reasons:
1. Hands on learning with an emphasis on STEM stuff (starting grade 1).
2. Lots of physical activities.
Schools have been restricting or getting rid of recess completely and then expecting hyper active boys to sit quietly all day (essentially teaching them like you would girls). You have to have boys burn off that excess energy.
The hands-on aspect makes learning a lot more interesting. Book learning only gets tedious. I remember as a kid falling asleep at my desk out of shear boredom... in grade school with the monotony of book learning only.
$16k a year (ouch!). We plan to have three kids.... (ouch! ouch! ouch!). Turns out the better private schools having waiting lists. So the wife and I will take a tour next week sometime, even though the 'bun hasn't left the oven yet'. Might have to apply for a place a four years in advance.
Yet I pay a fortune in property and income taxes to a public school system my kid will never set foot in.