Is Anyone Ever Financially Ready To Have A Baby?

Dear GEP,

I am trying for my first child, which is both exciting and making me anxious. I thought babies didn't need much, but the more I talk to other people, the more I realize that having a child will be as expensive as it is wonderful. What do I actually need to support a kid? And is anyone ever financially ready to have a baby?

There is a saying widely repeated in my family, that all you really need to have a baby is “a towel, and a drawer.” My father, who has had five children and eight grandchildren, is the origin of this statement – and I don’t doubt that when he had his first baby in the early seventies, at the age of 27, they didn’t have too much more than those advised essentials.

As I folded hand-me-downs last month with my younger brother, whose first baby is now just a few weeks old, we chuckled about our dad’s perhaps apocryphal advice. What did he know, anyway? What’s so wild about it, though, is that, a decade into parenting, the “towel-and-a-drawer” maxim feels both completely absurd and refreshingly wise.

A lot has changed since the seventies. When I was pregnant with my first child, my dad’s perspective on parenting preparation felt as silly as giving a colicky baby a finger of whiskey. First, the cost of living for families in this country has grown astronomically. My parents, for example, could afford a home in a diverse city on two therapist’s salaries. Now, the house I grew up in has been divided into luxury condos that I could only dream of affording. Childcare costs are real, and overwhelming: My husband and I calculated when our last child started public kindergarten that we had spent almost $200,000 on the first five years of care for our two children. Children need medical care, and medical care in this country is becoming more expensive and elusive by the day.

And, of course there is the stuff. Fifty years ago, my dad, who I promise you did have a legit crib for my oldest sibling, had few options and little pressure to make baby-related purchases. Now, new parents like my brother and his partner are bombarded with ads and suggestions from other parents to buy high-tech strollers, specially designed tummy-time mats, and smart bottle-warmers. Even with older children, I find it difficult to turn down this constant thrum, the promise that if I just shell out a few more bucks, some aspect of life that I perhaps hadn’t even considered as a danger would be made easier for myself or my kids.

But what do our children, what do we really need??? Don’t get me wrong – the social and political structure of many places, the U.S. in particular, make the financial burden of childrearing fall on individual parents in ways both avoidable and cruel. Reading Abigail Leonard’s Four Mothers, which tells the story of four women becoming pregnant and navigating their children’s first year across four continents, this fact could not be clearer. Having children is less expensive when you have paid leave (the US is the only industrialized nation without it), or universal health care, or state-funded childcare.

But, though many of our financial parenting woes are systemically-created, we do have choices within in that crappy system. Some purchases – like a comfortable breast pump or a carrier that won’t break your back – really can make parenting easier. But most of the actual expenses you may be dreading are either not essential, or readily available, used or free from parents who are dying to get rid of the gear their children so quickly age out of.

Patricia Johnson, a financial planner in the Bay Area and solo-mother-by-choice of a 10-year-old, agrees. “There's a lot of consumerism built into modern parenting that just isn't necessary,” Johnson explained. In her parent clients, she sees patterns of spending that don’t really benefit children, like classes, weekend activities, and the biggest culprit, restaurants. “The kids are fine just at the park,” she told me. “Your kid doesn’t need variety, you do.”

In terms of preparation, Johnson mostly believes that parents will make the adjustments they need to make once they understand their parenting priorities, and that this “make-it-work mentality” is a natural byproduct of raising kids that isn’t all bad. She’s had parents change jobs, for example, in order to afford dyslexia interventions. “THEY JUST DO IT,” she says.

For those in your position, thoughtfully ruminating on the best case scenario for a future with children, Johnson’s pre-baby advice is the same she’d give any clients. She recommends tracking spending for a period of time to get clear on what your habits are, and doing it before you have a child so you’re not having to do that work during the first year of parenting.

“It allows you to prioritize, and then you'll have a better sense of what you're willing to let go of if you have to make trade offs as a new parent.” She also recommends worrying less about college savings and more about retirement, as you can borrow and scheme for the former but not the latter.

I would also add in that flexing your communal and collaborative muscles – getting to know your neighbors, sharing responsibilities with friends, getting comfortable asking for and offering help– will be enormously beneficial to you when you realize that even a teenaged babysitter can charge $25 an hour and if you only need one car if you can arrange a daycare carpool. This, of course, takes work, but it is worth it. And it’s not only for your mental-health – childcare swaps, shared meals, and pooled resources can end up saving you money in the long run.

Who is ready to have a baby? No one. And also, mostly everyone. I’m sure you can find a towel and a drawer somewhere.

The Good Enough Parent is an advice column for parents who are sick of parenting advice. Let Sarah answer your questions about the messy realities of parenting! Send her your questions via this anonymous form or by emailing her at goodenoughparentcolumn@gmail.com.