Posted on 06/01/2004 8:54:48 AM PDT by qam1
Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social aspects that directly effects Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations (i.e. The Baby Boomers) are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.
Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details.
The Death of the West continues...people marrying late and only having 1 or 2 kids...while the muslim population explodes
Well, the tax laws in the US make it difficult for even upper-middle-class couples to have one member of the couple stay home and take care of the kids. My wife (of 3 weeks) is 29, I'm 28. We're not planning on having kids until she's 32 or 33. Though we're both lawyers, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for one of us to stay home full-time with any kids we might have since cost-of-living is so high where we live (DC Metro area) and taxes take a huge chunk out of our income. We'd love to have 4 or more kids, but that just doesn't seem realistic.
You don't need bars and clubs to find the right person. I cannot understand why so many couples in their twenties appear perfectly happy to cohabit for YEARS before deciding to marry. It's as if they think being married young means they'll never enjoy life again! A number of relatives have done this and I just don't get the point...if you love your partner and want to build a future together, then GET MARRIED.
I think my fiance and I are just an old-fashioned kind of couple, but we believe in marriage and having a family...there's no reason why we can't also enjoy our careers and some modest material possessions at the same time, but those things are certainly no reason to POSTPONE marriage and family!
Eh... I don't think it's anything quite THAT dire. This article could have easily been about me (31, single, successful, massive network of friends accross the region, etc, etc). Where I am is the result of deliberation and conscious choices, none of which revolved around the decline of the West.
Which contributes more to the defense of the west: me rushing out and getting in a poorly considered, loveless marriage, squeezing out six runts along the way, OR my desire to only be married ONCE in my lifetime to a woman (yet to be found) whom profoundly makes my heart race?
Congratulations on your recent marriage :-)
Can either of you eventually work from home? That might not work if you and your wife are trial lawyers, but if you put your minds to it, a solution could be found. You and your wife are going to have to make some tough decisions regarding having kids. Of course you realize that you get tax deductions for kids, right? Don't put it off too long. Mother Nature can be cruel.
Can you move to a less expensive area and commute?
Good luck, and best wishes.
From a Freeper who has been married for 17 years, and got married at 30 to a woman of 29, also both with good jobs, let me offer some words of advice:
1) Be positive about it and expect things will work out.
2) Your greatest joy in life will be your children. We have three now and at age 47 I can think of nothing that is more important to me, except my country and my faith. Don't cheat yourself because you don't think you will be able to afford them.
3) If you have to, move to a lower cost-of-living area when your wife stops working to raise the children. [This happened to us with the birth of our second -- we moved from high-rent Menlo Park CA to lower-rent San Diego.]
4) Finally, don't let the financial planners and Money Magazine scare you about the cost of raising children. They will have you fretting about the need to put $5K away each year to pay for their college or some such nonsense. Just work hard and trust that this will all work out. It did for our parents -- mine didn't do any financial planning, yet we all went to college -- and it will for you, too.
Good luck and God bless.
This is also very true. In some areas of the country - including mine - it is very difficult to own a home in a decent area and still have one parent stay home with children. We've accepted that we will probably both have to work when we start a family. We don't like it, but that's reality.
I just don't get the long-term cohabitation thing, like I said before.
"We'd love to have 4 or more kids, but that just doesn't seem realistic."
Move.
bump 4 later
Astute observation - however not only is it the Muslim countries that are having population explosions, but the third world countries as well. Which leads one to the conclusion that it may be inevitable that these worlds and the quest to redistribute wealth in the name of equality will collide in one huge deadly conflict.
That's one of the reasons a Federal Gov't job is appealing to us. There seems to be a lot more flexibility in the public sector in terms of telecommuting, part time work etc. than in the private sector.
Can you move to a less expensive area and commute?
Moving way out into the suburbs isn't appealing for several reasons: 1) the length of the commute (especially in the DC area) can become extreme. I know people who live practically in W. Virginia and commute to DC area. They spend something like 3 hours a day in their car; 2) suburbia isn't that appealing to us. We prefer living in closer to the city, with its nightlife, culture, restaurants etc.
We'll eventually find a solution, but at this point we're not willing to change our lifestyle in order to have kids.
I'm amazed at how much the cost of living varies from one area to the other. I'm in Boston right now. I have to make twice what I would make if I lived in North Carolina. Yet salaries aren't any higher in my field. There are websites where you can go and get cost-of-living information by state and city. It's sobering.
My wife and I lived together for about 3 years before we got married. We were engaged for 2 of those years (it took forever to plan the wedding- it involved as much planning as the D-Day landing).
Living together is, IMHO, an invaluable experience. You get to learn whether this is a person you can actually live with. You end up going into the marriage with full disclosure of your partner's quirks.
Not ready to do that yet- suburbia doesn't hold much appeal for us.
Nice idea. Except some of us have fairly specialized jobs that don't exist everywhere. I manage to have a stay-at-home wife and 2 home-schooled kids in Metro DC, but it's not easy. And jobs like mine are NOT common. . .
In some fields, location makes a big difference in terms of salary. When I was starting work in NYC, a lawyer fresh out of law school could make $125,000+ while lawyers in other places made a goodly amount less. Of course, with cost of living, you tended to end up in the same place.
I can see it for a year or two...my future sister-in-law and her fiance have lived together for about 2 years now. Cohabitation is valuable for some couples. What I was thinking of was truly long-term. I've got cousins who've been shacked up with their partners for anywhere from 6-10 years. Sorry, but if you don't know if you're meant to be together after that long, you might need to reconsider some things!
(I agree on weddings taking more planning than an amphibious assault! We're having an 18 month engagement and I still wonder if it will all get done on time.)
"Girls are now more likely to approach men and ask them out, while a lot of guys can actually be quite scared of girls,"
LOL, ain't that the truth. Though I've just met my hottie, I've met a few great guys before that would not come up to me first, also I've been finding a lot of guys who "assume you were taken or with somebody". If I hadn't made the first move, sheesh, to find out... just ask! You might be surprised! LOL.
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