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It is totally unrealistic in today's economy to feel that people should not have children until you can afford to stay home with them for the first five years. That is naive thinking. I am curious what the "basic" cost of living is for many people with small children. I am guessing in the midwest, that it runs in the range of $3,000-$4,000 a month before taxes. That is not for some fancy house, vacations or any of that. Just to have a safe place to live, transportation, groceries, pay your utility bills and health insurance. This is not always affordable for a young couple with one income.

3k a month????? What the heck are you feeding those (hypothetical) kids? Stake every night? I could probably live of 1700 a month if I had to without changing anything but eating, spending, and saving habits. That would not pay things like 401k and student loans but I am talking rock bottom. Would not even have to give up the cell phone and the cable modem. If people need two full time working parents to raise one kid they should move or look really hard at their REAL priorities.

My wife and I have 3 children. We have lived on as little as 20,000 a year on one income, this was as recently as 5 years ago. We owned our home and done without most things, but we always had food and paid the bills. My wife has been able to stay home and raise the kids while I work.

The problem with people these days is that they do want a BIGGER HOUSE, A NICE CAR, GREAT VACATIONS ANNUALLY OR SEMIANNUALLY as well SPENDING MONEY to dine out on a regular basis. People want to live above their means, so both couples work, sometimes 2 jobs apiece to afford it all. I believe it to be a question of priorities.

What do you want out of life?

I've got great well-behaved children that make good grades in school and who are very close to my wife and I. It also gave me more motivation to work harder at my ONE job and now I run the office and make over $45,000 per year. After my youngest is out of kindergarten, my wife can go to school and become a nurse. We are used to living on one income and now I have enough money to send her to school. By the time we are both well established in our careers, We will have MORE than most people our age and we will be better off and closer to our children. We made sacrifices early so we could be better off later.

Also, none of our children were left in the back-seat of our car to die.