Very true. I didn’t have my own place to live or any money when the first one was on the way. In fact, my kids are the reason I started a new career, worked my way up, bought a house.
It doesn’t all have to happen in a specific order. Like the parent post says, you make it work.
What does make it work mean? Most people I know will not accept the child “surviving” as making it work.
Maybe you are living paycheck to paycheck so you don't buy the new game this week. You play an old game that you already had.
Maybe some mornings you have to give them a bowl of cereal instead of making eggs, because you don't have enough time.
Maybe some afternoon when everyone is exhausted from working, you let the kids play the tablets for 2 hours instead of 30 minutes like they're supposed to.
Maybe instead of renting out the trampoline park for the birthday party, you get a pavilion at your local nature park.
Maybe your kid might get a "cheese sandwich" in their lunch because you were out of turkey and didn't realize it until 11pm.
Maybe your kid desperately wants a dog, but your current living situation doesn't allow it and he has to go without.
Obviously we all want what's best for our children all the time, but life is full of compromises. I'm not saying that parents shouldn't do everything within their power to provide the best life possible for their kids - in fact, I think that's exactly the moral duty of parenthood. But there are many degrees of happiness between "pure utopian bliss" and "mere survival." And so many potential parents these days seem to think that if they can't do it absolutely perfectly then it's not worth doing.
Maybe this is just my own background, but I can't think of a single person I know whose childhood was perfectly ideal.
Where does being able to afford routine healthcare land? And I do not mean waiting in the few overcrowded clinics that take Medicaid because Medicaid reimbursed very poorly so providers do not accept it.
The only difference between now and before is that now we have very effective birth control. I think it is perfectly reasonable for people to say, for example, I am not likely to be able to pay for a child’s healthcare, and so it is not worth it for me to have children (yet). Or a home in a decent school, where the other kids are not likely to be in gangs. And so on and so forth.
My parents were poor, and I never received any healthcare as a child. My dad told me to play carefully, otherwise any injuries I incurred could derail the family. I also went to a different school in different states every year until high school. So I was fed and sheltered. But would I have kids if I predicted that is what their life would be? Hell no.
I agree.
What I'm arguing against is what seems to be a fairly modern conception: "oh, we can't possibly consider children until we own a home with 4 bedrooms and a pool and we've gone on a backpacking trip through Europe and we've unpacked all our own childhood trauma and come to terms with it and gone to therapy and etc, etc etc".
I'm not saying "yeah, fuck it, you live in a box, get all your money from hooking, and nurse a heroin addiction, but you should still have kids, it'll work out."
I'm just saying that nearly every human in history has been born into a situation that was non-optimal in some way. It's OK to have a kid when the house is too small. It's OK to not have a fully baked plan to finance every activity the child might ever want to do. A fulfilling and happy life can be found in less-than-ideal circumstances.
My parents didn't have much money. We were fortunate in many other ways. Some folks were born with more money and less parental kindness. Some sadly lacked in both.
As an adult, I can say that I am happy to have been born in spite of the many challenges that I faced growing up. I believe (hope) that most people on Earth can honestly say the same.
Sorry you had a bad experience with that growing up. Really.
As a parent I can’t say I shared that worry with only having medicaid. That was our best option before I had a job with healthcare benefits, which took me years to get to.
But I would still say it was pretty far from just “survival”.
My sons are 8 and 6 now and that's much more difficult on some ways. They're 'people' enough that you can reason with them sometimes, but also sometimes they get trapped in completely ridiculous loops of illogic and emotion and you just have to ride it out while trying to remain calm. There's all kinds of dramas, illnesses, places to go, one thing after another.
Mostly though, being a dad is great, and I recommend it. I meet lots of folks my age who seem kinda directionless, like they can't figure out what's missing, and I think for many of them, family is that missing piece.
I've also met many DINKs who seem like they're having the time of their lives, so YMMV. I don't want to tell anyone how to live their life.
But there does seem to me to be a cultural knee-jerk ruling out of family among my generation that puzzles and saddens me. Everyone seems to think there are a million qualifications they have to meet before becoming a parent. "We need to have a house, and 100k in savings, etc etc etc." And yes, it's good to be prepared. But also, as long as you're a semi functional human, you'll make it work.
If you think you want to have children, you should!