Is America a bad country to have children?

[BrianNole777]

I watched a segment on CNN last night about how parental stress is through the roof. Two of the panelists were Mothers and were discussing the lack of parental leave, high infant mortality rates compare to other advanced countries. They also cited the huge cost of parenthood in America.

America is the richest country in world history.

Is it a bad place to raise children?

 

[Formerly Rockymtnole]

Not if you’ve planned for them and are financially stable. Otherwise, I imagine it’s not easy.

 

[GES4]

I watched a segment on CNN last night about how parental stress is through the roof. Two of the panelists were Mothers and were discussing the lack of parental leave, high infant mortality rates compare to other advanced countries. They also cited the huge cost of parenthood in America.

America is the richest country in world history.

Is it a bad place to raise children?

Lolno

 

[Scruddy]

Lol no

 

[BrianNole777]

Not if you’ve planned for them and are financially stable. Otherwise, I imagine it’s not easy.

Yeah.

I feel like it takes a 6 figure income to raise them.

 

[ConvenientParking]

Pretty clearly. There are worse places but much much better too

 

[Funky Bunch]

Yeah.

I feel like it takes a 6 figure income to raise them

It takes a 6 figure income to support yourself in some areas of the country

 

[FlickShagwell]

Lol no

lol like you’d have any idea.

 

[wilson reborn]

Not if you’ve planned for them and are financially stable. Otherwise, I imagine it’s not easy.

You imagine right. Try dropping kids off at daycare at 7:00 am and picking them up at 6:00 pm. Dems have some pretty good ideas on helping out with this, but according to some it makes them socialists or Commies.

 

[SSG T]

Bad? Absolutely not

As good as many other Western countries? Absolutely not.

We're a solid 7.5. We could be a 10 if more people actually cared about the betterment of society.

 

[DFSNOLE]

Not if you’ve planned for them and are financially stable. Otherwise, I imagine it’s not easy.

This would eliminate 75% of parents.

 

[SSG T]

Not if you’ve planned for them and are financially stable. Otherwise, I imagine it’s not easy.

We fit into neither of those categories when we had our 1st, or 2nd, child

 

[NDallasRuss]

For a lot of parents (and their kids) who obsess over having the very best of everything for their kids, to set them up for a successful future, it's a terrible place to raise kids.

It's the stress and the expense of trying to do/ get the best of everything and the fear of skipping out on one step that screws up the kid's life 20 years from now. When that's your mindset, everything has to be at 100 and anything less is a disappointment. And yeah, that can be pretty miserable.

I'm sure parents in other first-world countries care about their kids, but I don't get the impression those parents constantly feel like they're on a razor's-edge between success and failure.

There are a lot of stakeholders that exist to fuel that fear - test companies, prep companies, placement consultants, the colleges, the rankings services like US News, the student loan companies, etc. Even the expensive preschools feed into it - like if you don't pay $2k/mo for your 4yo to get off on the right start with their advanced curriculum, they'll already be behind in kindergarten.

 

[Scruddy]

lol like you’d have any idea.

I've got multiple children

 

[FlickShagwell]

I've got multiple screennames

FIFY

 

[EasyHawk]

You definitely want to beware letting them be unsupervised with priests or pastors.

 

[Scruddy]

FIFY

There can only be one Scruddy

 

[Scruddy]

You definitely want to beware letting them be unsupervised with priests or pastors.

Or government school teachers

 

[binsfeldcyhawk2]

No.

But we can do better.

 

[SoFla-Hawkeye]

I have 4 sons. None of them plan to have children.

 

[RagnarLothbrok]

I've got multiple children

That’s scary. 😱

 

[RagnarLothbrok]

Or government female school teachers

FIFY

 

[CarolinaHawkeye]

I have 4 sons. None of them plan to have children.

Grandchildren are the best reason to have children.

 

[RagnarLothbrok]

I watched a segment on CNN last night about how parental stress is through the roof. Two of the panelists were Mothers and were discussing the lack of parental leave, high infant mortality rates compare to other advanced countries. They also cited the huge cost of parenthood in America.

America is the richest country in world history.

Is it a bad place to raise children?

Depends what is meant by “bad.”

It’s expensive to have kids, and the ones who seem to have the most of them live off the government, which is a separate issue.

I would rather raise kids in most places in the USA compared to say…Afghanistan or Rwanda.

 

[EasyHawk]

Or government school teachers

And private school teachers.

 

[EasyHawk]

Or government school teachers

And as we all know now, beware the Rs.

 

[SoFla-Hawkeye]

Grandchildren are the best reason to have children.

So I’ve been told. The flip side of that coin is that I don’t have a vote. And I honestly can’t blame them. It’s an effed up world I’m leaving them.

 

[win1forthe]

For a lot of parents (and their kids) who obsess over having the very best of everything for their kids, to set them up for a successful future, it's a terrible place to raise kids.

It's the stress and the expense of trying to do/ get the best of everything and the fear of skipping out on one step that screws up the kid's life 20 years from now. When that's your mindset, everything has to be at 100 and anything less is a disappointment. And yeah, that can be pretty miserable.

I'm sure parents in other first-world countries care about their kids, but I don't get the impression those parents constantly feel like they're on a razor's-edge between success and failure.

There are a lot of stakeholders that exist to fuel that fear - test companies, prep companies, placement consultants, the colleges, the rankings services like US News, the student loan companies, etc. Even the expensive preschools feed into it - like if you don't pay $2k/mo for your 4yo to get off on the right start with their advanced curriculum, they'll already be behind in kindergarten.

This, parenting has changed so much over the last 25 years. Parents feel like they have to keep up with the Jones’s and education needs to do a better job of teaching the whole child.

 

[Colonoscopy]

Not if you’ve planned for them and are financially stable. Otherwise, I imagine it’s not easy.

The people with the least planning and stability tend to have the most.

It's the people with some education and money -- but not rich -- that overthink it.

 

[3boysmom]

You imagine right. Try dropping kids off at daycare at 7:00 am and picking them up at 6:00 pm. Dems have some pretty good ideas on helping out with this, but according to some it makes them socialists or Commies.

You're ahead of the game if you actually have a daycare that has those hours.

 

[Jimmy McGill]

I'm going to be that guy....

The world is a bad place to have children

 

[General Roman Malaise]

We have 3 kids aged 9-4. The posters calling out how much keeping up with the Joneses has crept into parenting are 100% correct. After school activities, summer camps, pay-to-play sports, organic groceries - the list goes on and on.

Then add how downright awful for kids the US is compared to most other Western countries, and we’d probably pack up and leave if it wouldn’t absolutely destroy the grandparents.

 

[HawkInDC]

For a lot of parents (and their kids) who obsess over having the very best of everything for their kids, to set them up for a successful future, it's a terrible place to raise kids.

It's the stress and the expense of trying to do/ get the best of everything and the fear of skipping out on one step that screws up the kid's life 20 years from now. When that's your mindset, everything has to be at 100 and anything less is a disappointment. And yeah, that can be pretty miserable.

I'm sure parents in other first-world countries care about their kids, but I don't get the impression those parents constantly feel like they're on a razor's-edge between success and failure.

There are a lot of stakeholders that exist to fuel that fear - test companies, prep companies, placement consultants, the colleges, the rankings services like US News, the student loan companies, etc. Even the expensive preschools feed into it - like if you don't pay $2k/mo for your 4yo to get off on the right start with their advanced curriculum, they'll already be behind in kindergarten.

There is some literature that parental anxiety is related to income inequality, which has grown significantly in the US over the last 30 years.

The basic thesis is that the higher the consequences of your kids falling out of your current economic position the more 'authoritarian' the parenting style becomes.

A Review of Matthias Doepke and Fabrizio Zilibotti's Love, Money and Parenting: How Economics Explains the Way We Raise Our Kids - American Economic Association

A Review of Matthias Doepke and Fabrizio Zilibotti's Love, Money and Parenting: How Economics Explains the Way We Raise Our Kids by Lena Edlund. Published in volume 59, issue 3, pages 1001-22 of Journal of Economic Literature, September 2021, Abstract: As Generation X's (born in the 1960s and...

www.aeaweb.org

 

[Rifler]

Raising a child isn't easy anywhere, but if I were becoming a new parent again, I'd be doing it right here in the US,... Very easy choice to make.

 

[millah_22]

You imagine right. Try dropping kids off at daycare at 7:00 am and picking them up at 6:00 pm. Dems have some pretty good ideas on helping out with this, but according to some it makes them socialists or Commies.

It's pretty expensive, too. If you're looking at bare minimum with maybe some montessori learning, it's at least $250 per week.

Otherwise for a solid day care, you're looking closer to $350-400 weekly for just 1 kid. That's a huge chunk of change.

 

[Finance85]

I watched a segment on CNN last night about how parental stress is through the roof. Two of the panelists were Mothers and were discussing the lack of parental leave, high infant mortality rates compare to other advanced countries. They also cited the huge cost of parenthood in America.

America is the richest country in world history.

Is it a bad place to raise children?

The United States would be bankrupt under most definitions. If the USD ceases to be the world currency standard, the US will be in serious trouble.

Why do you care about it being a bad place to have children? Did you find someone that fits your standards?

 

[Whiskeydeltadeltatango]

Middle aged dude with no kids? Checks out.

 

[NDallasRuss]

There is some literature that parental anxiety is related to income inequality, which has grown significantly in the US over the last 30 years.

The basic thesis is that the higher the consequences of your kids falling out of your current economic position the more 'authoritarian' the parenting style becomes.

A Review of Matthias Doepke and Fabrizio Zilibotti's Love, Money and Parenting: How Economics Explains the Way We Raise Our Kids - American Economic Association

A Review of Matthias Doepke and Fabrizio Zilibotti's Love, Money and Parenting: How Economics Explains the Way We Raise Our Kids by Lena Edlund. Published in volume 59, issue 3, pages 1001-22 of Journal of Economic Literature, September 2021, Abstract: As Generation X's (born in the 1960s and...

www.aeaweb.org

I think that makes a lot of sense. Parents naturally want their kids to do better than they did (and hopefully have a smoother path). But the other side of that is the fear of them failing and not even being able to be in the same economic class. All of that together creates a lot of pressure - on the parents and also on the kids. That pretty well encapsulates my kid's life. "Here's the very best of everything we can possibly give you, you've got a clear path to being successful and hopefully having a happy, fulfilling life - now PLEASE DONT SCREW IT UP!!"

 

[alaskanseminole]

Not if you’ve planned for them and are financially stable. Otherwise, I imagine it’s not easy.

Exactly. Getting pregnant at 18 in the back seat of a Ford Escape isn't ideal. However, getting pregnant at 28 with a spouse and a financial plan has to better in the US than most other countries.

 

[General Roman Malaise]

Raising a child isn't easy anywhere, but if I were becoming a new parent again, I'd be doing it right here in the US,... Very easy choice to make.

Just curious why you think that? Not trying to start a whole thing, just a question. Ignore if you want.