But God will provide! Look at the Duggars!

god, it's certainly a really big contributor in making me wait. I was just commenting on someones blog today about how I'm worried I'll never be able to afford to have kids! Even with me and my fiance doing OK, we're gonna be fucked unless we start making more money soon.

What blows my mind about the US (please correct me if I'm wrong) is that you still don't have paid maternity/parental leave.

I think it's terrible that in Ontario you get only 55% of your income and your job guaranteed for one year after the birth of your child. Thanks to our collective agreement, my employer tops-up our maternity leave salaries to 93% of our regular pay but few in Ontario get this (6mos at 93%, 6 mos at 55%).

I spent my maternity leave in Vermont, where my husband had taken a temporary transfer through work. One of his co-workers blew my mind when she told me that she only had 6 weeks off, without pay when her children were born. If she didn't go back after 6 weeks, she lost her job.

I was stunned. I thought Canada was bad. We still don't have a national daycare program. If you're not lucky enough to have family nearby, you could spend nearly your whole salary paying for childcare.

Child-care should be reframed as the "Right of a Child" born into a free and just society, just as public education is. Public school education is an entitlement of children born within the boundaries of the USA (regardless of parental status as citizens, etc). If paid maternity/paternity leave for at least 6wks after a child is born was mandated by law and childcare/preschool was provided (and regulated to assure the quality and safety of such programs) just as public education is, then work-life issues for both men and women would be much better (not perfect, but helpful). The way the dialogue is now, its more about parents needs and "if you can't stay home/pay for care, then you shouldn't be having kids"-line of thinking rather than an issue of a child's best interest. Again, issues effecting women/sex/children have more in the current discourse to do with punishing women for female sexuality and parental obligations than with actually addressing the issues of raising children. Also, 60% of abortions are for women who already have children and the #1 citation for having an abortion among those women is the cost of raising children. Now, I'm not against abortion, I think that it should be safe, legal, and free, but for Fundies who appose it, you'd think that they'd be the first to suggest that a huge part of that cost of childrearing (day-care) be taken out of the equation (day-care for all)...for the baaaaabeeezzzz, but no, because they don't care about babies, they care about sexually active women and sexually active gay men.

Heather Nan - that was a great post!

Thank you.

We're definitely stressing out about the finances, and that was a big reason we held off as long as we did. Believe me, the cost of quality childcare versus my salary will be a major factor in deciding whether I go back to work after popping this kid out.

Hey, if it limits breeding...

god, I'm actually scared to say anything at work about getting pregnant. I don't get a good vibe from my employers. They were freaking out at this girl in the office who is ready to pop.
(she;s been working through a very difficult pregnancy and she's due in under 3 weeks. So she's done this week) they were like "your leaving already?" even tho she told them a 100 times when she needed to take leave.

I'm scared to ask my boss what our maternity leave % is.

I think that it should be safe, legal, and free, but for Fundies who appose it, you'd think that they'd be the first to suggest that a huge part of that cost of childrearing (day-care) be taken out of the equation (day-care for all)...for the baaaaabeeezzzz...

It's always been suspicious to me that our country spouts so much about family values, and the value and importance of children, but we have no systems in place to help parents. It's because they don't really care about life. They care about punishing women for having The Sex.

exact iChat conversation with my boyfriend about 1hr ago:

me: [my boss] is on the phone with [big box insurance company] trying to get me a health insurance policy so we can HAVE A BABY!

BF: awesome

me: they are being asshats
$400+ per month

BF: thats fucking crazy

me: i was lying - $464/m
$761/m for me + baby

BF: that is fucking insane!!!\

me: [older co-worker] is driving the bus here...she really thinks i should have coverage

BF: that is absolutely crazy. How does someone afford to live? Then youre suppose to pay for childcare of top of all that?
Can't be done.

me: thank god you work from home, honey

Well of course if you are the young, fertile white woman in question you should only be having teh sex with the well off white menz who can take care of you so that your kids don't have to go to "day care". Pfft. Don't you know that's for those dark skinned babies.

"It's kind of amazing how a country that just lurves to tell women that we need to be having children (so long as we're white, of course) is so damn crappy at providing the resources necessary to have kids and not go broke. Sigh."

Why doesn't the women who plans to have children take that responsibility, instead of thrusting upon "the country?"

Correction (mispellings in my original comment):

"It's kind of amazing how a country that just lurves to tell women that we need to be having children (so long as we're white, of course) is so damn crappy at providing the resources necessary to have kids and not go broke. Sigh."

Why doesn't the woman who plans to have children take that responsibility, instead of thrusting it upon "the country?"

"'It's kind of amazing how a country that just lurves to tell women that we need to be having children (so long as we're white, of course) is so damn crappy at providing the resources necessary to have kids and not go broke. Sigh.'

"Why doesn't the women who plans to have children take that responsibility, instead of thrusting upon 'the country?'"

The idea seems to be that if it's "the country" claiming to need far more children than it already has then it's "the country" which should take on the responsibility for their care.

You know, like when in-laws ask a new bride to breed and get to raise the baby they asked for:

http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/waiwai/archive/news/2002/02/20020202p2g00m0dm999000c.html

"...One 26-year-old tells Spa! that her condition for marrying her husband and bearing his child was that he and his parents would do all the housework and child rearing. Moreover, she and her husband live rent-free in an adjoining house and get 150,000 yen for living expenses.

"Grateful? Hardly. 'That's the least they can do,' she scoffs. 'After all, I gave them a grandchild.'..."

Yeah, I have one daughter in daycare, we pay 132 dollars a week. My son will start coming when he hits 16 months (my mom watches him now) and then we will pay 257 a week. I bring home about 350 a week and it makes me cry to think how much of my paycheck will go to daycare. It's almost not worth it to work, but we can't afford for me not to, plus I love what I do. I have no idea how we are going to afford it though. If I had realized how much I would be paying in daycare, I definitely would've delayed having kids. It's also the main reason we've decided not to have a third baby- we simply can't afford the daycare.

John Dias: Don't you mean, "Why don't the women and men planning to have children take on that responsibility?" Surely, that was a typo. And you're assuming that all children are planned.

People aren't saying they don't want to take responsibility, but it's a complete catch 22. You need two incomes to support children, but childcare eats up nearly half of the household money. If the government has such a supposed interest in the protection of life (and the government does claim to have such an interest, check out Roe v. Wade) and if family structure is such an important part of society, then it stands to reason that there ought to be systems in place, such as affordable childcare or mandated paid parental leave to make childrearing less of a financial burden.

Something has to be done, but my one big worry is that women will then face pressure to only have one child or two because it will be too expensive for the Gov or company to have more. I don't like that type of coercion either. I don't know what the answer is.

The justification for free public education in the 19th century primarily had to do with producing a work-force educated enough to embark in a proto-industrial economy (oh, and voting rights/voting education). An educated work-force is a more productive work-force and educating children is about producing adults who can manage a country's resources and maintain a social/economic system. So, when you ask, John Dias,

"Why doesn't the woman who plans to have children take that responsibility, instead of thrusting it upon "the country?"

You're ignoring the already existing commitment we have to citizens/workers. Affordable/available child-care would similarly benefit children and their working parents. Our current educational system does not take into account two working parents because its still based in a 19th century model. Educating and caring for children is a village/tribal endeavor and its only late 19th to mid-20th century standards of child-rearing that emphasize one woman caring for her children alone. Its the nuclear family model that is broken and inefficient. Since we no longer life in large families agriculturally or even large urban families collectively, childrearing became a solo-venture. But only briefly, now even that system is broken. The thing is, family structures and childrearing structures change according to cultural norms, time-period, economic realities. With the majority of women in full-time work, relying upon a system that demands a wife isn't useful. You may want to hate-on "breeders" as some call them because that might not be your choice, but the children of "breeders" will be paying for your social security and medicare. You belong to a greater community than you may care to know, but that's our economic reality. Also, just a note, the fraction of our budget that actually goes to education compared to the defense budget is amazing. We subsidize billions of wasted dollars to defense contractors everyday...its not like our tax dollars couldn't be put to better use without having to increase that much on the basic family level to get universal health-care and day-care...if the defense bill was significantly cut (not to mention unnecessary and immoral wars were not fought) then we really could be a great country.

My husband and I waited years to have kids. Finally, we were doing all right financially, both had good, stable jobs, so we decided to have a baby.

Except I wound up having twins, and when I did the math, I would have GROSSED $1.14 per DAY if I had continued working and put my kids in daycare.

We don't live near any family, and none of our friends at the time had kids, so daycare was our only option aside from one of us staying home. I decided that I'd rather it be me, for reasons financial, practical and emotional, and so I've been home since, while we struggle to survive on one income.

When I read the title to this post, my first reaction was "duh, yeah." I pay $289 / week for daycare. That cost is reasonable in my area. I would love to have a second child but will definitely have to space my children 4 years out in order to afford the costs- that's only 6 months of double day care costs. If I had had twins... Thorn I don't know how you handled it. It was my biggest fear.

The whole thing is such shit. I joked that the hospital owned my baby because it took us 13 months to pay all the bills (AND I had health insurance- what the hell would I have done without it???).

Unless we reframe the argument as HeatherNan so brilliantly suggested, it'll never happen- it's like the work/life debate- until non-parents realize that it's beneficial for companies to have policies that support work/life balance [all too often framed as "parent issues" or "mommy issues"] then we'll never win this battle. Corporations are so good at pitting their employees against each other (that mom takes sick days too often! that dad always wants to leave to coach his son's game!) they wind up being able to fleece the whole lot of us.

And for the non-parents out there- someday you won't be so young and spry, someday the kids of these over-worked parents are going to be running things- your government, your corporations. Hell, one of them might fire your ass someday because you had the audacity to want to leave early to take your Significant Other to Chemo or some other waste of time. Deny all you want that it's none of your affair how the kids of today are raised- if their parents are being denied the resources to be there, to teach them compassion and the importance of spending time with your family, you're gonna suffer for it.

FYI, when you adopt an American child in need you get a nice tax credit, something in the neighborhood of $10,000. That can help pay for the costs of childcare and preschool. (You don't get any such credit for popping out the kids yourself.) Just saying... for all you feminists who want kids but don't have a partner and aren't interested in dealing with a sperm donor, adoption's a good way to go. Not only are you doing a great thing for the kid, it's good for the environment, too (because it reduces population growth).

I've always wanted to adopt, and lately since my husband and I are ready to have kids we've been looking into it.

It kind of bugs me when I hear some of you ladies talk about the societal benefit of social programs for child care, as if individual parents give a rat's ass about that... Utopians, the lot of you.

I'm 20 and I already know I'll be delaying kids until I have my own health insurance and hopefully a house. But my gawd everything is so damn expensive. Fuck, day care alone would take up my entire minimum wage paycheck I get from my current job while being in college.

John Dias, you seem to have fundamental misunderstanding about the difference between Utopian society and social democracies. Utopian societies (in theory) are uniform and in many ways, non-democratic. They require a commitment to a philosophy of social organization that often revolves around a charismatic leader. Social Democracies on the other hand, consider matters such as economic justice and fare wages, social commitments to the elderly and to children, and standards of labor practices and environmental impact. What you seem to prefer from your comments is Libertarianism, which excludes public education, health-care, and in some extreme cases basic infrastructure (often Libertarians believe that bridges and high-ways should be toll only); Libertarians, do, however, support a common military and police force in order to protect their property (hypocritical, in my mind). Libertarianism is primarily a philosophy held by white, men who feel the least connected to other human beings and hostile to women in particular. SO, forgive me for pointing out that this bankrupt social Darwinian philosophy is without merit in a modern economy, let alone in a society committed to justice.

Hi, Heather. Yes, I'm white. Yes, I tend to embrace libertarianism. And yet somehow I don't think I'm disconnected from other human beings or hostile to women. In fact, I believe in a system where children have both parents in their lives (and at least one parent readily present during the lion's share of their waking hours), which is the exact opposite of a "white, disconnected, unjust" world view. You seemed to be describing (even promoting) a society in which women have returned to the workforce, and children are cared for by daycare workers rather than their parents. Is that your ideal? I can understand a recognition of economic realities, as brutal as reality can be in these times... But to embrace it like it's the right thing for children, and to call it "justice," and to equate those who don't like this dumping of kids into daycare to "disconnected white men" seems a little harsh in my book.

Here's what you wrote:

"Its the nuclear family model that is broken and inefficient. Since we no longer life in large families agriculturally or even large urban families collectively, childrearing became a solo-venture. But only briefly, now even that system is broken. The thing is, family structures and childrearing structures change according to cultural norms, time-period, economic realities. With the majority of women in full-time work, relying upon a system that demands a wife isn't useful."

My original comment in this thread was that women who plan on having children should plan their families first, instead of browbeating society into providing free daycare so that they can go to college or work all day. And yes, I did single out women, since women have control over their reproductive lives and men are just an add-on option in these times.

John Dias thinks women have control over their reproductive lives!
If there's no man (or sperm) there's no baby. Women don't create children on their own. It's not our sole responsibility to see that they're healthy, well cared for and properly educated.
A society that commands women (and women alone) to breed, breed, breed does so because it perceives that more children = socially beneficial. So society does, in fact, have a responsibility to the children born here.

Actually, SarahMC, women are doing exactly that, creating children on their own. Women are specifically and intentionally planning on single parenthood these days in increasing numbers. Sperm banks give them this ability.

When a father is involved, I believe he is entitled to be involved in the child's life on a significant basis (for his benefit, and more fundamentally, for the child's). But that's not a right that fathers have, is it? Only when a mother stipulates (i.e. agrees) to joint custody does a father have a chance seeing his kid on a regular basis. This is even the case when the father was "100 percent sold-out dedicated" to providing both time and financial support for the child.

Planning a family is a woman's prerogative, and a man's privilege. She can:

1. Conceive with or without a specific father in mind (boyfriend or sperm bank)

2. Carry the baby to term, or not (abortion)

3. Keep the baby once it has been born, or not (adoption, safe-harbor laws)

4. Retain primary custody of the baby, or not (family law, "best interests" / "tender years" doctrines)

All of the above offer no guarantees to men, post conception. Even men who supply sperm to sperm banks are sought after for child support (post-birth), in at least one jurisdiction that I've read about. Yes, women do have reproductive control over their lives.

The only control men have -- and I'm not downplaying it, because it is significant -- is withholding their sperm (abstaining from sex, vasectomy, or opting never to "donate" their sperm). Even this control does not constrain women, however, as sperm can now be manufactured in the lab. So yes, women do have reproductive control over their lives. I'm not knocking it, I'm just saying that with all this control, women need to show some personal responsibility for a child's well-being when they plan a family (not expecting government handouts for child care). I'm not letting men off the hook, since I know you want to go there; fathers should provide for their kids too. But it's not a show of responsibility when you are "responsible enough" to demand government-subsidized child care. That, to me, is an abrogation of responsibility.

Planning a family? Secure your financial picture first.

That's right; men have the option to withold sperm. If you don't hand your sperm over to an individual woman or a sperm bank, you're not going to have any of these "problems" you speak of.
It's a myth that women are favored in custody cases no matter what. Oh, it's the MRA battle cry, but it's not a reflection of reality. On fact, women are scrutinized more than men in custody battles. And any "bias" you perceive is actually an attempt on the part of the court system to maintain the status quo (mother who was primary caregiver before the divorce stays primary caregiver afterwards).

Men want to have their cake and eat it too. Oh, it's not YOUR fault there's a baby, and you shouldn't have to look after it, contribute to it's care or pay a dime to feed it, but when you and mom split up you should definitely get custody.

The law acknowledges the rights of fathers who have in no way participated in nurturing. Fathers' rights are defined as biological rights, unrelated to actual parenting.

Oh, and John:
Stick around if you think women have control over reproduction.
Are you probed with questions when you buy condoms? Does the cashier check for a wedding ring?

The "pro-life" lobby is putting up more and more roadblocks for women seeking birth control, abortions, and basic sexual healthcare.

SarahMC:

"The law acknowledges the rights of fathers who have in no way participated in nurturing. Fathers' rights are defined as biological rights, unrelated to actual parenting."

You're quite the generalizer, aren't you?

You're assuming that I meant that NO fathers participate in nurturing, which is false.
But that's not what I said (or meant). What I said it perfectly true.

SarahMC:

"

Oh, and John:
Stick around if you think women have control over reproduction.
Are you probed with questions when you buy condoms? Does the cashier check for a wedding ring?

The 'pro-life' lobby is putting up more and more roadblocks for women seeking birth control, abortions, and basic sexual healthcare."

E-commerce to the rescue.

Some of us prefer lisenced professionals, John.

And do you understand what I was actually saying above? Note that I didn't put a comma between "fathers" and "who." Because I was describing a certain kind of father (those who don't participate in nurturing), not generalizing about all fathers.

SarahMC:

"Note that I didn't put a comma between "fathers" and "who." Because I was describing a certain kind of father (those who don't participate in nurturing), not generalizing about all fathers."

What you call a free ride is not considered a free ride by many, many countries around the world. Countries with very high living standards, in fact.

By your standards, public education is also a "free ride." Except it's not. Because it's paid for with taxpayer money (including the children's own parents), and it benefits society as a whole to have well-educated children.
I mean, don't worry; I won't be having a baby any time soon no matter how much money I come into.

But right now lawmakers, religious leaders and conservative blowhards are whining that the US doesn't have enough (white) babies.
One reason for that is the extremely high cost of having children. If society wants people to breed, it's going to have to offer an incentive.

SarahMC, well done.

John Dias, you seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding as to contemporary social democracies as they exist in the industrialized world to date. I favor an EU model (particularly as practiced in Sweden and France) to a neo-Conservative or Libertarian model as proposed in Right Wing Thinks Tanks. The US is now 37th in healthcare and similarly ranked in education; our infrastructure is falling apart (check out the Minnesota bridge collapse); the Social Security "lock box" has long been raided and Billions of dollars are being funneled to private defense contractors for illegimate wars. Major changes need to happen or else the US will be 2nd world by next week (already is for some folks). My political philosophy supports social democracy where basic needs are met in order to generate a more prosperous, happy, and just society. Libertarianism is a political philosophy that does not see society as a matter of interconnected systems/structures and interdependent communities of human life. Libertarianism is patriarchal in practice and theory--it favors the vision of the loan man on his piece of land, with his gun & his wife/children as possessions. Libertarianism is a philosophy of the disaffected and those who favor isolationist positions in terms of international relations. Even Neo-conservatives (though they may borrow you're Cowboy language and xenophobia) no longer favor international policies akin to your own. Libertarians reject Social Security, Medicare/Universal Health-Care, Public Education, the idea of "The Commons" or commercial infrastructure, libraries, tax, well, heck, the government except as a police/military force. Modern Libertarians are 18th/19th Century relics and no longer hold much political influence as a philosophy in practice (though often used by Neo-Conservatives will use you relics to get traction for privitization plans for programs such as Social Security (see how fast that went down the tubes) and for programs such as "vouchers" for schools.

Heather, I may just have to c/p and save your last post for future use. If you don't mind, of course.

Heather Nan:

"John Dias, you seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding as to contemporary social democracies as they exist in the industrialized world to date."

No misunderstanding, just an intense loathing.

SarahMC, be my guest.

John Dias: Okay, but what are you doing on Feministing.com unless you're interested in having a dialogue regarding issues of sex/gender/feminism?
Are you a self-proclaimed Troll? And by Troll, I mean someone who seeks out blogs that represent political/social commentaries that you loathe and then (instead of engaging in dialogue) try to muck up the conversations and distract interested parties from the real issues at hand in order to get your agenda across and prevent activist from their important work? Seems like, dude.

Troll? Heck no. I love you ladies. I really do. I too want to have a dialogue. Notice that I'm not pushing my full agenda here, because this is feministing.com after all. But you would naturally encounter stiffer opposition than me in the public arena, and certainly you must persuade amongst your elected leaders. Is disagreement permitted here, if not encouraged?

Oh, and did I say that I love you?

Riiiiiiiight...love. Did you all check out that nice MRA website that JD links to?

I think that everyone forgot the unofficial "don't feed the troll" policy a few posts back there.

So do I get to continue posting, or am I banned?