Cradle Robber?

How to factor the cost of a kid into a paycheck-to-paycheck life

Ben Watts

My mother was the first to diagnose my fertility problem. She delivered her verdict not long after my thirtieth birthday, during a family vacation to Iceland a couple of years ago. After dropping my sleepy father off at the hotel, my mother, my sister, Alissa, and I had settled into a café; to discuss our itinerary over goblets of wine. Soon tipsy and looking back home with that distant, wide-screen perspective, Alissa and I began instead to fantasize recklessly about our life trajectories.

With a new wedding ring on her finger, a promotion at the bank, and private parking at the condo she and her husband own, Alissa, who is three years younger than I am, has all but the two-kids part of her plan. My own dreams have been more amorphous. For a long time, I only ever imagined a one-bedroom future for myself, in which I'd be busy writing and creating, reading and thinking. Not long after meeting my boyfriend eight years ago, I saw the merits of sharing a home and a life with someone. And then when I passed the 30-year milestone, I started considering expanding the walls of my future to accommodate a child or two.

When I mentioned this aloud, my mom's eyes bulged and she slapped her palms on the table. "But you don't want kids!" she bellowed. "From the time you yourself were a child, you've always said you don't want any!"

"I know," I said, feeling a little defensive but trying not to sound it. "And I'm not saying I want kids. I'm saying I might want kids. Not right away...but someday. Maybe?"

My mother drained her glass. Then she stared hard at me and forbade me to have children. She expounded on the exorbitant cost of child-rearing and the near impossibilities of juggling a career and family. She enumerated the sacrifices, financial and otherwise, that she and my dad had made for us. She confessed that raising us was harder than she'd ever imagined, and if she hadn't harbored such an all-encompassing desire for children—if motherhood hadn't always been her aspiration—she'd never have survived the journey.

When she was finished, she took a deep breath and said, "I'm serious. You and K. can't afford to have a child right now, and by the time the two of you make enough money to raise one, you'll probably be too old to conceive."

Considering that I didn't have enough money to pick up our drinks, never mind the flight to Iceland (my sister still doesn't know that our parents covered my trip), Mom had a point. Still, it's jarring to hear anyone—much less one's own mother—refer to a baby as a line-item consideration. Women are supposed to talk about childbearing as an emotional or physical undertaking, not an economic one. Our maternal competence should transcend financial concerns, right? Try to engage parents of any age in a discussion about the expense of kids, and they tend to give you the Baby Field of Dreams speech, the essence of which is: "If you have them, you will find a way to afford them." Variations on this include, "You'll figure it out," "You'll find a way," and my favorite, the utterly unedifying tautology, "If everyone waited to have kids until they could afford them, then no one would ever have kids."

This Is A Developing Story

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