I can’t afford to have children?

While I was cooking dinner a couple of weeks ago, I started listening to a podcast. The podcast was about the growth of the population in the US and how it is lowest it’s been. In explaining why population growth is slowing down, the podcast offered survey results indicating that women want to have children but feel that they don’t have the money to be able to have children. 

This explanation made me sad. Do women really feel like they want to have children but can’t afford to have children? Why is that? 

Perhaps wages are lower than they were in a different time; perhaps things are more expensive; perhaps student loan debt is greater than it’s ever been; and, perhaps, more than ever before, we’re unintentional and reckless in our spending. 

Every day we are faced with constant messaging in our society and culture telling us that we need to have every product, every service, the biggest home, the fanciest car, the most expensive clothes. There is even a myriad of ironic “necessities” – products to make you more “minimalistic”; cluttering subscriptions to “ease your life”; “fresh food” flown 2000 miles. There are even debt consolidation services you can pay for to reduce your debt. When we buy into this messaging, we are making a choice. We choose to have these things over something else. 

It is our duty to allocate our time, our attention, and our money responsibly. We are constantly pulled in a million directions. It’s our choice to act on which direction we want to go in. 

I constantly find myself saying, “I wish I had more time to read.” And then, while scrolling through Instagram, an alert pops up telling me I’ve spent 45 minutes scrolling. Conscious or not, it is a choice I make. It is a choice I make that takes away time from other choices I can make.

I don’t want to minimize the existence of poverty and financial hardship. However, the way we choose to spend our money is our responsibility. A lot of people are living paycheck to paycheck because of their own choices. 

Three years ago, we lived paycheck to paycheck. Two incomes and zero children. Unintentional, reckless spending. Today, we have one income (which is significantly less than the two incomes we had) and a child. We forego some things in order to live on one income. That is a choice we make. Having choice is the greatest luxury we could ask for. 

Here’s the bottom line: Get clear on what it is that you want. Set your intentions to achieve the things you really want. Cancel out the noise around you. Ignore the messaging saying you need more or certain things. Businesses are in the business of selling to you. You are in the business of taking care of you.