Re: Kids... need some serious advice...

Posted by captaink on February 15, 2006 at 09:02:42 from (66.115.214.56):

In Reply to: Kids... need some serious advice... posted by Steven@AZ on February 14, 2006 at 17:14:16:

Steven,

There is some good advice on the forum and some that, well, I’ll leave it to you. As others I commend you for wanting to be financially responsible before you have kids but I found out personally that if I waited until I could afford them I might still be waiting and I’m almost 49 now.

Yes, you will need food, diapers, etc and other costs will come along. We can’t see the future, we don’t know if we will get a fantastic job offer in a year or two that is what we want to do for a wage that will more than provide for us or if we won’t. We don’t even know if we will have a job tomorrow or next year or will be out of work. We do know that tomorrow we will have one day less to live. There is no way to get more time, we will all end up dead some day.

My opinion is that your age (your wife’s too) is the most important consideration when deciding to start or add to your family. Once it is gone you can not get your youth back. You can not get more time later in life if you suddenly decide you want more. I was in my early 30s when my sons were born. (I got married at 27.) Many times I would see younger parents spend more time with their kids playing catch etc than I did. This was because I didn’t think I had either time or energy to do that. Sometimes I wished that I was younger when I had my kids, but always accepted reality. (However, as I got older, my boys and I grew a lot closer as we worked on things together, but then I also like working with teenagers :>).)

You sound like an intelligent and ambitious person. I don’t mean to make light of the financial thing, but the worst thing that can happen to you financially is that you end up bankrupt and that might happen weather you have kids or not. Every thing we do or acquire in life takes time, money, or both. Some things have greater returns (either monetarily or in a personal nature) than others for their cost. Having children costs money, but I have found out that they return so much more.

Here is a true story. Thirty-five years ago a man was on the local school board trying hard to save a small town school. He was very dedicated to education and providing as quality an education as possible, and to that end worked hard get an addition to the school built in order to upgrade the facility and keep the school up to date. Later, his grandsons attended that small high school and every day walked the hallway in that addition past the plaque with their grand dad’s name on it as chairman of the board when that addition was built. The oldest one graduated with high honors, a 3.9 GPA and is on the dean’s list at the college he is attending and studying to be an engineer. His younger brother is doing almost as well in high school. Both boys had many other accomplishments while attending that school. Both boys took advantage of the opportunities that their grandfather worked so hard to make possible! The sad part of this story is that their grandfather died before his grandson’s were even born…he never knew what all his hard work had accomplished for his very own grandsons.

Time is our ever constant companion…

My 2 cents…

Replies:

• Re: Kids... need some serious advice... Steven@AZ 09:47:20 02/15/06 (0)

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