One of the main reasons why people delay having children is its cost. Rising prices for daycare, preschool tuition, and shelter plus the opportunity cost of not working, partially explains why our population replacement rate is declining. 

The cost of raising children worried me so much that I actually had a $1 million net worth target before having kids. In retrospect, having such a large net worth goal was clearly unnecessary. But the goal did reflect the type of financial anxiety I felt while working in New York City and San Francisco.

My wife and I weren’t ready to have kids until we were in our mid-30s. San Francisco was already expensive enough. To add a child then when we already didn’t have enough time or energy due to our respective occupations would have been unfair to our kid.

Therefore, we logically waited until we had more wealth and more time before seriously trying. We were familiar with the often-cited statistic that it takes $250,000++ to raise a kid to adulthood.

After several years of parenting, however, I now realize there are some unexpected financial benefits of having kids I didn’t anticipate. Further, having children isn’t as expensive as you might think. For folks thinking about having kids or new parents, this article is for you.

Are you a stay-at-home father or father who spends a lot of time with his children? If so, you may be second-guessing your decision to spend so much time with them during their early years. Without some reciprocating love, you might be wondering whether your effort is worth it.

You see, the more time and effort a father commits to parenting, the more disappointment he may experience. Feeling disappointed is why so many people don’t try to pursue their dreams. It may be better not to try at all than to experience rejection.

Children usually gravitate more towards their mothers during their first two years of life. Why wouldn’t they, given mothers have provided their first homes? And whether or not a mother breastfeeds, the bond between baby and mother is stronger because a baby associate its mother with food and survival.

In the eyes of a baby, due to biology, a father is an inferior being to a mother in many ways. As a result, no matter how hard a father tries to care for his baby during the first year of life, he will never be the main target of affection.

As the bond between mother and baby grows, the now toddler may continue to find more comfort from the mother during their second year of life. Getting constantly rebuffed during the baby’s second year of life might logically make fathers want to try less hard.

But hang tough dads! Feeling like you’re chopped liver doesn’t last forever. Better times are coming.

One of the worries about entering the decumulation phase is that you might start spoiling your adult children. If you end up giving your adult children so much money, you might just take away their motivation to work!

Being able to earn your own money and provide for your family creates one of the most satisfying feelings ever. What a shame to take away such a great feeling by giving your adult children everything.

I’ve mentioned one of my regrets was having kids late. I was too focused on my career. Then I became too focused on achieving financial independence to make room for little ones. Ideally, I would have liked to have had my first kid at age 34 instead of at age 39.

However, a conversation with my friend Carlos made me better realize the benefits of being an older parent who is more financially secure.

When I first mentioned to Carlos I had an almost five-year-old son, he looked at me in shock. He responded, “You’re 44 years old and have a five-year-old?! What?!”

You see, Carlos is 48 years old and has a 24-year-old son. He’s very proud of his son because he always talks about how big and powerful he is. However, he lamented his son never tried hard enough in baseball, which is why he never was able to play in college.

So I asked Carlos what his son was doing now. He responded, “He lives in the Central Valley, in Modesto with his mom. I haven’t seen him in over a year.”

Modesto is only a 1 hour, 30-minute drive away from where he lives in San Francisco. I’m not sure why he doesn’t visit more often.

Much has been written about the high cost of having kids. Spending $300,000 – $1,000,000 per kid through high school is a lot of money. However, less has been written about how having kids may make you richer and a better person. Let’s change the dialogue with this article now that I’ve been a stay-at-home-father of two for five years.

If I could rewind time to when I was 25 years old, I’d slap myself silly for focusing so much on my career. The future me would tell my past self to put more effort into my relationship and start a family by age 35 at the latest.

I had my first kid two months before my 40th birthday in 2017. Although I felt like I had snuck in through the backdoor by being able to say I had kids in my 30s, I really started five years too late.

Up to age 32, my main focus was making money and climbing the corporate ladder. For the next two years, my focus was on figuring out how to escape the rate race.

Once I broke out, for the next five years, my main focus was on making sure I survived without a job. The whole idea of adding another human being into my newly free, but precarious life wasn’t a priority.

But if you’re thinking about having kids, I encourage you to have them sooner, rather than later. There is no greater love than you will have for your children. And it is impossible to know such love until you have them.

Do you have parental guilt? Welcome to the club. The vast majority of articles already address mom guilt. Therefore, I’d like to discuss more about the dad guilt epidemic. After all, it takes two to make a baby.

Unfortunately, men don’t have a culture of readily sharing our feelings. As children, we are told that “big boys don’t cry” or “suck it up already.” Consequently, we hide our pain and march on through the mundaneness of life like good soldiers.

If we suppress our feelings long enough, bad things tend to happen. It’s unfortunate that society doesn’t treat a man’s mental health with the same equal amount of attention as it does a woman’s health.

A simple Google search on the words “mom guilt” and “dad guilt” reveals 2X more results for “mom guilt.” Yet, I argue that dad guilt might be much more common than mom guilt.

Not Taking Dad Guilt Seriously Is Wrong

On the front page of Google, you will even find an article from a website called Motherly entitled, “Is “Dad Guilt” Even A Thing?” The story’s purpose is to marginalize a father’s feelings about parenting.

The author concludes, “26 percent of dads pull the hide-in-the-bathroom trick to shirk parental responsibility. Just every now and then. When the shrieking gets too loud. When the man caves are overrun by toys. We get it. And we’ll let you in on a little secret: The pantry works pretty well, too.“

What about the remaining 74 percent? I’m disappointed there isn’t more recognition about what dads have to go through as well. Let’s raise awareness.