How is it that 30 years ago married people earned more and saved more money while only one spouse worked?
You can save a lot on childcare (which apparently your Saturday-working co-worker hasn't heard of) if one parent does stay home. If you don't have childcare expenses, don't have to buy and sometimes dryclean a work wardrobe, pay for lunch when you're having an extra busy day, etc., etc., there are a lot of savngs which can be realized.
But 30-50 years ago (I'm going back to the 50s, because that's the time that people most think about when thinking about SAH parents...by the 70s, that was starting to change), real estate wasn't only absolutely less expensive (y'know, taking into consideration overall inflation); it was *proportionately* less expensive. The average mortgage could be paid by 1/3 of the average single salary. These days, the average mortgage takes more like 1/3 of the average dual salary. Things have, proportionately, gotten more expensive --- due to inflation and the fact that, as we get more (over)populated, real estate just goes up and up. As they say, "they're not making any more of it".
That said, though, a lot of it has to do with what we think we "need". In the 50s, it was:
a 1200 SF 3 bedroom, one-bath Cape-style house for a family of four or five;
ONE car (mom would often drive dad to work, or drop him at the train station for a commute to the city);
maybe a TV;
a radio or two;
a subscription to the local paper;
a single rotary telephone;
record player with one lousy built-in speaker, and LPs/45s;
bicycles;
maybe a dog or cat;
books;
clothes;
pretty simple furniture;
a simple kitchen (sink, fridge, stove/oven);
a simple walk-behind lawn mower;
a couple of 3-speed bikes...etc.
Now we've got this expanded expectation of the average middle-to-upper-middle-class "good life" as:
a 2500 SF, 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath, 2 or 3 car garage McMansion;
one car per adult;
home security systems;
flat-screen TVs and cable (or digital cable) in the living room/den;
smaller TVs with cable throughout the house;
home computers, internet access, wireless routers, printers, photo printers, computer speakers, power strips, surge protectors;
CD players, DVD players, MP3 players, surround sound systems;
alarm systems, back-up generators, central air;
automatic garage door openers;
cell phones (and maybe Bluetooth and Blackberries);
digital cameras and camcorders;
Nintendo/Playstation;
jet skis, 4-wheelers, road bikes, mountain bikes, snowmobiles;
xc skis, downhill skis, skateboards, rollerblades;
maybe a pool out back, a grill, a big playset for little Susie;
a pedigreed dog or cat or two;
dishwashers, trash compactors, Cuisinarts, microwaves, French-door fridge/freezers, self-cleaning dual-fuel convection ovens/ranges; under-counter radio/CD players; granite countertops and birch cabinets (all of this in a kitchen that's used less and less for actual cooking; takeout rules the day);
custom task lighting through the house; washer/dryers, sometimes with their own separate laundry rooms;
mud room;
full basements, ready to be finished into yet more living space;
gym memberships and/or home exercise equipment;
riding mowers, power leaf blowers/hedge trimmers, sprinkler systems;
power washers, gutter leaf-exclusion systems, etc;
subscriptions to multiple specialty magazines (
Rolling Stone for your high school kid;
US magazine for trash reading for mom at the gym;
FlyFishing Monthly for dad;
Tiger Beat for little Susie)...
etc., etc., etc., etc., etc....
Am I missing anything? I'm sure I am. I'm exhausted...even thinking of all of the stuff on that list took forever (particularly since I don't have most of it). Again, it might not be the reality for many middle class people, but it's their
expectation of what's normal. It seems the only thing we've cut out is, on average, the newspaper subscription. Everything else has just been added onto and expanded.
I plead guilty to having a really nice stereo, a really nice Mac laptop, an 80-gig iPod, and a really nice CD/MP3 collection. I have perhaps $25K worth of beautiful instruments, too, collected over a lifetime. But I'm a musician and I use all of these things professionally as well as for leisure. I don't have 85% of the stuff I listed above --- due to lack of funds and
lack of wanting them. But it seems as if the list of stuff "needed" to attain the middle-class "American Dream" (or to keep up with Joneses, something that fortunately, very few on this forum seem to give a flip about) has expanded...a lot.
And we're not even talking about extra costs and premiums associated with having kids. Health insurance; orthodontia; perhaps an additional car; car insurance for teens (trust me: it's prohibitive! The stories my students' parents tell me!); summer school or camp; user's fees, even for public school sports programs; music/tennis/riding/ballet lessons; outfitting said kid for lessons (instruments/pointe shoes etc., etc.); new clothes and shoes, even for the least fashion-focused kid, due to growth spurts; boffo additional food costs; etc., etc., etc.
Add to the more-expensive real estate costs the increased costs of almost everything (food especially) due to higher gas costs, and no wonder people are road-raging on the highway and biting people's heads off in line at the grocery store. No wonder we're forgetting our basic manners: "Please...thank you...excuse me". They're looking at
InStyle magazine at the checkout, parading J-Lo's and Britney's lifestyle in front of them. And for some crossed-wires reason, they think that they have to try to "keep up", poor things...worse stilll, some of 'em had kids for the same reason. Though I'm not a religious person, I have no problem taking a moment of silence for them...life must be hell on earth for them. Everyone in that equation must feel pretty shortchanged.
I'm not saying I feel sorry for these people who seem to think that "having it all" is the most important thing in life. I sort of do, but at the same time, they're not using their heads; instead, they value going along with the flock as much as possible. But I think I'd do well to be a bit wary of them. If DH and I are getting by (not easily, but OK, given that we're trying to save generously for retirement) with a small 1800 SF house, few frills, and no kids, then how are these other people (parents, mostly) doing it?
My guess, having watched
Oprah's "Debt Diet" series (before I cancelled my cable a few months ago! The only show we were watching regularly was Comedy Central's
The Daily Show, and I fund out I could get it on iTunes for about 20% of what I was spending on monthly cable; spending $15 rather than $55 seemed like a win to me), is that most people are "doing it" via massive, crushing credit card debt, home equity debt, 5-year car loans, your own student loans not being paid off until a few years before sending your own kid to college, etc.
So, my CF pals...watch your backs at the grocery store and on the highway! It's not just your carefree lifestyle that parents and would-be parents envy. It's not so much just the spontaneity. It might be the fact that most of us are in the black (or if not, we're in the red far, far less than average). We're living within our means --- not only regarding our personal budgets, but in keeping with the overall planetary picture (I don't think I'm the only one who feels a bit...crowded...lately?). These folks are angry, tired, stressed, and right on the edge. Worse yet, it's completely taboo to talk about being in over one's head in terms of debt, so they can't even confide in their friends, lest the entire charade be exposed.
People seem to think they can have kids and make no adjustments or sacrifices. Bunk. There's nothing in the life that's not a trade-off and kids are the biggest trade-off there is. If you're going to have them, make SURE you want them, because you'll have to make due with less...either less
stuff, to free up funds for the kid's needs (the figures say that raising a kid in even the most bare-bones manner costs
well over $100,000; I don't remember the exact figure)...or less leace of mind due to racking up the debt to pay for the house-of-cards, breathlessly-running-after-the-Joneses life you're leading.
People who really want to be a parent (not just "have a baby") make those financial sacrifices happily and willingly. Other people with kids don't make the sacrifices, rack up the debt, end up in a ditch, and expect to be able to file for bankruptcy and have the rest of us bail 'em out, without complaint. No thank you.
Deep down, a lot of folks agree with us, but it's so much easier to just blame the messenger.
We're the messengers, guys...and the message is "SIMPLIFY". Or, as the saying goes,
"Live simply, so that others may simply live" (I've always read that statement in terms of "others" meaning other species...but at the rate that overpopulation and climate change is occuring, I'm starting to realize that its also for the wellbeing of human beings.)