Family planning in the recession

by Phil Stott

As the financial crisis continues, it's beginning to take its toll in ways that I'd never have predicted. Having personally survived two rounds of layoffs at work (so far!) and been handed a pay freeze, I'd begun to think that we were weathering the worst of it. Not so fast: it now turns out that the school my wife teaches at is also in dire straits. In addition to a round of layoffs there, they've also frozen pay, but have gone one better when it comes to hitting us in the pocket: the subsidized daycare we'd been enjoying for Maeve has gone, meaning we're going to be paying 50 percent for it more come September. And did I mention that we've had our salaries frozen?

I suspect that we're far from alone in finding ourselves facing strained financial circumstances in the coming months and years-indeed, we're downright lucky for both still having jobs. One of the biggest questions the crisis has raised in our house is likely to be an ongoing debate for some time. The issue is this: with Maeve now 14 months old, we both want a second child, and would like to have one who's reasonably close in age to Maeve. Given the current crisis, however, and especially the increased stress on our finances, we're seriously questioning whether we can afford to have another child at this point.

Stick or twist?

In tossing the idea around, I keep seesawing between two opposing points of view. On one side, I realize that having children is not an inexpensive proposition, and given the current uncertainties over the solidity of our future employment prospects, I'm reluctant to commit to attempting to bring a child into a world where we can't provide for it. Let's call that my pragmatic side. For brevity's sake, here's a summary of that side's arguments:

• The economy, the economy, the economy: neither of our jobs feels particularly stable at the moment, which is a pretty major concern. Add in the rising cost of healthcare, daycare, and no idea when our salaries will be unfrozen, and the financial picture starts to look quite scary.

• Being a stay-at-home dad: Given that we'd almost certainly be unable to afford daycare for two kids, the only option would be for one of us to spend a couple of years at home-most likely me. While I'd get to spend a lot of time with my kids (see the pluses summary below), the flip side would be losing time and momentum in my career.

My other side, however, is more romantic, and doesn't believe that money should play as big a role as other considerations, especially as I believe that a recovery could be on the cards in the next couple of years. Predictably, the list of arguments that this side of me comes up with is slightly longer:

• My wife and I both want more children: We agree that becoming parents is the single best thing we've ever done. Who wouldn't want more of that?
• Siblings: If Maeve is to grow up with brothers and sisters that are close to her in age, it's soon or never.
• Biological clock: While I'm not going to give Meghan's age away, we're at the stage where a couple of years of waiting makes a big difference to her chances for even being able to get pregnant. While we're also committed to the idea of adoption in the future, we'd still like to have more kids in the meantime. And, y'know, makin' babies is free (in addition to being fun), while the adoption process definitely is not.
• Being a stay-at-home dad: While I'm finding this idea a bit difficult to reconcile with my long-term career goals (see the against column above), the opportunity to spend extra time with my child(ren) when they're young would be great.
• Supplies: We already have almost everything we'd need for the first year of a second child's life-one of the benefits of not finding out Maeve's gender before she was born is that we have a lot of gender-neutral clothes and toys. And, having gone the reusable route, we even have diapers.

The closing argument

Despite all the sensible, pragmatic reasons for not trying to have a child at the moment, I can't help but feel that an addition to our family would only enrich our lives in ways that all the money in the world couldn't. Still, theorizing about that and actually making the commitment to make oneself considerably worse off financially are poles apart. I'm sure it's something that I'll continue to discuss with my wife as the weeks and months roll by, but I'm also interested in what others think on this issue. Are you going through a similar quandary? Is the state of the economy something you're thinking about as part of your family planning, or does "family planning" involve simply letting nature take its course? And where do you stand on the pragmatic vs. romantic scale? Do get involved below and let us know.