Parent or pay rent?
- varunkrshnn
- Jan 6, 2022
- 6 min read
Updated: Jan 6, 2022
2020 was perhaps the strangest year in the lives of majority of people. There was (and still is) a global pandemic that led to an economic meltdown coupled with millions of deaths and millions more critically hospitalised. It led to businesses running out of money, bankruptcy and shuttering in of people for their own safety, which in turn opened the can of worms namely mental breakdown.
On the flipside, just opening Instagram or literally any social media showed a weird flipside. A bunch of people getting hitched and many others becoming parents. There was also the phenomenon of people moving apartments as real estate owners started offering lucrative deals to avoid further losses on their amortized properties. I myself moved to a rather nice place but seeing my first rent cheque go out made me gulp for a second. It also made me make this weird (but I think very correct) connection: with cost of living increasing and the planet dying, is anybody asking themselves the question "Am I ready to be a parent when I can barely cover all my expenses and pay rent"? Let me break this down, one problem at a time.
The earth is dying. This is no longer the plot of an apocalyptic movie or game, neither is it the catchphrase of a green revolution or movement. This is now a fact. Whether you choose to believe it or not being dependent on which side of the political isle you are on is quite a comical tragedy. The earth does not care if you think "global warming is fake news" or that "climate change is an agenda of the left to irresponsibly spend money", it's now a cold fact if you know how to read science and observe it for yourself. Let me make that incredibly clear so any flat earthers, donut earthers, 5g covid conspiracy theorists and the motley crew of any and all conspiracy theorists can get the fuck out of here. Right. Now let's get down to brass tacks.
Without having to think too far back, let's just take a look at the California wildfires of 2020. It was a historically calamitous fire with the following devastating facts [1]:
1) There were almost 59,000 fires that burnt over 10 MILLION acres of land (that's roughly the area of the states of Massachusetts and Connecticut put together)
2) 6 of the top 20 largest ever California wildfires occurred in that fire season alone.
3) The three most devastating ones (August Complex Fire, SCU Lighting Complex Fire, LNU Lightning Complex Fire) together burnt over 1.5 million acres of land.
4) The LNU Lightning Complex Fire alone caused $2 billion in insured losses.
If all this still didn't sear a rather macabre picture of what happened, do take a look at what the fires did to the sky. I was there. You literally could not step outside for too long as the amount of woodfire particles in the air would do long term damage at best and cause death at worst.
Now for the second problem, the cost of living. Let's start with the US. Over the last 10 years, the dollar has had an average inflation rate of 2.04% per year. Sounds small, but that amounts to a net 27.47% over 10 years (well a little over 10), not too small now, is it? The inflation rate hit 6.2%, that's the highest in more than 3 decades. In Q3 of 2021 alone, the US had a 5.3% inflation rate, the eighth highest annual inflation rate among the 46 countries examined as per a Pew Research Center. [3]
Despite the cries of many a people that these numbers are inflated and that all this noise is just being created, I'll assure you of two things:
1) Those crying are amongst the top 1% of the world, economically.
2) Said people are backed by the top 1%.
Do an exercise for yourself. Ask your parents what their job title and pay was 10 years back and how much it cost to get groceries for a month (Does not apply for tech jobs as those jobs pay stupid, I mean obnoxiously stupid money). Fast forward to today, look at the pay for said job title and how much it would cost to get the exact same groceries. If that number does not baffle you, I for one am sure baffled.
That's enough numbers thrown, now to the very heart of my topic. With all I have said above, is it really financially viable to have a child?
In the US, the cost of raising a child through the age of 17 is roughly a quarter of a million dollars. [4]
This is including states where the rent of a 2 bed 2 bath apartment is under $1000 to states where the same average is $4000. Hope that helps paint a picture.
In order to get these high paying jobs in order to pay your bills, we all start off our lives with an incredibly daunting educational loan. Another quick stat: as of November 2021, the grand total of student loans amasses to a rather laughably big figure of $1.58 trillion (as per the Federal Reserve Bank of New York) [5]. The rough average is around $40,000 per student, where a third of the country is under student debt.
Compounded to all this is the ever-growing problem of population. Let me start with an image before I expound the magnitude of this problem [6]:
Let me spell that out, there are just too many fucking humans, and we are showing absolutely no signs of slowing. The global population currently stands at nearly 8 billion, is expected to close in on 9 billion by the end of this decade and we're expected to hit 10 billion by 2050 [7]. Add to this the number of children being born every year and the average human life span increasing, the number of resources we are consuming is exponentially growing every year at a devastating rate.
Despite all of the horrors above, I see not one single person asking a very simple yet crucial question "Am I ready to have a child?" That question entails the following:
1) Can me and my partner (or I alone) afford my/our lifestyle(s) and a child?
2) Can we give that child a good quality life, including good healthcare, good education, availability to healthy food, water and other basic resources.
3) Am I emotionally equipped to raise a child who will be a citizen of tomorrow?
4) Am I mentally equipped to bear with the pressure of balancing my child's life with my own?
5) Am I ready to make numerous sacrifices to have said child?
All these questions are to be discussed with your partner as well and are only some of the myriads of questions you should be asking. But almost always couples have children because: parents' expectation, societal pressure and taboo, checklist syndrome.
For those of you who have kids or plan on having kids, I'm not exactly covering your decision in glory I know. But I'm not trying to guilt trip all of you. Some, maybe. Not all. There are still responsible people who ask themselves these very important questions, take years of discussions with their partner, doctor, family and loved ones. If after all that you arrive at the answer that "yes we want to have a child" (although even then I would suggest adoption, but I'll hold my breath for another article) go ahead by all means and congratulations. You have decided to undertake an incredibly daunting task and shoulder a great responsibility of raising tomorrow's citizen of the world.
Religion will preach "abortion is a sin", "having a child is God's greatest gift", "it's a miracle you must experience" and a bunch of other statements. What they will not preach or suggest, is how to raise this newborn living being, or if they are actively doing anything to make sure their future generations can prosper. Because most of these religious heads are one step away from their graves anyways.
I'll leave you with a question that's often used as a catchphrase dialogue in movies: Are we the human race, leaving the planet a better place than when we arrived?
Until then, do talk to your parents and keep paying that fat rent.
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Well articulated. In short - we are fucked.
By far the best read on this blog !