Will raising a family continue to be unaffordable?

The disconnect between raising families and cost of living

March is my birthday month, and so, for this month I’ve decided to write about something very dear to my heart: Family and raising children. I honestly believe that parenting the next generation is the most important, rewarding (though not financially), and difficult “job” or calling in the world. My hope is that as you read this article you will feel inspired to explore new-old ways of parenting and raising the next generation.

My intention is not to judge you, and it is certainly not to say that there is only one “right” way to parent. I am still in the middle of parenting myself, I do not have all the answers, and even if I did have the answers for my life and raising my children, every situation is unique, and just like with our health, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. So lets explore this topic together.

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There are too many people on the planet

First, I want to acknowledge and address this argument I’ve heard several times before, in several variations:

“I care about the earth, and there are too many people on the earth, therefore I am going to do my part and not have children.”

People who care about the earth AND who want children, we are the people who should be having children, we are the ones who have the desire to raise healthy, resilient, loving, creative children who will continue to care for the earth, and all of her inhabitants. If we are the ones who don’t have children, the next generation may not be one who cares about the health and well being of the Earth at all.

But having and raising children in a conscious, dedicated, and loving way is not easy. In fact it’s almost impossible, because modern life has restricted us through cost of living, to both parents being in the work force, and children being raised by babysitters, day care and school.

Cost of Living

In Canada currently, the average cost of a home is $659,000 dollars. With a 5% down payment (the minimum amount in the best financial scenario) a family would need to save $32,000 cash and have a household income of $14,000 per month, or $170,000 per year. This family would be paying $4000 per month towards a mortgage for 30 years (plus house insurance and property taxes, we’ll estimate about $4000 per year for those).

Meanwhile there are other expenses. For a family of four, with children in daycare, your basic expenses for food, utilities, transportation (assuming 2 vehicles), and daycare, add up to at least another $4000 per month¹. That is for the bare necessities. If you have a longer commute or a car loan, or want your children—or yourself—to do anything besides sit at home, than the cost of living goes up. And when layoffs happen, since most us are living paycheque to paycheque—and almost no one has 3 to 6 months of expenses worth of savings—everything falls apart.

My (very unprofessional) Monthly Cost of Living estimate:

Food, shelter, and the ability to go to work: $8000 to $10,000 per month²³.

This kind of economic situation makes single income families a thing of the past, unless one spouse has a very high paying job. What is the alternative? Poverty? And what does this mean for the children of tomorrow who will be nurtured and raised by daycare and school instead of mom?

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Evolution of the Family

Notice how I said “instead of mom.” In our society we assume that one parent will be at work, and typically that parent will be dad (I know there are cases where the opposite is true). We assume that the alternative to having both parents in the workforce, is to have mom at home, like the 1950’s perfect American family, but what we don’t seem to realize is that this is a very narrow snapshot of history. Lets take a look at the evolution of the family.

Our idea of family: Mother, Father, and children, was based in an post-tribal agrarian society—the “pioneer” days. Most of human history predates this time period where work to survive was done communally, by the village or the tribe, but we are specifically talking about the “nuclear family” concept that we have today. In the nuclear family, the work of the home was done by both sexes and all of the work was equally important: plowing, planting, harvesting, milking, butchering… weaving, sewing, cooking, baking, gardening, cheese and butter making, washing, cleaning… the household was a productive, busy place with an all-hands-on-deck approach necessary for survival.

Enter the Industrial revolution (starting around 1760), and this is the time in history where the household lost the father. In the space of a very few years, it became normal for fathers to be almost completely absent from the home and family life. For approximately 150 years after the industrial revolution, men headed to their factory jobs, while women worked even harder at home to fill in the gap left by the absent father—in the lower socioeconomic classes of society, it was even worse, men, women, and older children working in factories, while young children were left alone. As the industrial revolution progressed, the products of the factories replaced the labor of the home with time saving products that gradually reduced the work load of the women at home, and labor laws were introduced restricting or eliminating the amount of time a child could work.

The negative side effect of these time saving products was that there was a never-ending stream of the next best product, and—with the advent of radio and TV, a never-ending stream of advertising for these products. In less than 200 years, the household was transformed from a productive, self-reliant, and independent home to a consumer culture, completely dependent on a steadily increasing paycheque in order to stay out of poverty, fed, and clothed. It is difficult to overstate the complete transformation of home and culture that happened between 1800 and 1950.

Some would argue that the 1950s were the golden age of the American (and Canadian) family. The father went to work. With his paycheque, the family could afford a home, a vehicle, and all the time-saving appliances. Mom could drive the children to school and return home to do a little cleaning, a little TV watching, a little gossiping and then pretty herself up, and make dinner for the family. But women are not dolls, and many soon found that this mindless, monotonous, and meaningless daily routine didn’t bring them any long-term satisfaction. In the words of Shannon Hayes, author of Radical Homemaking:

“Men and women, both vital to the original household economy, have since forgotten the craft traditions tied to keeping a home. Thus, by the time men were fully ensconced in the workforce and the children were gone to school, the women were left, isolated, at home. They were still charged with procuring food and necessities to ensure the comfort and survival of their families, but now they did it as chauffeurs and shoppers. A job that once connected them to the seasons, to their communities, to their creativity and ingenuity is now reduced to the role of consumer.”

With this loss of purpose, a second wave of feminism, and the invention of reliable birth control, women could also enter the work force, and, like the men in their lives, find meaningful work, with recognition and financial reward. As this became more and more accepted and the norm, the fallout from this lifestyle was born by the children, the “latch-key kids” who were dropped off to school, and came home to an empty house.

As “Cost of Living” has increased, keeping pace with increased household income, it has created this vicious cycle where we need to work more and more hours, or get higher and higher wages, yet we are stuck in never having enough (especially in single parent households), or barely having enough, and the stress of this has long term consequences for the entire family. Depression, anxiety, and suicides—or attempted suicides—increasing year by year. Obesity, heart attacks, chronic health issues also consistently on the rise. Really understanding the statistics related to this can be a terrifying view of the future of humanity. As Shannon Hayes relates:

“Whether or not these damning statistics can be attributed to the work-a-day world or American affluence, the perceived risks of reducing the family income seem less threatening when we consider that our health, nutrition, and relationship stability could all improve when we redirect our energy toward our homes and the people with whom we share them. The conventional lives many of us lead right now are, in the words of Thoreau, “lives of quiet desperation.” Many families and personal lives are falling apart…”

What other options do we have? At the rate cost of living is increasing, especially in cities, we’ll soon need 3 or 4 income families. Is the alternative third world poverty in a first world country?

Before we can move to any possible solution, we also need to ask what is keeping us in our current world of two income families, or even three and four income families as children become adults and are unable to afford to move out on their own, living instead in mom and dads basement, either desperately trying to save money for their own place one day, or in a depressed and unhealthy survival mode. Millennials and Gen Z seem to be victims of an astronomical rise in cost of living with no hope of change in the future. But are we victims? Or do we live in a time of new opportunity that we haven’t recognized yet?

What keeps us in our country’s un-affordable cities? There is plenty of rural land and small towns in both America and Canada that still have homes and land for sale at a much more affordable price. I think there are two things that keep us in our cities: jobs and culture (friends and family). Though our pioneering ancestors were willing to step out and create a new life hundreds of miles from their family roots and the city jobs, we are unable or unwilling to see the possibilities that are right in front of us.

In her book, Radical Homemakers, published in 2010, author Shannon Hayes describes one possible solution; moving to a modern version of an agrarian society. This has become known as the “back to the land” movement. And there are people who are doing it really well, but the back-to-the-land movement is not for all of us, we are not all farmers, butchers, bakers, and homesteaders.

Recently Our modern world has given us another path: Freelancing, remote work, and selling directly to an online market. With the internet, we now have the entire world as our possible market, both for freelancing jobs, and for selling physical or digital products and services. All we need is an internet connection, a home that is affordable, and the willingness to step out of our comfort zone.

Is the new future of the nuclear family once again similar to the Agrarian society, with Mom and Dad both working in the home? This time with a modern twist: not on backbreaking labour, necessary for survival (though there’s nothing wrong with growing our own food), but instead, meaningful work for both Mom and Dad, connected to a global community, with time and resources to spare for raising happy, healthy, and resilient children. Is this a possible path for Millennials, Gen Z and the following generations to still have a family and a future?

1. This is almost impossible to get a specific number for as it really depends on which province you live in for utilities and tax costs and how long of a commute you have.

2. Please note that this is an average and varies widely between provinces and whether one lives in a small town, rural, or a big city.

3. If you are American, your health care would be on top of these expenses as well, but your food, transportation, shelter, and utilities are less than what we pay here in Canada.