In America we pay poor people to have kids and discourage working people from having kids…designed to produce more Democrats
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Come on, if dual income folks are having a difficult time here, surely a single parent can not survive here pretty much…
Of course if they were really rich and cared they could pay for an excellent nanny. Unfortunately people have differing priorities.
Kids were treated like a Gucci purse. An accessory that could be brought out and paraded on demand. We looked in the area when the deveopements were about half built. I recall the amount of new BMWs, Mercedes and other high end cars in the driveways. I wondered how so many could afford all that.
Two income families living the dream without concern for their kids.
A few years later a friend was looking to buy in the area and was surprised how many houses had beautiful window treatments on the street side and sheets tacked up elsewhere along with card tables for dining tables. All show as long as nobody walked inside.
Come on, @nanomug, as you well know, never ever go with the kind of car someone drives as THE indicator of true wealth. A lot of people lease their cars, so they can rent and make payments on a flashy car, big deal. Now, those folks who pay cash for their homes, and there are quite a few of them around apparently, are no joke. To be able to literally write a check for $2M is impressive, on any scale.
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Good one dragon. I will have to work on my satirical humor so that I leave no one thinking that I believe that stuff is any indication of wealth.
I’m the one with that spending problem of which once it’s in savings or invested I have great issue taking it out. 
finally got tired of sharing a car with hubby (since mid April) to actually stop car hunting and hand over the checkbook. It took some time for him to figure out what he wanted and negotiate it with me. It took over a year to come to an agreement on my Jeep Wrangler I bought years ago and many months to find it used equipped as agreed upon.
There are rich and poor in my family. At a glance it’s hard to tell which is which. One of the distant cousins lives in what looks like a shack and drives a 30 year old toyota. Her neighbors think that she’s barely surviving. If they ever saw her home office they would know better. Stuff doesn’t matter to her. Another cousin built his house on family land and lives off the grid. He has very little money but his twin is a high powered lawyer that rides a bicycle to work as an excuse to shower and keep his thousand dollar suits there. He is just shy of being embarrassed by his riches. Those two are mid thirties and they wonder why they aren’t married.
I think it’s easier to live minimally when you have money. There is a nest egg if things go awry. A friend of my oldest graduated last year and is working in Chicago. His wealthy parents try to help him but he’s adament in doing it alone and his parents are horrified he has three room mates in a two bedroom apartment. He does know if something happens the money is there. Less stress and easier to take risks along the way if you can live without a job.
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Ah, I may have to quote you in the future with that gem @nanomug…
Yeah, it certainly is funny how life works. As a kid, I didn’t have a lot of money and parents worked very blue collared jobs just to make things work. Now, when you are reasonably comfortable and can certainly splurge on things, you DON’T really want to!!! Unbelievable. Maybe, it is that confidence factor that when you have some money you can easily choose to live simply and could care less of the Jones around you.
Uh oh. Now you’ve done it.
Terri is dialing a lawyer now. 
Me? Naaah can’t afford one… 
When I hear (read) complaints from the “Whites” that they are being left behind in numbers??? I laugh because that’s not true. All they need to do is to have sex more often, problem solved.
But, the truth as I see is that modern days require both parents to come home all ugly, dirty, beat up by whatever so their time for intimacy and the notion that another kids is a burden for “their careers” make the situation understandable; they don’t want the diploma of parenthood on their walls. At least not more than twice.
Me and my wife agreed that whoever made more $ would stay home. I was the unlucky one. I took care of my boy from birth to the day he started to go to school. Of course, the “day of the map”, “the day of reckoning”, whichever day of festivity or sickness at school made me stay at home more often than required.
The day we were at the first immigration court hearing, to schedule the final hearing, my wife tells me out of nowhere she is pregnant again. Not only I am so scared, worried that we may end up back in Guatemala as a deportee, but now I have a second kid to take care of. 
That didn’t mean I couldn’t go out to work, I did, but believe me, so hard to schedule anything since one of those events, unforeseen circumstances of sickness or training at school by the teachers made me stay at home more often than I wished for.
The positive side of the story is that you, the parent taking care of the kids, will remember every minute, those unforgiveable moments of anything your kids did, while the other partner never saw and won’t have the luck of cherishing.
And what the ungrateful kid does? You an I when we grow up? We treat that person taking care of us, waking up in the middle of the night for anything, with some contempt or disrespect. We pay later, 10 times, the pain of suffering of our parents. Big time!
Nah, “Whites” as you say, practice birth control. Others? Not so much. 
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You know, in all honesty I can say I was happier when I was poor.
Poor is a state of mind. Living within means is different. Peace of mind is priceless.
Money has not been a motivating force for me. Hubby thinks more money means status. Different upbringings different views. Hubby balked at living on one salary and making decisions on one salary. Then the dot com bust left us unemployed and the light went on. We weathered lost jobs because we saved.
My parents endlessly worried about money. They had enough but being children of the depression without enough food to eat colored their lives. My mother counted out potato chips. We each got 5. It was something I chose not to do yet required a measure of security.
I look at my “rich” friends and relatives and listen to them talk at parties. They are endlessly worried about their money. Not much different from my parents who had enough bit weren’t rich.
@buying -my mom told me that I got the kids I deserved based on all the grey hairs I gave her. My kids are strong minded and think for themselves. Drove my mom crazy with me but with those grandkids she encouraged it. I worked around the kids schedules and for three years that I worked for a company from home not one client figured out I was never in the office. I held conference calls in the car, in the grocery store and at 5 am. During a client dinner the CEO I reported to complemented me on my high output, managing my department and making things happen without being in the office. The silence was defening. The clients weren’t sure if it was good or bad. Being at every award ceremony, play, performance and volunteering in the kids schools mattered so I made it work.
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Me? I was poor when I was happy. Wait! What were you saying? I got confused…