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Well, there you have it. At the height of the last real baby boom, advanced degrees weren't something the average middle class family had to worry about. Hell, it wasn't something the average middle class family had to worry about 30 years later. Then fast forward to the 21st century, when I can name a dozen kids off the top of my head (myself included) from my working class high school that was among the worst in the state who got advanced degrees. And when you and your fiance decide you're ready for children, I'd be willing to bet that neither of you is going to be willing to quit your job to stay home with the kids (especially not with 2 PhDs and a residency already invested), so that means daycare, and with 3 kids that alone can easily cost $100k a year. Which means that for women who want careers, they're either going to have to be willing to curtail them or limit the number of children they have. I agree with you that this is largely a good thing. But you can't say that couples should be able to spend an inordinate amount of time developing their careers and hobbies and then look shocked when they aren't having as many kids as before.
Right, I don't think the current system is working even if me and my fiancé seemed to have done not too badly given the shape of things, we'll have two or three kids and do our part but I won't say it wouldn't have been better if we had them during like college years. We have some but not as much as I'd like family nearby to help a bit but are still working out how daycare and the like will work. I'm a software engineer and have been playing around with the idea of reducing my workload and finding a purely work from home gig to be a stay at home dad. We're pretty blessed/privileged to have the kind of solvable problems we have and I do think we need more practical changes.
I am not pursuing a similar lifestyle to yours, but I've never actually understood why people even consider paying more for daycare than they would for a nanny(who is not in a position to make ~$100k/yr, or anything close). Kinda off topic, I know.
Maybe we would get a nanny, and I interpreted the 100k/year estimate as hyperbole. My ideal situation would be to have my and her parents take turns watching them on the ~3 days a week I go into the office. Realistically it's going to be an evolved system where we try things and learn.
Are you planning to spend the other two days WFH while multitasking the childcare? If so, don't. Some people (including my wife and I) did WFH with kids during the pandemic because they had no other options, and it was a disaster for productivity, kids, and sanity (we now have a nanny). Responsible employers are now asking WFH parents about childcare arrangements in order to make sure that people are not WFH with uncared-for kids in the house.
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