How does the congregation chip in for new babies? Does the congregation provide cheap daycare? Or cheap college ? Lack of both was the main reason me and my wife have only 1 child.
My religious friends also have 3 kids for each family. College (or vaccination for that matter) is not in the cards for these kids. The wives stay at home to take care of the kids. The families live out in the boonies - the dads have 1 hour commute.and even so they are leveraged to the hilt: they bought their homes with a regular loan + HELOC. The kids are very religious-they shun Halloween and video-games for example (but the girls have their Instagram accounts ). For each his own I guess.
I think I just replied to you on a different thread, but I'll also comment here.
It's a matter of priorities. ~4 years ago I moved from NYC to the burbs to have room and a high quality of life for my (now 3) kids. It lengthened my commute and increased my housing costs but I perceive it as unquestionably WORTH it, and I suspect your friends do too.
If your friends were given the choice to not have a HELOC and not have one of their kids - they'll take the HELOC and the kid. It's not an unreasonable choice.
Kids shunning video games and probably less device addiction in general and more face-to-face engagement with friends and family -- weird to talk about that as a negative in this day and age. I suppose you were the same guy that saw it as negative that your religious friends sang songs around the piano?
>> Does the congregation provide cheap daycare? Or cheap college ? Lack of both was the main reason me and my wife have only 1 child.
frankly if it was important you'd figure it out. I have a cop friend who had 7 kids (3 own, 4 adopted). How do they make it work on a cop's salary? They make it work. He's got a long commute and a beater car but there's no part of him that'd trade those things for a nice car but only 1 kid.
My religious friends also have 3 kids for each family. College (or vaccination for that matter) is not in the cards for these kids. The wives stay at home to take care of the kids. The families live out in the boonies - the dads have 1 hour commute.and even so they are leveraged to the hilt: they bought their homes with a regular loan + HELOC. The kids are very religious-they shun Halloween and video-games for example (but the girls have their Instagram accounts ). For each his own I guess.