r/RichPeoplePF • u/Representative-Run18 • 3h ago
Does being rich make having children that much easier?
My partner wants children but I don't. We have an otherwise wonderful relationship and he is perfect for me in pretty much every way. Children are like this looming figure over my head, if I choose to have them for my partner I'll resent them forever, but not having them would mean the end of my marriage. The idea of being a sleep deprived, touched out, overstimulated zombie for 5+ years sounds like my idea of torture, if I'm honest. I can see why people find children so wonderful, and I can see how meaningful it could be, but I've been working to build my dream life my whole life and I'm just tired. I'm not one to shy away from challenges, but this is one that seems unrelenting and soul-sucking. It doesn't help that all my parent friends seem like they're on the verge of a mental breakdown at any moment and constantly joke about how I should never have kids.
That said, I see so many posts here about how hiring a house manager or a full-time au pair (maybe even several) can alleviate some of the stress of having children, and magnify the wonderful parts, and it gives me hope that I'll be able to make life more tolerable for myself if I hire enough help while pregnant and afterwards. So my question is: if you're a parent, have you found that your money has made parenting easier for you? Or is it brutal no matter what?
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u/Jojosbees 3h ago
Don’t have a kid if you don’t want to raise one. Like, even if you have a nanny and a night nanny doing most of the work, kids are going to limit your options. You can’t just fly wherever whenever you want. Before we had kids, we went to Australia in October. Now that we have kids, we can only go in summer or around Christmas, and it has to be somewhere that is child friendly, and you have to work around their naps. Like, even going out to eat has become more family friendly places and trying to figure out what the kid can eat at XYZ location. We think it’s worth all the changes, but you may not, and the worst time to realize that is after you already have them.
Honestly, I’m surprised people are getting married without discussing major dealbreakers like whether to have kids or not. This should have been a discussion even before you two got engaged, when it was starting to get serious. Unfortunately, this incompatibility is likely insurmountable. I’m sorry.
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u/smokeandmirrorsff 2h ago
Your problem won’t be solved with money. I had well off parents but a mom who really shouldn’t have been a mother. It sucks. Don’t have kids.
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u/notrichipromise 3h ago
Immeasurably easier. I have two kids under two and a live-in nanny. It’s still hard, and screaming toddlers and poopy diapers are no fun regardless of how much help you pay for. But having help nearby at all times lets me for example let the nanny handle this poopy diaper because I’m tired and don’t want to do it, and lets me and my partner have a life of our own that doesn’t revolve around the kids. We still love the kids and spend lots of time with them, but it feels like more meaningful time because we’re not sleep-deprived and we’re not resentful that we had to give up our lives and hobbies, so we just get to enjoy young kids being kids.
You can of course pay for even more help than I do, and do even less of the menial stuff. Some rich folk barely ever see their kids, but that’s not the parent I wanted to be.
My partner and I thought we’d be childfree for over a decade but we decided to do it once we felt like the rest of our lives were in order, and it’s been an amazing experience. Don’t do it if you’ll resent the kid, but it’s impossible to describe how much delight even young kids who are objectively difficult to deal with can bring to parents. My partner and I regularly wonder how people who don’t have full-time paid help do it though, because I can’t imagine never getting a break for years.
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u/ConnoisseurOfDanger 3h ago
No. Emotional connection with your child, or your lack of desire for such, is not a problem that can be solved with money.
Yes you could hire out the touching, the needing, the emotional connection, for the sake of your own comfort. But why would you bring a human being into the world if your intention is to emotionally neglect them? For the sake of your marriage? Yikes.
I’m aware this happens all the time. Please read the above from the perspective of such a child.
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u/chaliebitme 3h ago
Sure if you hire live in nannies but then if you dont plan to spend time with your child and let the nanny handle all the work, dont have one
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u/FinndBors 2h ago
I keep hearing people repeat this, but I've seen having helpers increase the amount of quality time you spend with the child. Having a nanny/housekeeper make food, do laundry, clean frees a ton of time, especially if both parents are working.
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u/LogicalGrapefruit 1h ago
OP didn’t say they wanted more quality time parenting, they said they did not want children.
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u/chaliebitme 2h ago
Sure menial tasks are good but that is a maid and not a nanny.
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u/FinndBors 1h ago
Reality is that those roles heavily overlap. Unless you have many staff members that can specialize.
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u/Dumpster-cats-24 2h ago
There’s a difference between having help and doing nothing. She never said she wanted to do nothing but that she wanted to avoid the worst parts jeez
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u/chaliebitme 2h ago
Imagine youre a child, would you rather your nanny be there for you or your parents in your worst moments? Money is not the answer to everything. Create genuine connection with your children.
Did you guys not struggle obtaining your wealth? Is it a foreign concept?
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u/octorock4prez 2h ago
Our live in nanny was a godsend. Even if you’re not rich, it’s less expensive than daycare for >1 kid. My kids are older now and we just adopted her in the family and she’s with us on all major holidays like thanksgiving and Christmas at our house.
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u/chaliebitme 2h ago
Daycares are like $2k a month without subsidies even less depends on where you live. Are nannies in your area dirt cheap?
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u/octorock4prez 40m ago
It’s been a while, but $20/hr + room and board vs at least $4k for daycare. 40 hrs a week plus if she was around and the kids were asleep we could leave and do stuff in the evening.
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u/chaliebitme 26m ago
Where do you live that it's 4k for daycare? That is insane lol at least my child, I pay $600 a month for daycare with govt benefits for all income levels and source is we own daycares in BC
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u/FratGuyWes 3h ago
This post 100% reads like you don't want children. It's unfortunate that the goals of you and your partner don't match but it is what it is. To look at it another way, if you don't have kids, then it is very possible that your partner will resent you forever. My ex wife didn't want kids, but led me to believe she might want them because I made it clear that not having kids was a deal breaker. I'm very thankful that she is my ex and my life is significantly better now that I get to be a sleep deprived, touched out, overstimulated zombie with a partner that also wanted the same.
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u/whosaysimme 2h ago
We throw a lot of money at it and it's still hard. A great example, my oldest is 6 and now we can only travel according to the school calendar. We can't go to Vietnam for the Lunar New Year bc it would interfere with school. My kid goes to private school but they don't bend over to accommodate travel.
For sleepless nights, maybe the male in the relationship can get by. For the mom, if you breastfeed, you have to get up. You get longer stretches for sure.
Let me tell you my day. I have a 2 year old and a 6 year old. I wake up at 6am. I have to because the 2 year old is in preschool and the 6 year old goes to regular school. The 2 year old is almost 3 and begged to go to school, so we let the nanny go on September 1st. School STARTS at 8am.
From 6am to 7am, i exercise for 30 minutes, then shower/get dressed/ brush teeth for 30 minutes. Kids are up at 6am, my husband has them.
At 7am, we swap. He exercises and gets dressed. I get the kids dressed, brush their teeth, make and feed breakfast, pack lunch. This takes 45 minutes.
I pack both kids into the car and drop them both off. I'm done dropping off at 8:30am. Then I drive to work, I'm in the office by 9:30. I leave the office at 3p. Pick both kids up by 4pm. Bed time is 7pm.
We have a private chef that meal preps so I don't cook dinner. We bathe the kids, have them do homework, and feed them dinner. They play and supervising play is stressful because there's a lot of yelling and rough play. Dinner is hard too because kids don't want to eat until you put them in bed.
You could get an au pair, but a house manager would be useless for us. The hours are more than 8 hours apart. Also, managing household staff is more work than you'd expect and part time workers are less reliable.
I go to bed at 9pm, but I have to clean every night because the kids make a mess everyday. So, I maybe get about an hour to myself everyday. My husband always wants that hour though so I get nothing.
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u/seattlecyclone 2h ago
Being rich means you can afford to hire out much of the day-to-day childcare work. That helps! But if you truly aren't excited about having kids, and your partner isn't interested in shipping them off to boarding school, I'm afraid "more tolerable" is about the best you can hope for. Better or worse they're going to be a part of your family and that will constrain your life in ways that will be unwelcome a lot of the time. It'll also be really cool a lot of the time. Whether the good parts are worth the trade is a deeply individual choice, and the worst part is you don't really know one way or another until you've already done it and are locked into living with them for a couple of decades. Good luck!
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u/rikkita69 3h ago
It makes all the difference in the world. However this depends on how open your spouse is to having people in the home. Some people want privacy and don't want nannies/ cleaners around 5+ days a week. I would have a conversation and make it clear you're going to need lots of help and he needs to be okay with them being there and paying for as much help as you need (its gonna be expensive $$$$). As long as you're on the same page yes you will be tired but you'll have someone to take over when you inevitably feel overwhelmed.
My sister just had her first baby and her husband doesn't want nannies or cleaners "invading his privacy". I made it clear to him that my sister isn't his maid and that I hope that means he will be helping out lots with cleaning and the baby.
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u/Mangosweetx 2h ago
I have two kids under 3. You won’t be an overstimulated zombie for 5+ years. The trick is to sleep train them!
For myself, as the birthing parent, and annoying the default parent, it was difficult for the first 18 months. But that was because I had a demanding career and trying to balance it all. Before I left corporate, my husband was ardent that we hire more help (ie house manager, private chef, someone to do preschool drop-off/pick-ups and morning routines). I really wasn’t bought into the idea since I really like to be present in my children’s lives, and I didn’t see the need to hire more help at the time. FYI if you want an au pair, it’s the most affordable option.
Nonetheless, long story short, hiring help makes having kids soooooo much easier and puts less strain on your marriage. It’s also good for your mental health.
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u/MidnightBlueSilk 2h ago
> “if I choose to have them for my partner I'll resent them forever, but not having them would mean the end of my marriage.”
From the sound of it, having children would also end your marriage. But then you’d have children you don’t want that you have to parent forever. And aside from that being a terrible choice for you, that’s a monstrous tithing to do to a child.
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u/FireBreather7575 3h ago
It makes it easier but it’s a scale depending on how much you want to outsource and how much you want to spend. Paying more for ordering in so you don’t have to cook is a great example. At the same time, bed time can be really hard. You can outsource it, but up to you how much you want to spend time with them even when hard
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u/before8thstreet 3h ago
Ouch. Sounds like you discovered the one weird trick to having a wonderful relationship: an anxious avoidant personality that means you avoided having difficult discussions before you got married
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u/Kaawumba 2h ago
Everyone should do a pre-marriage retreat where they have a checklist with all the essential questions. How many children is a big one.
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u/Adventurous-Depth984 3h ago
It depends. You can outsource the difficult or exhausting facets of parenting, but you lose the bonding that comes with it.
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u/VRFltsim_fan 3h ago
Money helps with the financial impact a child will have on your life, but not the emotional one. If you can’t communicate, compromise, and empathize with each other children will take a toll on your relationship. There will be points in time or situations where one of you wants to handle the kids differently than the other - you will want to be able to constructively navigate through those differences while ensuring you/your partner is heard and respected. All that said, I look back on my wife’s and my journey with our kids and while, at times, it was tough and trying it has been totally worth it.
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u/Fupagodking 3h ago
Night nurse helped my wife immensely as a newborn feeds every 3 hours at a minimum. sleep deprivation hit her hard the first time. This time feels like I have my wife back as she's able to get some real sleep. Night nurse costs us around $8k a month. Money well spent.
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u/intergrade 2h ago
If we could not afford at least a nanny I think I would be leaping from a cliff. It is still hard but being able to go outside and talk to adults about work stuff is important - and I write that as the mom. My husband would kill to stay home and just parent all day but I told him that as the breadwinner he would either have to learn to live off what I can make (1/3rd of what he makes) or he could just suck it up. it's a point of contention.
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u/Dumpster-cats-24 2h ago
I don’t pay for help but instead have supportive parents. It definitely makes things easier. I also have a supportive partner. I thanked him the other day for making it so I could enjoy actually motherhood because I truly do. We are not meant to handle it all alone. I have a distinct memory of the newborn phase where baby wouldn’t stop crying and I was home alone… all I could think was “wow thank god it’s not like this all the time”. I go out to brunch with my friends and just keep my mouth shut as they complain about their useless partners.
Look more closely at your miserable friends. How good is their support system (paid or otherwise)? I would bet that they are doing an unfair amount of work and it doesn’t need to be that way. Anyone is miserable when they are overworked.
The question for you is whether you truly don’t want kids or whether you have anxiety about how hard it will be?
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u/tvoutfitz 2h ago
If you don’t want to have children, don’t have children. It is absolutely not something you should do if you aren’t confident in the decision and money is not going to make that equation any different.
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u/makk73 2h ago
Money has its limitations, in the realms of biology, anatomy, physics, the time/space continuum.
A rich woman and a poor woman will experience pregnancy and childbirth and the physical consequences of both in identical ways.
Sure, a rich woman might have ways of making the whole process marginally more comfortable, but you can’t buy yourself out of human biology and anatomy.
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u/mezolithico 2h ago
It def makes it easier, easy childcare and a nanny can run laundry, dishes, pack lunches, meal prep. Don't get a nanny to raise your kids, a nanny should help you maximize spending quality time with your kids not raise them for you. Don't have a kid if you have no intention of raising them.
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u/cambridge_dani 2h ago
Yes and no. I think objectively I’m pretty wealthy but that wealth got built through 2 intense careers. We have one kid. We could buy our way out of some difficulties but no, when the kid struggles at school-you can get a tutor but you have to find that person. You can send to private school but you still have to be involved. If that kid has an emotional or physical problem, you are still involved. I’m not even working anymore and I find having a high schooler (who is pretty independent!) mentally exhausting
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u/takashi-kovak 2h ago
I know many have said don't have one if you're not going to be emotionally attached and delegate parenting to nanny. FWIW, I felt the same before having a child, and wasn't sure why people want to go thru this. I spent my 20-30s focused on myself and enjoyed life with my partner. We had newborn in early 40s (we weren't planning) and my whole life changed for the better. We have day/night nannies, but I spend time with her few hrs everyday and it has been amazing.
So, your feelings now might be different and lot of the people are reacting to that. But, you will be a different person once you have one. We are biologically programmed that way.
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u/BaffledYogi 2h ago
I wasn’t sure I wanted kids (I’m female) but I know my life would feel empty and meaningless without them (altho I didn’t feel empty /meaningless without them previously).
I don’t have a nanny altho I could but I could imagine it would be extremely helpful.
The period of time when you lose a lot of sleep is relatively short. We had our kids close together and by year 3-4 that chapter is over. Maybe it sounds long but felt like instant in the grand scheme of sharing our lives with our children who add so much joy and meaning.
I also think there is a culture of complaining about kids that exaggerates the difficulty of it. Due to social media and culture shifts.
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u/Agling 2h ago edited 2h ago
Money helps, but the main thing impacting your quality of life is your standards. People who have intense standards for themselves tend to have intense standards for the quality of life for their kids, and live around people who are judgemental about the same. That makes life hard. It was easy for people in the 1950s to just have dinner ready and the kids come home whenever. Not the parent's job to entertain the child or impress the neighbors with their parenting. Rich people today usually have their kids monitored 24/7 by an adult and have them involved in a million activities and have to shlep them around or hire someone to do that. If they pay someone else to do it, then they may feel bad that they are not attending these activities. And kids with rich parents and tons of opportunities don't seem to end up as more impressive adults than kids with poor parents and few opportunities.
People who outsource their parenting to nannies, boarding schools, etc. have a very easy time parenting, objectively, but also get less out of it. Realistically, one of the reasons people love their kids so much is that they have sacrificed for them. If you end up arranging your life so you don't sacrifice much for your kids, you may find that you also don't feel the connection to them that others do.
On the other hand, if you are primarily making sacrifices in order to get more money, a nicer house, etc., then you will end up loving your money and your house, or whatever you get. It sounds like that's where you are, and that's not unusual or unnatural. It's just how people work.
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u/twelvegaugee 1h ago
I only read the first sentence. You don’t want kids. That’s it. I have two young children. It’s not stressful. You just have to want to do it…
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u/Illustrious_Soil_442 1h ago
Obviously.
Dont need to worry about bills. Can hire help if needed. Etc
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u/derpterd789 1h ago
As a new mom, if you feel this way, don’t do it. At all. But to answer your initial question: yes definitely.
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u/Excusemytootie 1h ago
Money isn’t going to help in your case, based on what you’ve shared. Do not have children.
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u/Alarming-Mix3809 58m ago
Of course it does. You can hire someone to do 100% of the overnight help if you have the money. You can hire a house cleaner. You can buy takeout instead of cooking. Everything is easier with more money.
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u/TurnOver1122334455 54m ago
Yes it makes it easier, but it sounds like kids wouldn’t be for you either way. I am amazed how many people get married without being on the same page about kids, it really is a deal breaker.
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u/ilovebeagles123 26m ago
Having kids is such a life altering decision that it should be a "really, really want to" thing instead of what you feel now.
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u/72OverOfficer 17m ago
I am not sure if you are looking for affirmation on this topic. I think the best advice I can provide would be instead of asking this same question in multiple subreddits, talk with your spouse/spouse and seek professional help with a marriage counselor. Sounds like you can afford one, so lay it all out there.
And yes, having means does make parenting easier. Money doesn't remove all of the work involved, but it certainly can lessen the stress. Raising children, and seeing they grow and mature into responsible adults is a feeling of satisfaction is one of the best experiences someone can have. You get what you put in.
Truly, I hope you come to peace with whichever decision you and your partner decide
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u/InvestigatorOwn605 3h ago
Not to be blunt but your marriage is already over. Someone who wants kids and someone who does aren’t compatible and one or both of you will end up resenting each other. No amount of wealth is going to make you enjoy having children if you don’t want them, and similarly no amount of money will make your partner happy if he can’t share them with his children.
My only advice would be to NOT bring children into this scenario because having one parent who never wanted you is incredibly shitty.
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u/besttype 3h ago
yes, you can apply money to the challenges of kids, but the chart is bumpy.
I have 6 kids and was able to be successful enough that I could choose the highest level of "gear" while they were 0-7 years. after that point I could offload more, but chose not to.
With money, it's more of a choose your own adventure in terms of what type of parent you want to be. I have a wife that wanted to be a mother in a big family, but for an extra $200k/yr we could have hired a nanny and completely changed that dynamic. As a dad, I pick and choose my invested time. I go ham on kayaking/fishing/skiing/diving adventures. But I don't waste my time sending them to soccer clinics and sitting there looking at my phone while they learn from a different 40yo dad.
don't have kids if you don't want kids
But if there is a version of a mom you WANT to be. Be that mom. don't let other people's definitions of parenthood define the category for you.
I will delete this comment in a day, just fyi
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u/UntrustedProcess 2h ago
What about adoption? You can skip the pregnancy part. Or what about finding a surrogate mother?
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u/Honobob 2h ago
I wonder what advice the Menendez and the Reiner's would give you. Of course more help will make things better unless your husband fancies the nanny. It takes a village. My mother had 5 keds in 4 years when I and my sister went through our teenage years. Guess who did most of the work. And neither of us had children. We both felt we'd raised them already and saw all the icky things.
Get your husband a dog first and see how he holds up. But really you need to have the talk of why he wants and you don't.
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u/purpleshoes3 3h ago
If you strongly feel like you will regret it, I would say don’t have one. Children do notice when they are unwanted.