I agree completely, and yet I am also very convinced that very few people enter parenthood having done rational economic calculations.
As an example:
(A) I’ve seen many folks TTC with an explicit intent to get the entire pregnancy + birth on one year’s health insurance deductible, which I’d guess saves $7500 or so on a HDHP versus the worst case of meeting the full deductible in two consecutive years. This often results in a baby born in the fall.
(B) A summer versus fall baby requires ~10 months less childcare before public school (or combined childcare + private school if you want the really long view), a savings of easily $20,000 five years later assuming $2k/mo in childcare expenses. And the first three months of pregnancy with an unassisted conception are realistically going to cost under $1k for the vast majority of people.
When I’ve brought this up with friends and acquaintances considering (A), they often tell me that (B) had not crossed their minds, or that the benefit is simply too far away to think about, or variations on those.
These are all educated, planning-oriented people, and that is still the level of long-range economic consideration they are giving to having a child. They budget for a crib and later on they open a 529 to save for college, but I do not think that they, let alone all the less-planning-oriented people choosing to enter parenthood, can be considered fully aware of the economic contract they are signing.
Minimizing pre-school childcare costs this way, however, also minimizes your child’s age when school starts. I think this is probably pretty bad for them long term, and recall reading various things that showed large outcomes differences between kids born just before and after age cutoffs.
Not wanting your kid to be at minimal age to start school is a totally valid counterargument. Perhaps there’s a middle ground—prioritizing the spring for example.
Had anyone I’d been discussing this with brought up this counterargument I would have had a very different takeaway from the conversation. The point I was trying to make was that even people who are thinking some about the economics of pregnancy and parenthood don’t seem to be thinking about it very comprehensively in my experience.
That said, IIRC from your blogs, 2 of your 3 kids have June-ish birthdays, so I take it your concern about being in the youngest quarter of the year wasn’t something important enough to you to actively avoid.
I agree completely, and yet I am also very convinced that very few people enter parenthood having done rational economic calculations.
As an example:
(A) I’ve seen many folks TTC with an explicit intent to get the entire pregnancy + birth on one year’s health insurance deductible, which I’d guess saves $7500 or so on a HDHP versus the worst case of meeting the full deductible in two consecutive years. This often results in a baby born in the fall.
(B) A summer versus fall baby requires ~10 months less childcare before public school (or combined childcare + private school if you want the really long view), a savings of easily $20,000 five years later assuming $2k/mo in childcare expenses. And the first three months of pregnancy with an unassisted conception are realistically going to cost under $1k for the vast majority of people.
When I’ve brought this up with friends and acquaintances considering (A), they often tell me that (B) had not crossed their minds, or that the benefit is simply too far away to think about, or variations on those.
These are all educated, planning-oriented people, and that is still the level of long-range economic consideration they are giving to having a child. They budget for a crib and later on they open a 529 to save for college, but I do not think that they, let alone all the less-planning-oriented people choosing to enter parenthood, can be considered fully aware of the economic contract they are signing.
I agree most people aren’t thinking this through.
Minimizing pre-school childcare costs this way, however, also minimizes your child’s age when school starts. I think this is probably pretty bad for them long term, and recall reading various things that showed large outcomes differences between kids born just before and after age cutoffs.
Not wanting your kid to be at minimal age to start school is a totally valid counterargument. Perhaps there’s a middle ground—prioritizing the spring for example.
Had anyone I’d been discussing this with brought up this counterargument I would have had a very different takeaway from the conversation. The point I was trying to make was that even people who are thinking some about the economics of pregnancy and parenthood don’t seem to be thinking about it very comprehensively in my experience.
That said, IIRC from your blogs, 2 of your 3 kids have June-ish birthdays, so I take it your concern about being in the youngest quarter of the year wasn’t something important enough to you to actively avoid.
February, March, June. Around here the cutoff is September 1st.
(Timing isn’t necessarily going to work out, plus I don’t think we were targeting a season)