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There are many pros and cons to starting a family and having children. It can be great to have kids and begin a new chapter in your life, but there are many things to consider when wanting to have children.
Income
One aspect of life to look at is socioeconomic status. Depending on the family’s situation, this can be viewed as a pro and a con. Being wealthy and making a good living for a husband or wife is a large asset. Starting a family can be quite expensive, especially in the US. According to the Peterson-Kaiser Family Foundation, an average hospital bill for having a baby is around 18,865 dollars. While health insurance can cover most of that cost, the fact that having a baby could cost you around twenty thousand dollars is still a substantial number. Money is something that is at the root of almost all decisions, and when it comes to having a child, it is no exception. Since the mother of the child does the majority of care for the child, the husband will work and bring in money while the mother cares for the unborn or birthed child. This of course, lowers the overall amount of money being brought in with only one parent working. This is why being able to support a family financially is so important.
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Karen Seccombe, a sociology professor at the University of Florida, did a study on childfree young married couples and the costs of having children stated that “women's employment rates, the status of their occupations, their income, and their educational attainment are negatively correlated with the number of children born”(Seccombe, 4). This statement can be viewed as having children is a negative and is harmful for women and that women should focus on their job and not look to start a family. But this generally means that taking care of the child becomes the mother’s responsibility and that becomes her job, while the husband works. This also ties into the gender roles that are generally associated with having children. But in situations where a woman is in a managerial or admin position, will attribute greater costs and fewer benefits to having children rather than women who stay at home and take care of the children.
Childcare
Something else to look at is what type of support the children in the family are receiving. Is the child being cared for, shown support, and has a good relationship with their parents. Or is the child not shown support and has poor relationships with their parents. This idea of being in a supportive family can be looked at as a pro and con. Studies have shown that as kids are in their childhood and adolescence years, support from parents and having good relationships with them, has shown to help with both physical and psychological health. On the other hand, poor relationships with parents and conflicts have shown to have negative impacts on a child's psychological health. This also ties into how many parents are in the house. Single parent households and households where both parents work in high positions and make a large salary, have been proven that the time they spend with their children is significantly less than if there is one parent staying home to take care of the children.
As children reach adolescence, their peers start to take more and more of that support, parental support is still important. Their peers at school begin to impact their well-being, whether it be positive or negative. Having friends and not being harassed at school have shown reported less psychological complaints rather than children who were the opposite.
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A study in Sweden wanted to analyze how parental relationships and the household they live in affect their psychological health. They asked children, ages from 10-18 and took 3440 independent observations from them. After the study was completed, roughly 20% said they lived with a single parent and 10% lived with a parent and step-parent. 84% stated that they use their parents for support in helping them with their problems and 83% stated that they get along well with their parents. The area in which the most psychological complaints were stated was where children do not use their parents for support in their personal problems. Regardless of the type of household, kids should try to have good relationships with their parents. They should look to their parents as being a support system for them and not someone who is trying to hold them back.
Conclusion
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Many factors contribute to a couple’s decision to have children. As mentioned before, having children can be a great aspect in people’s lives. On the other hand for some it can be emotionally and monetarily draining. Having children is something that couples need to take time into looking at their surroundings. Whether or not they can support their children and care for them is very important. Nowadays, having children is very expensive and new couples may not have the funds to care for their children. As well as their jobs might be their main focus and having a kid would force the mother to take time off and care for the child and this could potentially harm them financially. Overall, having parents who can support their children monetarily, emotionally, and physically will not only help them psychologically but also their overall well-being.
Author: Joey DeLuca, CJ, 2025
Works Cited
Seccombe, Karen. “Assessing the Costs and Benefits of Children: Gender ... - JSTOR.” Assessing the Costs and Benefits of Children: Gender Comparisons among Childfree Husbands and Wives, Feb. 1991, www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/353143.pdf.
Stein, Samantha. “11 Reasons People Choose Not to Have Children - Psychology Today.” Psychology Today, 4 Feb. 2023, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/what-the-wild-things-are/202302/11-reasons-people-choose-not-to-have-children.
Turner, G., et al. “The Pros and Cons of Social Relations: An Analysis of Adolescents' Health Complaints.” Social Science & Medicine, Pergamon, 17 Apr. 2006, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953606000864.
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