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I agree with you. I don't expect everyone to live their life like they're at a Dave Ramsey seminar. Humans are humans - we get stressed, we get depressed, we get sad, we get burned out. Some people can use a break sometimes or a little piece of fun (the dad spending $2k on his hot rod). Sure the money could go toward their children in some way, but do children really need parents that are burned out and trudging through life?
People that need to spend 10% every of their income on a single vacation without their kids, or on a single hobby or whatever, probably shouldn't have kids.
And if they do, like the poster in the thread, they will likely be remember for not making their children a priority, and thus less than an ideal parent.
Now I know how you are going to straw man this one already…."So parents have to have no other priorities except their children?" Not what I said, but every child should be made to feel that they are A priority to their parents, and certainly higher up than dads caribbean vacation or hot rod or whatever.
Yes, cheap fun exist, but not all people enjoy cheap fun.
I don't know what to tell you. Most people know how to have a good on a limited budget. Those who can't better make getting a high paying job or inheriting a comfy trust fund a top priority
We take fairly lavish vacations in comparison to our budget. It's approached 10% some years. I fail to see how that's a bad thing. Both the parents and the kids love our trips. We love taking out the photo album and looking at it months later. We don't have extended family to visit, so it's basically what we do around the holiday time, when other people are visiting grandparents and cousins and such. The rest of the year, we have cheap and/or free fun. I'm not sure where people are going with this. It's like the part of the conversation earlier when someone said that after they had kids, their interests naturally gravitated towards family-friendly activities. Yep. A vacation typically IS a family activity, no?
I know some people who leave their kid with babysitters and go out and get drunk on the weekends. Not just on their birthday or something, but regularly. That I can't understand. If that's someone's mental health break, OK, I guess? But that can't be healthy. And it doesn't strike me as family centered, at all. Taking a family vacation? Yeah, I don't see a problem with that.
And now I feel quite dumb, because I see that people are talking about taking childfree vacays. OK, carry on. I think it's about past my bedtime now, I can't read straight.
We take fairly lavish vacations in comparison to our budget. It's approached 10% some years. I fail to see how that's a bad thing. Both the parents and the kids love our trips. We love taking out the photo album and looking at it months later. We don't have extended family to visit, so it's basically what we do around the holiday time, when other people are visiting grandparents and cousins and such. The rest of the year, we have cheap and/or free fun. I'm not sure where people are going with this. It's like the part of the conversation earlier when someone said that after they had kids, their interests naturally gravitated towards family-friendly activities. Yep. A vacation typically IS a family activity, no?
I know some people who leave their kid with babysitters and go out and get drunk on the weekends. Not just on their birthday or something, but regularly. That I can't understand. If that's someone's mental health break, OK, I guess? But that can't be healthy. And it doesn't strike me as family centered, at all. Taking a family vacation? Yeah, I don't see a problem with that.
And now I feel quite dumb, because I see that people are talking about taking childfree vacays. OK, carry on. I think it's about past my bedtime now, I can't read straight.
We've taken family vacations that were around 10% of our income, too (visiting family and friends internationally), but our annual household income isn't $20K and taking a somewhat expensive vacation from time to time doesn't put us in a financially precarious position if an emergency arose!
I don't like to argue this point because I'm all for cheap fun. However, I can't expect everyone to enjoy what I do.
Yeah, no one's saying that they have to be the SAME things. But there are hundreds, thousands of activities to choose from. Who can't come up with a few things??
"Real life tell us that lesser amounts of money can effect a child's life. " = I have no data to make my point and cannot refute your claim, so I will pretend this means anything.
Throwing this back at you - where is your data that says $X amount of dollars cannot positively effect a child's life?
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I agree. An example of your continual need to move the goal posts because it has been shown how ridiculous your claim is.
The only goal post that have been moved is your fanatical obsession of what defines a certain social (irrelevent).
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No. I am not telling anyone how to spend their money.
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Taking a $5k vacation every year, besides being wildly outside the norm in the country, might have a serious impact on a child because that could be the difference between a better neighborhood, better schools
You are suggesting that the parent who is satisfied with say a low middle class lifestyle is somehow in the wrong for spending money that potentially give their child a middle-middle class lifestyle. As was pointed out to me earlier - who are you to say that's wrong?
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Remember you are not asking permission to do this. No you are asking that no one judge you for denying your child new clothing
Why does a child need new clothing? Do you know if the child even cares about new clothing? As I said, people from all classes shop at Goodwill. It's about value. Some see more value in used clothing and don't see the point of buying new. What next - are you going to argue that not buying name brand soda can harm a child?
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but if they do it against their families best interest, they can and will be judged a "bad parent". Deal with it.
How do you know the money spent by the parent conflicts with the families best interest?
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It isn't a life goal. The life goal should be, to raise happy, healthy, well adjusted adults with the best head start they can give them. Your need for a 10% of your ENTIRE INCOME vacation every year could jeopardize that goal as a PARENT.
How do you know the vacation interfered with raising happy, healthy, well adjusted adults? The person could take a $10k vacation and be a great parent, right?
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And I am not telling anyone how to spend their money. Go back and read YOUR OP. You want to do all of this and still be patted on the head and told what a good daddy you are. Spend your money how you like, but I reserve the right to judge any parent that puts their wants before their childs needs as selfish and a "bad parent".
You just said "needs" - has anyone argued that a parent should put their interest before their child's needs? Now you can try to create your arbitrary definition of "needs", but you will be doing what you said you weren't doing -- telling others how to spend their money.
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I thought it wasn't about social class? Having a hard time keeping track now aren't you?
When I ask if someone should continually "do better" it inherently makes things about social class. However, it's not my goal to debate the arbitrary description of each social class.
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ANyway... nice try but you have already elucidated to clarify that it is about sacrificing the childs standard of living (aka social class) so the parents can have the luxuries of a different social class.
As I said earlier, how does a vacation give one the lifestyle of another social class?
If I said:
Parents drive new BMWs, travel 2 months per year, wear designer clothing, fancy jewelry, own a boat, etc.
and
Kids go to the worst school in the county, have trouble finding clean cloths, eat terrible foods, have no one to take them to activities, etc
THEN you may have a point about conflicting lifestyles of parent and child.
Of course it matters. A family making $20K spending $2500 of it on a vacation EVERY YEAR just for the parents is VERY different than a family making $100k (two median incomes) a year spending the same amount.
But according to your social class commentary it doesn't matter. $2500 isn't going to put the $20k into another social class, right?
"well, this is it and this is how it's going to be for our kid."
We sat down together and discussed all kinds of pros and cons of various options and considerations, and how we felt about certain critical parenting choices that every parent needs to make. We have consistently continued to touch base with each other with changing circumstances and as needs arose for our child that weren't previously considerations.
Did you discuss these things with no consideration for money?
Do you believe that your child has the best life possible even if money was no consideration? If not, what stops you from moving closer to that lifestyle? Do you rationalize it by saying "good enough"?
Emergency funds DO impact a child's life, in the sense that it will provide for THEM in the event of a financial emergency. The impact isn't felt unless there A. is never a financial emergency, or B. the emergency funds aren't there in the event of an emergency
Emergency funds have the POTENTIAL to impact a child's life. I am not arguing that they aren't good to have. I'm arguing that sometimes a family may dip into an emergency fund if it means keeping the family together or preventing burn out.
So if the difference between going on a caribbean vacation or not, is shopping at goodwill, than be a PARENT and take your kid to old navy.
What the what? I'm not a parent because I shop for the kids (and myself) at Goodwill? It's a choice our family makes so we can do other things instead. Since all families have a finite amount of resources, it's up to them to spend them wisely. We could buy them (and us) fancy clothes instead, and have less money to spend on other things, but it's a choice we make. The clothes are just as nice, and it's not the ONLY place I shop, but HOW on Earth is it better to shop at Old Navy -- of all places! -- than at Goodwill?
Besides, they always have awesome children's books at the thrift store. They're usually about $.50 apiece. I can get 20 of them for the price of a single Ipad app that other kids play with. Again, that's a choice as to how to allocate resources. Geesh.
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