Scandinavia SUCKS

[Farm Boy]

I am not selfish enough to have kids just for the sake of having that experience - if I don't think the environment is well suited for child rearing and such.

Here's the thing. I totes agree with you on the education situation. It sucks. But I'm at a loss for what you would actually consider an environment well suited for child rearing and such. Medicine has never been better. Starvation and malnutrition are bouncing around about as low as we've ever seen or dared to dream of in Canada and the USA. Violent crime rates are relatively low, and falling. Average education achieved, even if at high cost, is historically high. Women have better career opportunities than they used to, better wages than they used to, better benefits than they used to, and getting better at all three. Homosexual people can marry instead of being denied the right.

Given the big bag of things that matter for your child when you have a child, rather than simply having the experience, I have no idea what standard would ever actually hold up! Perfection? Simply this singular issue being better? Sounds like you might need to find a nice Dutch girl(or boy, two father adoptive households seem to hold water just fine) at some point in your life if you ever become interested in such a process!

 

[Akka]

Here's the thing. I totes agree with you on the education situation. It sucks. But I'm at a loss for what you would actually consider an environment well suited for child rearing and such. Medicine has never been better. Starvation and malnutrition are bouncing around about as low as we've ever seen or dared to dream of in Canada and the USA. Violent crime rates are relatively low, and falling. Average education achieved, even if at high cost, is historically high. Women have better career opportunities than they used to, better wages than they used to, better benefits than they used to, and getting better at all three. Homosexual people can marry instead of being denied the right.

Well, I guess places where there is all these good points, PLUS even lower crime and nearly free education, would be what he considers an environment well suited

 

[Farm Boy]

I do wish him well in that quest for the dutch girl/boy should he take it up!

 

[bhsup]

Are tuition and books really $15,000 a year now?

 

[Farm Boy]

That's at an ''ok to decent'' in-state four year and probably doesn't include room and board.

 

[bhsup]

Yeah, I didn't include housing and food because you have to live and eat whether you're going to college or not. Those things shouldn't be included in "cost of college."

Anyhoo, I just checked for MU and sure enough it's roughly $11.4K so close enough.

 

[Traitorfish]

Yeah, I didn't include housing and food because you have to live and eat whether you're going to college or not. Those things shouldn't be included in "cost of college."

Opportunity cost. When you're at college, you're not going to be able to working full time, so it does't make sense to discount cost of living as if you were. You have to include living costs or you're not getting a realistic picture of college as an expense.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Isn't he asking about the price of tuition, anyway?

 

[Traitorfish]

But Warpus was citing the cost of an education, not just tuition fees.

 

[bhsup]

Opportunity cost. When you're at college, you're not going to be able to working full time, so it does't make sense to discount cost of living as if you were. You have to include living costs or you're not getting a realistic picture of college as an expense.

Hrm. Okay, fair point. I hadn't thought of it that way.

Oh hey, head over to the many questions thread in a minute. I need UK language expert! I know you're not from the south, but you'd know better than me.

 

[Farm Boy]

Opportunity cost. When you're at college, you're not going to be able to working full time, so it does't make sense to discount cost of living as if you were. You have to include living costs or you're not getting a realistic picture of college as an expense.

Here's the thing. American students now frequently do work crappy jobs during the semester. This impacts their academic performance, not for the better. But, since their expenses are such as they are, living within your means on room and board isn't going to happen. Best you can do is live frugally since those outlays are going to be reflected in the final total of your loans. Think about that every time you buy a thirty pack: one year to pay off each beer, with interest.

 

[JollyRoger]

I would need another beer to deal with that thought.

 

[Whomp]

Are tuition and books really $15,000 a year now?

Get a B average in Georgia and it is free.

 

[warpus]

But I'm at a loss for what you would actually consider an environment well suited for child rearing and such.

On one hand I feel that Canada is a relatively excellent place to raise a child and a family. And yet, I see such deep problems with so many things I consider vital for something I'd want for my own children and family - that I'm not really sure I'd want to start one here. If I have to be honest, the conditions in which my parents decided to have children shock me. By my own logic, I should not exist.

See, my standards right now are pretty damn high. If you came up to me and asked me: "What if I told you that I can give you the experience of raising an infant from 0 to hero. You will have a son or daughter, your bloodline and name will live on, and soon enough a young protege warpus will be making his mark on the world, aspiring to hopefully similar ambitions as yours. All I ask of you is to basically dedicate your entire life to this project for at least the next 18 years and I'll also need at least $300,000."

I look at this deal and I think to myself: "I never really felt strongly about wanting to raise a child of my own - if it's going to happen, it's going to need to be a 100% dedication on my part. I can't half-arse this. Not with a child's life - no way. I can't decide to do this and not dedicate my life to the kid and to the family, it's going to be have to be total dedication. If I do this thing, I'm going to have to go all in."

So I look at the ask, I look at all that, I remember how tough it was to survive university when you have to pay for tuition yourself, I remember how long it took me to become financially independent, and I don't want any child I have to have to worry about that... while at the same time I lose my financial independence again. So I'm sorry Canada, but for now my standards would preclude me from raising a child here - the university costs are just too damn high. Hell, even high schools rip you off these days. I'd want my child to grow up in a place where education is respected and financial aspects don't even cross your mind when you go to school.

I have EU citizenship, so there are options. And maybe one day Canada will change. And hey, I wouldn't rule out a pretty lady managing to convince me to reconsider my stance on the whole question either. Who knows what could happen. I could win the lottery and have 20 babies.

 

[Akka]

Hell, even high schools rip you off these days.

Wait, what...
You actually have to PAY for HIGHSCHOOL, or did I get this wrong ?

 

[Terxpahseyton]

There is a good side to students having to work on the side - it boosts gdp!

 

[Angst]

Another hidden cost may be the cost of dating. I was a bit baffled when I noticed male highschoolers taking their girl for a date to a restaurant (and naturally paying the bill). O.O

Yea I never got that part about American culture. In Denmark you usually just meet and kinda hook up, usually at parties, until at some point you decide you like each other more than just physically. The whole eating out/dating thing usually happens after you're something of an item when you're kind of figuring out the first phase of your actual relationship.

Yup. Usually whoever did the asking out. Add to it cost of transportation. But seriously, once you're past the first dates you can usually expect the idea of going out to be of both parties and they'll generally be sharing at that point unless somebody is dumb, or a princess, or the combination of both.

I'm glad you say that.

Violent crime rates are down. Fatality rates from accidents are down. Products are relatively safe. Diapers are amazing compared to 15 years ago. Car seats are fantastic. Kids' cereals have less sugar. Less children pick up smoking cigarettes than two decades ago. US health insurance now covers them an extra half decade. Is the cost of educational loans, while darned important, really that important?

Well, in Denmark you get all of this stuff + universal healthcare + free education + the kids actually get paid for studying on top of their course being free + longer guaranteed parental leave + other stuff probably. I'd much prefer to raise my kids here.

Well, I guess that is a criteria you can make the judgement on if you want. I guess it's just never been a thing in my family that one's parents could afford to send you to school. I paid my loans off with scraping and working throughout college, we've paid off over half of my wife's in less than 10 years too. If finances were tighter, we would have used community colleges for the first 2 years instead of both going straight for 4-years and including things like study abroad. Don't get me wrong, higher education and the funding thereof gets worse and more abusive every year: but it's just one thing. It's certainly less important than the likelihood that your son will be shot during a mugging, or die in a car accident, or of lung cancer. I mean, perspective man!

Well, you're even safer from crime here, there are way way less guns circulating for one, crime is lower for another...

(I'm not stalking you I promise, you just happen to be the person I have stuff to tell.)

 

[Farm Boy]

(I'm not stalking you I promise, you just happen to be the person I have stuff to tell.)

Dawww, don't try to make me feel less loved!

The guns thing is weird Angst. It really is. It doesn't make me feel less safe. I have access to 5 of them, 3 that I occasionally actually use, 2 if you don't count the pellet gun(seriously, don't count the pellet gun). I've moved them with the arrival of the child so that they are not accessible as something that he could potentially find and have an accident. Only the pellet gun is on site, in the garage, and the little metal bits that actually fit through the barrel are not toddler visible/accessible, so really it's just a pretty lightweight club without pointy bits. Forks in the kitchen are more dangerous.

 

[bhsup]

Not to mention, you know, farm implements!

"Dammit, Timmy, stop playing on the log splitter!"

 

[Farm Boy]

Yes, getting backed over and smushed to death is a super real risk. Or futzing around a cultivator that's parked and raised with hydraulics, or an implement wing that's up and not secured with the travel bolts yet or hooking up a wagon and your clutch foot slips, or or or, don't get me started. Every farm kid knows of a different farm kid that didn't make it. I'll have nightmares for a week!