A few days ago we took my wife, children and I a bus. Aran, the little one, was sitting in the backpack, an invention that usually causes a lot of curiosity and approval in the elderly (at least it is what we usually find).
As we were waiting for the bus to arrive for a while, a woman who was sitting at the stop was encouraged to speak with us. He told us about his son and daughter-in-law, who are parents of a small girl, explained their work, little things in their lives and a little "how they do it".
By deference, and because he asked us, we answered that Miriam, my wife, currently takes care of the children (well, Jon already goes to school) and that he does not work, precisely, to take care of them, be with them and enjoy them now They are small. In explaining this, the woman smiled and said: "Ah, well, if mom doesn't work, it's because dad earns a lot."
Laughter escaped me and a mental "hopefully" and I replied: "No, if the mother does not work it is because we spend little." The good woman, who seemed to believe that all the fathers and mothers of today have a standard of living similar to that of her son and her daughter-in-law must have thought at the time that "oh, of course, it can also be", probably remembering times past, when the now grandparents and great-grandparents took care of their children with what was there and what could be achieved.
She explained that her daughter-in-law is a lawyer, that in addition to her work as a lawyer she has another job in the afternoon, I think I remember being an accountant. He also told us that his son works and does overtime to get to everything. He also explained that they have a woman who cleans the house but, yes, as soon as they can take the plane (3 or 4 times a year) and travel to very distant places (I don't know what places he referred to, but I understood that they dedicated enough money to it).
The bus arrived at our stop at that time and we did not have time (nor did we have too much intention) to explain how we do it but, basically and for you to get an idea, we travel every 2-3 years to Eurodisney or Portaventura so that Children enjoy and as soon as we return from the trip we start saving for the next one, we spend the summer at the beach, at my mother-in-law's house, we clean the house, we always eat at home except one day we go to McDonalds or similar, we do not buy nothing that we cannot pay at the moment, to avoid increasing the fixed monthly expenses and, if we made the average of the money that comes into the house, divided between her and me, we would not even be mileuristas each.
In other words, Surely that couple, with only one daughter and the salaries they charge, will be "drowned" just like us, the difference is that we and especially my wife spends a lot of hours with the children and is always available in case they call the school for example saying that Jon has gotten “bad”. We do not need to flee to distant countries, nor do we need to make more social life than we do, since we either invite friends home or friends invite us to their home.
I do not mean by this that we do it right and they do it wrong. For our family I believe that what we do is the best solution, perhaps for that family it is better what they have been doing. However, one thing is clear, when we talk about having a third child, nobody puts their hands to their heads. When this woman's daughter-in-law told her that they wanted to have another child, the woman told them that "No, because I'm not old enough to take care of a baby."
