My parents were good at keeping arguments behind closed doors, but I picked up on the tension surrounding the Goddamn Checkbook at an early age. Meanwhile, in the family of my longtime boyfriend, Joe, the story goes that his dad once saved the house from foreclosure by winning at the track. In other words, our parents struggled to make enough to support our families, but they were also spenders—and sometimes gamblers—not savers.
When Joe and I, both 33, started talking seriously about having a baby, our make-it-spend-it lifestyle—when combined with the grim economy—suddenly felt juvenile. As crass as it sounds, we wondered: Could we afford a child without living on the financial edge and all the check-bouncing stress that brings?
Many parents-to-be in a similar panic go to Erica Sandberg, a credit counselor and the author of Expecting Money (Kaplan), a book on financial planning for families. "It's good to worry," she says. "You're going into an emotional situation that will require all your resources. You should get a hold on your money now."
So we binged on personal-finance books. We filled in spending charts and took self-help quizzes. We tried to engage friends in really uninteresting IRA vs. Roth IRA discussions. But most of all, we became utter tightwads in our effort to save. Most experts recommend having three months' worth of expenses in an emergencies-only savings account if you're single—and six to nine months' worth if you're a parent.
On top of that, we'd need to prepare for the eventual baby's expenses. To gauge those costs, Jean Chatzky, the author of six personal-finance books, recommends asking friends with kids what they spend. She also suggests that if one parent hopes to stay home, a couple should try living on a single income before the baby comes (while socking away the unspent one).
Once you know the financial reality, says MSN Money columnist Liz Pulliam Weston, remember that you can always budget down ("Babies are actually pretty cheap—we spend a lot on them for us"), and that it's okay if you can't meet all the money gurus' standards. "You want to be as secure as possible," Weston says. "But you can't wait for the perfect conditions, because they will never happen."
That advice both comforted and terrified me. As deeply as I want children, coming to terms with my money issues is one of many things—along with moving into a bigger place, becoming a decent cook, and getting married (another story)—I'd planned to do before getting pregnant. To me, a parent is a jogging, lasagna-baking adult. Someone with a linen closet and more than a few mismatched forks.
But I'm not sure that any amount of silverware—or an emergency fund of any size—would make either Joe or me feel completely prepared to raise another person. As we get closer to an off-the-pill date, I feel bravest when I think about my mom and dad, who were magical parents partly because they weren't full-fledged adults. I'm grateful for their goofiness and impulsiveness—and glad that in 1983, they looked at their meager checkbook balance and their two kids and decided, "Screw it, we're going to Disneyland."
