> Babies have always been expensive.

They have always been expensive, and they have never been as expensive as today.

More than any other resource, babies require time. Talking purely from a US perspective, inflation adjusted income has never been higher.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/mehoinusa672n

When we earn more, the time spent to care for a baby 'costs' more because it's time not spent working. It's time not spent continuing your education. It's time not spent doing some expensive bougie luxury like paying someone else to cook you a meal.

It's a similar reasoning as to why working hours have only dropped a bit. When we earn more per hour, we can afford the same quality of life with fewer hours worked. However it also means each hour we choose not work is costing us more in opportunity cost. So we choose to work more.

Still, considering how many years we spend in education with little to no employment, and how many years we are currently able to live after we have retired, the % of our lifetime spent working has never been lower.

They only require lots of time if you want to be a good parent. We should be celebrating the fact that there are fewer latchkey kids and more involved mothers and especially fathers today.