I wonder if you can offer your insights on an issue.
My partner and i have been in Switzerland for nearly 12 months. We moved here for his work. I left my job in the UK to move here with him but so far i have had no luck finding work in Switzerland for myself.
While i am not working, i think it would be an ideal time to start a family. My partner is not convinced and he feels that i should find a job first before we think about children. He feels that his single salary (approx CHF 125, 000) would not be enough to support us all, given that we would also have to move to a bigger apartment (currently renting a small 1 bedroom apartment).
I wonder what other people think about this? Could we manage on his single salary? Am i being irresponsible to feel that we could? Or is he being over cautious?
I am not familiar with the costs of having a child in Switzerland, so perhaps i'm being completely naive to think that it would be possible. At the same time, i don't want to have children now if it means just 'scraping by'. In that case, i would rather wait.
But it seems you don't want to give up a lifestyle in terms of deposable income right now. Money is only one of your issues - the lifestyle change you're bound to have with a child will also be significant.
Just remember that 125k is significantly more than the average salary.
I actually think having children is a woman's want (maternal thing) and part of the "sheep syndrome".
I know that when I was in long term relationships, I would always delay engagement (been engaged once but avoided marriage to this day) and have never worked out the benefits of having children.
Children:
(1) Cost money
(2) Take up Time
(3) Ruin your sex life
(4) Restrict your life
And worst of all, the brats don't show any appreciation and it doesn't end when they reach 18.
I always say to my male clients "of course your children bring so much pleasure to you" when I show them that their school fees and uniforms at day school comes to £11,000 plus per annum and they had to gross £20,000 for this and the expressions on their faces seem to change.
Getting married, having children was something we were educated/programmed/manipulated to do.
Had to put in my two cents worth. However, if your partner doesn't want children but you do, then it's time to really think about future compatability.
Actually, what you can't afford is to have kids on two salaries. Well, that might be a bit exaggerated but not much. If you have kids and both work, then you pay a fortune in child-care and more taxes so in the end there isn't much difference.
So money really isn't the issue in your case I would say. The issue is whether or not you want to have kids and whether or not you want to forsake a career for children.
To the OP: risks increase massively over the age of 35 vs. younger than 35 for pregnancies, so you need to push him to talk about the reasons why he is delaying . For example, what exactly is the threshold for "earning enough"?