I gave up my retirement for my child's future
I was 27 when my partner and I, freshly married, decided to start our family. We'd done the entire checklist that we had been told would promise success. We both went to college, we got jobs in stable career fields, and built up savings and stability before getting married. By 2019, we felt ready to tie the knot, and by the end of the year, I was so baby hungry I already had a tote of little clothes tucked away in a bin in my office.
But 2019 was a very different time. I was working in technology as a hardware specialist for a local school district, my partner was a teacher. Our rent was $1150 for a three-bedroom house in a nice part of town. We were more than stable, very ready to buy a home, and content in our careers.
I became a parent in 2020
We found out we were pregnant the week of the shutdown in 2020. I remember thinking that people had raised kids during the 2008 recession. This was just some strange blip, a moment in time. It would end, and we'd move on.
Weeks stretched into months. I was forced to step away from my job as the demands of getting technology out to school districts became too taxing while pregnant. I had to start taking gig work as a writer, something I had never done before, to keep our finances stable. Wipes and diapers were impossible to find; there was no baby furniture, and I felt guilty buying anything before I had a person who could use it.
My son was born in November of 2020, and what followed were the hardest years of our lives. The price of everything skyrocketed. People began flocking to Boise, Idaho, where we have lived our whole lives. Our rent went from $1150 to $2200 in just three years. Formula shortages made every box cost as much as a tank of gas. Groceries ballooned in price. Any hope we had of buying a house began to bleed away alongside our savings.
I picked my son's education over retirement
Despite picking up an extra job, working grueling hours as an editor for entertainment publications, and cutting almost every enjoyable element of our lives away, by 2024, we were barely making it paycheck to paycheck.
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We lowered costs by keeping my son home, avoiding day care bills, but that meant working around him and effectively isolating him from other children his age.
By the summer, we knew he would need to attend preschool, but there aren't free options for that in Boise. We were going to have to pay tuition, and we just weren't sure where it was going to come from. Unfortunately, all the scholarship and hardship assistance for pre-school programs in Idaho still function on income data from five years ago. It doesn't take into account the effects of inflation, unmanageable housing costs, or stagnated wages.
In July 2024, I filled out the paperwork to withdraw my retirement savings from my 401(k). My family and friends asked me why I would do something like that. Didn't I want to retire?
I explained that there was nothing in my future if there was nothing in his. My son will always come first, even if I have to work until I'm dead.
We can't have any more kids
Shockingly, I don't regret dismantling my retirement at 31 for my child's preschool tuition. What I truly regret is knowing that we can't have any other children. I only had one savings fund. I can't empty another for a second baby.
I'd always seen myself as the mother of a little clutter of children. I've dreamed of having a family since I was very young. But it's not possible. I won't ever have more children, because doing so while the cost of living is what it is, would force my son and any future siblings to miss out, just so I could hug more babies. It's not fair to him, and it wouldn't be fair to any others.
I will never regret sacrificing for my child, but the grief of a life abruptly thrown off course has been difficult to navigate. I often wake up and ask myself, "What could I have done better?"
My goal now is to do everything I can for my son, to give him everything I have, even if it isn't fair. I hope that when he comes of age and enters the world, it will be a kinder place. I dream that he won't have to sacrifice so much to be safe and secure, and that he will have all the comfort and security we have lost.
He deserves to dream and, for me, that matters more than retiring. It's just such a shame that these are the choices so many parents are currently having to face.
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