Families say housing costs mean they’ll have fewer or no children: NPR

Families in the United States and around the world are having fewer children as people make profoundly different decisions about their lives. The NPR series Population change: how smaller families are changing the world explores the causes and implications of this trend.

At an indoor play center in Cheyenne, Wyo., a sea of ​​toddlers throw colorful blocks and balls. Grace Moreno, 21, is there with her 11-month-old son, wearing pajamas with little fire trucks on them.

“It’s the only free place, so it’s worth it,” she said.

Finances are tight for Moreno and her husband. They moved from Texas to Wyoming, while they were pregnant, so her husband could take a better-paying electrician job. But now that they are parents, the salaries seem to disappear.

“Our rent in Texas was about $800,” Moreno said. “Here it’s about $1,775.”

Rent is their biggest cost. They spend $300 a week on groceries and $100 on baby formula. The couple also has to pay for their car and the bills for their son’s delivery.

“I remember sitting there looking at a pile of mail, probably about 3 inches high…hospital bills, emergency bills,” Moreno recalled. “And I looked at my husband. I was like, ‘I never want to do this again.'”

Too expensive to have children

A few months earlier, she thought she would have several children. But just six weeks after giving birth, Moreno decided to have her tubes tied.

“I was like, ‘Oh my God, my mom was right. It’s too expensive.'”

With only one child, Moreno’s family is able to save a few hundred dollars a month for a mortgage, so their son can one day have a garden.

“Not only are houses more expensive, but also, you know, a 7% increase. [mortgage interest] on top of that,” said Emily Harris, a senior demographer at the University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute.

She said Wyoming’s female birth rate is slightly higher than the national average, but remains too low to replace the state’s population. The same is true for every other state in the Mountain West, which has seen some of the largest declines in fertility rates nationally over the past two decades.

At the same time, the region’s population continues to grow. Many people move here to escape big cities and live outdoors, which drives up real estate costs.

Harris said things like child care costs and generational values ​​also play a role in people’s reproductive decisions and are definitely changing.

“We have this idea of ​​a nuclear family,” Harris said. “You have to get married and then buy a house and then have kids…and really, over the last ten or twenty years, that kind of timeline has been disrupted and sort of rearranged.”

Some states are passing laws aimed at easing housing costs for young families. But not Wyoming.

“The biggest obstacle to solving this housing crisis is really convincing my colleagues that government has a role to play,” said state Rep. Trey Sherwood, a Democratic minority member.

Progressives have pushed for a public fund to help build more affordable housing. But members of the large Republican majority, like Senator Bob Ide, believe that the government should stay out of this issue.

“Gaming with housing, you know, it gums up the wheels of the free market,” Ide said.

Sean Thornton and Reesie Lane sit under a tree with their dogs.

Hanna Merzbach/Mountain West Information Bureau

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Hanna Merzbach/Mountain West Information Bureau

He cited laws passed by the Wyoming Legislature to restrict access to abortion, allow nannies to care for more children and ease property taxes as examples of family-friendly policies.

But Wyoming couples like Reesie Lane and Sean Thornton say it’s still too expensive to have children now.

“Sean and I started dating and he said, ‘I don’t know, I think I want to have six or seven kids,'” Lane said, while Thornton laughed.

“[But] As we went through more and more financial difficulties, I guess we eventually said, ‘Yeah, I think we can have one or two,'” she added.

Both Lane and Thornton work in the state university system. They spent their 20s struggling to pay rent in tiny apartments, then around 30, they finally bought a house.

“I think that’s when we started to realize that maybe it was too late,” said Lane, who also has ovarian syndrome that makes it difficult to conceive. “I’m not sure we’ll be able to have kids.”

Lane said it was heartbreaking not to have enough money to give even one child a full life, but it was also liberating.

For now, they’re content with their fur babies, a Pomeranian-shih tzu mix, dressed in matching bandanas with fall leaves.

“They’re one hundred percent little babies,” Lane said as she held the well-dressed puppies, Huckleberry and Finn. “They are so spoiled.”