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People not very long ago would laugh at the notion that a 27 year old was not "ready" to have kids.

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Not too long ago:

People thought 30k a year was good money.
People thought it was bad to raise a child in an apartment
People thought AOL was the gods gift to earth.
Food wasn't loaded with insecticides.
Rap was about having fun.
Hairspray was used more than gel.

The world is changing in many ways.

Not too long ago:

A factory job existed in America.
You could raise a family on $10 an hour.
You could buy a house on $15 an hour.
Computers and Cell Phones were a Class Symbol.

Now, we have our world. Adjust. Please. I feel I made a responsible choice in waiting to have a child. Think about the 80s when you could go to school, learn word-processing, and you could make 40k a year. The companies said "screw it," fired all of them, and trained their own employees and paid them $6 an hour.

The same is going on now. Many firms are downsizing, retirement is going out the window, etc. It is not as easy as it was "back then." I hope that the older generations wake up to this.

I had to wait. I used to work in construction. I started up making $20 an hour to LEARN. Then as I gained more experience, I started earning $15 and hour. Three years later, I was earning $10 and hour and I was nearly a master carpenter at the time. The tide was turning. I already saw it turning. I had to make an adjustment. Add a kid to the equation, this would burn my ass for sure.

The above goes without saying that I was not looking forward to a career in construction, and the change was going to happen sooner or later. The circumstances made it happen sooner.

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Excellent post. I don't think American society in general has really come to grips with how the world economy is shaping up and how deep and transformative the changes are and will be. This is having and will have an ever more drastic effect on the prospects of our children. Having a kid and giving it a fair shot to live at least as well as you did used to be a walk in the park compared to what it is these days. You used to be able to afford a house as long as you held a job and stayed out of jail, or pretty close to it. Now you can graduate with a law degree in major cities like L.A. and it's good luck, buddy.

By the way, I saw and lived your 80's word processing story myself.