Raising Children in Spain: From Life Plan to Unaffordable Luxury

Raising Children: Between Life Plan and Russian Roulette

A separated man with a daughter in shared custody summarizes it in one line: it was the best thing that ever peine to him. But he adds the nuance that dismantles everything: not for the poor. The contradiction—the most rewarding experience and, at the same time, a luxury out of reach—is the exact ground where a question has fermented, running through the entire thread: why one must pair up and have children. The short answer is that there is no obligation. The long one spans thousands of words and always ends up in the same place: money.

Why must one pair up and have children?

Because no one has proven that it is necessary. What exists is an inertia—biological, economic, and religious—that sustains less weight each year. For those with faith, offspring is a mission; for those without, it is argued that having a child elevates one to another stage of the human being, several degrees higher, with work and dedication as the toll. In contrast, the most repeated stance among skeptics is simple: doing things because one should is not an argument, it is an inherited custom. And a custom with no visible reward abandons itself.

The starting point was more biting. The initial suspicion is that the family functions as the official version of success and that, looked at closely—with its diapers, schedules, and mortgage—it does not fare better than any other life. A doubt shared by those who remain outside and many of those who are inside.

The cost of starting a family with 1,200 or 1,500 euros

Sixty years ago, the calculation balanced out. Stable work, a salary that covered everything, a house paid off in reasonable installments, and authority within the home that no one questioned. That lost order is what is yearned for, and explains why the comparison is repeated so often. Today, the equation breaks on the income side: with 1,200 or 1,500 euros per month, one cannot build a family without sacrificing the rest, and on top of that comes a coexistence that holds together less and legislation that, according to several participants, complicates withdrawal.

A formulation circulating summarizes the diagnosis without anesthesia: the problem is not the child, but the partner chosen and the money one has. It is an uncomfortable thesis because it shifts the blame from desire to the pocketbook. And it leaves a corollary that no one refutes: if the salary does not reach, the family ceases to be a project and becomes a thirty-year debt.

Working to support a family: the argument that flips

Another axis runs through the entire discussion: whether family justifies work or if work is justified through family. Some state it bluntly: those who enslave themselves to support a home have entered a wheel from which they never exit, while those who earn enough working little—often from their own home—understood the game long ago. And at the other end, a phrase that simplifies everything: nor does it make sense to work if one can live with little.

The irony is that both sides use the same data: effort without return. Some apply it to employment, others to parenting, and no one agrees on which of the two things to abandon first.

The loneliness that tightens from age 45

Here appears the only argument that almost no one disputes: the social network frays with age. Those who live without a partner or children hold up well while their parents are still alive and their group responds to gatherings. Past 45 years, the movie changes. Parents die, plans space out, the laziness to go out grows, and loneliness begins to grind without making noise. It is not a catastrophic prediction; it is the pattern described by those who have observed it closely for years.

The counter-argument is that this loneliness is not fought by manufacturing obligatory company, and that having children does not guarantee someone will call you by phone at seventy. Both things can be true at the same time, and that is the part no one closes.

No one asked to be born: the argument that cuts off conversation

The hardest objection goes another way and admits no easy exit: no one asks to be born. Bringing someone into the world is described as a Russian roulette with a person who did not consent: it can turn out with poor health, mental issues, an accident, or a life worse than that of their parents. Those who reproduce, according to this current, would be filling a void of their own at the cost of another.

The counter-argument arrives equally dry: by that criterion, many more things are superfluous than children, starting with any decision we did not consult with those who suffer it. And some cited cases reinforce it: there are sought-after children and others that arrive by inertia, unexpected and unasked, which is the exact definition of a part of the birth rate.

The 33% single population and generational turnover

The third block is demographic. A figure appears as a warning: 33% of the population is single. Upon it is built the argument of transmission. Those who form family pass on their values to the next generation and survive in it; those who do not, are erased over time, genes included. It is table-top Darwinism, but it has an uncomfortable corollary: societies that stop reproducing do not disappear by decree, they are replaced.

A part of the analysis links this point with immigration and population turnover. The diagnosis is launched without data and without consensus, and it is best to note it as what it is: a political hypothesis rather than a demographic conclusion.

The result is that the question remains unanswered and the percentage of singles remains there. The experience of raising children is described as unrepeatable, those who could afford it say the money does not reach them, and one in three people has no partner. No one manages to explain why, with these accounts, the majority still tries.