The (High) Cost of Kids w/ Emily Oster #902
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Welcome to how to money i'm joel and I am at, and today, we're talking about the high cost of kids with Emily oster.

Yeah, joe, we don't shy away from the fact that you not like where we're big fans of having kids. You've got three kids. I've got four actually recently had a personal finance conference.

I mentioned that to someone that I had just met that I got four kids if SHE literally did a spirit take what I told her that um but like I think there's multiple reasons for that, i'm sure. But the costly nature of having kids is a big reason for sure not what most folks are doing these days. And depending on which study you're looking at, that depends on where in the country you live as well.

I've seen upwards of like four hundred thousand dollars per kid. So we're hoping to set the record straight today with Emily oster. Emily is a professor of economics at Brown university. She's the author of books like expecting Better crib sheet family firm or relating ant to the different stages of parenting are soon to be parenting that you're in. And now she's host of the new podcast raising parents.

And you might know her as the lady who says it's okay to have wine and coffee in moderation while you're pregnant or who shared unpopular opinions on code policies during the pain delic. She's not afraid to dive into the controversial, but we're excited to talk about all things that are going to be kids and money related with you today. And when you thank you for joining us on the podcast.

thank you guys so much for having me decided to be here.

And the only the first question, we everyone who comes on the show, math, I like to drink craft beer. Sometimes you can get expensive, but it's largent on the stuff that matter in the here and now while we're doing the smart thing in saving and investing for our future as well, what's everything you like to sport? John.

running shoes. I have like a disturbing number of expensive running shoes.

okay. So joe just recently told me about you call them like pro something shoes, super shoes, super shoes mentioned that the thing like the carbon plate shoes or whatever told me. I don't .

think it's good to get into numbers really. It's more drive. It's more why arranges it's more than one? Do they really make .

that big of an impact on your talk? Because like when you look the numbers from some of the marathon, others what I heard times are going by three, four percent .

by wearing those things. People, it's about four percent on average.

There are some range across people OK my wife up out for a walk. But Emily, we appreciate to join in. As you are in economists like I mentioned, what was the impetus to apply data h to something that has often been viewed as more intuitive? You know, this being parenting and family decisions.

So I I am an economist that i'm a person who loves data and has always thought that IT is appropriate to think about data as a way to make decisions about your everyday life, not just about your finances, about about all kinds of other stuff. Until when I got pregnant now fourteen years ago, I was kind of natural to take that data lens into prag Nancy and then into parenting and that's where the books came from um but IT was for me, a very natural like data is the way that you make decisions and so I didn't seem as weird as I think that does to other people .

when I explain IT. Is that partly because you come from a long line of economists? Your mary two economists is is i'm curious like what thanksgiving dinner is like at your house?

I would love to be a fly on the wall to know what, like a bunch of economists. I mean, this sounds like a joko. Like five.

Go to the things we, what is that like? wow. Is that part of IT a little bit? I mean.

now we have a lot of small children and only one of the nine grandchildren is actually interested economics until we ve had to die IT down a bit um but certainly growing up with two economist parents uh gave me a way to think about the world that was rooted in data, in evidence, in decision making. And they be marry to another economist and make IT to be easier to Operate your house like that.

First, I believe ve IT OK what what is IT about data that IT seems that folks have a tough time taking data that is out in the world and then applying IT to their lives. Like, I feel like often times we have a difficult time assessing risk when IT comes to, okay, you just told me the x now take that piece of knowledge and put IT to use in your own life. Like, I guess this is more like an informed decision question.

Can you speak to that? Yeah if he is very hard. So one of the one of the issues is that I think often, even for people who like data, were often expecting data to kind of tell us the answer.

And that's rarely true. You really do need to have the data and the decision making combined so you can kind of frame the data inside some trade off some cost and benefits. Um but there's a second thing to what you're saying.

This is really, really important, which is that people are very, very bad at understanding risk. And many of the decisions that we make as parents, as people do involve needing to understand something about risks and something about small probabilities and risks. And that's something that just the human brain is not very well suit to process.

And almost like we need some interpretive help after the data, after we like organize some of the data, which IT seems like it's like giving part of your mission too. And i've heard you say that the evidence is severely lacking in a lot of the parenting tips that end up kind of taking on this air of gospel truth, that that a lot of people, they tend to subscribe as something just because IT feels like common knowledge. IT was there like this treasure trove of helpful data that just wasn't being used properly, was just a bunch of stuff that would have helped inform us if we just were .

completely and unaware of both. And I guess I mean, there's more data out in the world than people are probably using. Um I think the realities when you dig into the data, particularly around a lot of these parenting topics IT, turns out there's a lot of good ways to do IT.

And so some of what's happening is people are saying if this is the only way to do IT and when you look in the day, it's like actually it's not really clear that any Better than any other way or if IT is it's only a tiny amount um like a tiny effect on one random outcome. So some of this is that people are just over interpret uh their own experiences or they want to be they want their parenting style to be so right that is right for everybody and that kind of leads to over over statement of the value of some of certain behaviors. But there are also allowed things in parenting where we don't have as much data as as we would like as many people would like. And that's that's frustrating in its own way.

Make sense seems like most folks are looking for objective truth when often times maybe it's a little more subjective when IT comes to some of these I guess, Grace, what are sticking your questions and that we ask ourselves? But like how much do you think personal preference should actually play into? In fact, they are into some of the parenting decisions that we make as opposed to kind of like a one size. It's all advice. Yeah.

I think almost every apparently decision should invoke your preferences. I think the key for me is saying, look, let me figure out what's the question i'm asking. Let me get the data that's relevant for that question and then let me ask the question with my preferences in mind and with the data as a way to support how I think about the tradeoffs. And so rather than saying there's a right choice, there's a wrong choice, there's a right choice for you and you could make that decision in a Better or worse weight for you. But IT is your preferences that should influence that, not what somebody else dump street is doing.

So part of the reason you kind of started this endeavor fourteen years ago was one because your interesting data, right, but also because you are becoming a mom. And i'm curious, as you are studying, you're take checking out these studies, dig in into the research, what did you find that impacted the way you parented, whether in those early years or another? Your kids have gonna love in order.

So I my first book is about pregNancy. And I would say that so many of the decisions that I made, well, I was pregnant, were influenced by the research I did for the book. So, you know, a whole portion of the book about prennent or testing, which I really kind of effectively wrote while I was doing IT.

So IT was like my own exploration of the data, while I was trying to serve my own parenting. There are my own pregNancy. When I then had a kid, I will. I didn't write the book about early, apparently until my second kid, because with the first kid, IT was just like, do whatever, mess things up all the time, panic constantly. Yes, I don't know if this sense familiar from your first.

but IT was it's .

interesting because I think IT was very hard to have the perspective from the standpoint of a first kid to be like, okay, let me dial down to water the important decisions like what I really want I think about IT was just like every day was another crazy fear um and when I had a second kid then I was like, oh, now I can write this book because now that I like, i'd like dial down to the know eleven things I really want to make is about IT and that was much easier with kid with kid number two.

like IT or dive into the data, Emily, because birth rates, they are declining in the us, like in a lot of the most developed countries around the world as well. Why do you .

think that is that is the sixty four thousand other question 啊。 Is really vaccinating upsetting to do whatever is the word? But this phenomenon is is true every worse.

It's not just the U. S. It's not just developed countries. It's literally a global decline in fertility rates. And so a lot of the explanations that people might come up with about you know social supports are those kinds of things in the us.

They only go so far because you know a place like sweden has even lower fertility reads even though their social support for parents is far Better. So that's probably that the answer um and you know i'm not sure how much we really know what the answer is beyond just people are saying what I don't want to. I want to want to have kids, which isn't isn't really an answer to that's not really an answer.

That's just a kind of an expression of what's happening such that we are getting fewer kids. Yeah, I know. What do you guys think you have?

I mean, i've got to think like you keeps seen these headlines, right? Like like I think this is like a self fulfilling profit. I don't I feel like a lot of folks often times are scared. Like I have to think that the personal cost to us as as parents of having kids and in mother life expense does feel like it's got feel like that's got to impact IT.

I think there's more than think there's cultural elements have played to. And I did say, yeah like what you think about the decline in religious observance and decline in in the amount people having more to be part of, like the one of .

the only countries where there is actually like like an increase when IT comes to replacement rate. But yeah, i'm curious ly like how accurate do you think some of those numbers are? I guess when he comes to some of those headline numbers, you know like I mentioned in the interview, like there's a few that you can cite that will say it's it's going to be over four hundred thousand. But I feel like across the board, you're looking at at least coronal yeah least two hundred fifty thousand. Do you think that those numbers are kind of firm and fast?

How flexible do you think those numbers are? Yeah, I mean, I think those numbers are are more flexible than there are different ways to raise to raise a kid. And you know, one of them is that has happened as as we've gotten into a lot more intensive parenting.

There are a lot of things that are very expensive that I actually think are not really the things that our kids need the most. You know, people ask what's really important, like, you know, a safe place, asleep like enough to eat of, like, a loving adults of some nature, the supporting you like of some books. These are kind of the core things that we really need to provide to every kid.

But you know, travel, soccer and like, seventeen billion classes like that, maybe something that you, anna, provide your kid, but not sure that IT is something we have to say like that's the way that you have your kid be successful and that's the only way there is a kid. And so there there's more flexibility in that in terms of accomplishing some of our goals of new raising adults. Then there might be, but there is no question that could are expected.

You just use the term intensive parenting, which I think actually highlights, probably goes back to the question you are asking. And I do think maybe IT feels like the stakes are higher as parent these days. I know my mom will be will ask questions sometimes, like, why do you guys feel the need to do all of these things for your kids? SHE said. We never did that stuff for you guys back in the day. Do you think maybe that's part of IT too, that we feel like parenting requires more than IT actually does?

I think the the way in which that interacts with the fertility stuff is very interesting because I think we do give people the impression that like the sort of only way to parent, certainly some social movement hic groups, like the only way parent is in this way. That kind of totally almost hard to raises you, but sort of where your whole outlook is going to very focused around kids.

And there isn't really time the surgeon generals talking about parental stress is like a public health emergency. Think some of that comes from this idea that we expect parents to be, hundred percent of the time, very focused on their kids. And then if you look at that from the outside, why would I sign up for that? Um and yeah I can I can sort of understand that I think the piece that's missing and I always like like convit e people is it's actually really hard to explain how much you like your kids like you know it's like this. You don't explain how hard there but like that I means you remember like when your kid was first sport, like the just the love that you is so different than the experience that one has with any other relationship yeah .

you wait and the but and so outside .

our other experience, how would you how would you explain what is is not like so like saying like a tuna sandwich is kind of like a chicken sandwich but tina, you is like just a totally .

different experience, like one vacation as opposed to a different kind of fiction yeah remember so it's funny you don't know, or I personally, but like we've gone through life for the past fifteen years together essentially and we knew each other three kids. But once we we both had our first kids around the same time and remember one of the conversations, you know how do was just like it's almost like I didn't know how to love yeah like to the extent that I do now and it's it's not something that your heart group like success of yes like new rooms in my heart for this child and my that's completely dependent on you as opposed .

to your spouse and is insufficient language right from a macro o perspective, if we're talking and we wanted get more into micro data to with you. But when we're talking about this decline in birth rates, there are society wide impacts, right in economic realities that we both starred down. And me think think about like extreme cases like japan of having a lower population rate. Can you speak to that? Like what sorts of things happen when we choose as as a society or as a bunch of individuals, essentially tough your kids overall.

So yeah, I mean, there's A A sort of basic answer to that, which is the the sort of structure of the age parameter able change. And generally the way we have Operated societies were kind of relying on the the Younger people in this society to support both of even Younger people than also the older people. I mean, that's how that's how most economists work.

And economic growth tends to rely on population growth. And so when we think about both population decline and a population that is you more heavily waited towards older people, IT looks really different. Uh, in terms of what of the services people need, in terms of what of the jobs people doing in in terms of the of the growth and exactly what that will look like, he's actually really hard to predict because there hasn't really been a time in human history in which that this society has been organized quite like that.

We can look to a place like japan and say, you know, what's what's happening there. You can see here, there are a lot of particularly morral areas that have mostly elderly people. And that's not been great for some aspects of I think that not ever people would say that the urban issues associated or with that.

But again, like a predicting how would the U. S. Look like with that? How much as immigration matter is .

a lot of open question.

Yeah, we got much more to get to all things kids and money. We're going to talk about to just how having kids, how I can impact your career and more we'll get to all that right for this. If you're looking to take your money game to the next level, then you can't keep doing the same old things that you've always done.

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Back and break still, thinking with Emily oster about having kids and the financial reality that comes along with that. And you released a book I called the family firm. Let's talk about that one for just a second.

Your main premise in that book is that a family should be run more like a business. I guess maybe this is kind of the data intensity side of you coming out, but in some ways, that seems a little counter intuit writing. My family like a business should be charging my kids rent. I mean, what does that look like?

So this is mostly a about sort of thinking about how we make decisions.

And I think that the core insight of the book, of the good idea and the book is that when we are particularly know having a family with multiple adults and kids and a lot of different constraints on our time, that we would do well to bring in some of the tools from small businesses, which involve, like, how do you organized your time? How do you decide what's important to you? How do you decide you know what to do with the limited resources, be that time or budget by? And how do you optimize for the things you most care about?

I think of that we even people who really think about those things in their job are often reluctant to do IT at home. And IT actually can lead you to to outcomes that you think are less are are less good than they would be if you had thought more about them. So in some ways, the main message of that book is just be a little bit more deliberate about your decisions like think more yeah.

Like why do you think that even necessary? I guess like I M IT IT clearly is necessary. But IT used to be sort of like we're saying before, that this was more of an intuitive sort of thing that you can came together as a family, something that you identified as someone who's running the households. I mean, what is IT about our lives today? That requires us to be like, I guess, a bit more proactive when IT comes to how IT as we run our families.

If you get the core of real issue is, is that people are easier know, it's more common to have to work in parents. Kids lives are more easier and structure than they were, you know, thirty years ago. You can say that a mistake, you're not a mistake, but anyway, to what and so what that means. And I think this is where the deliberate decision making sort of falls apart than people are, are unhappy.

A lot of people who will tell me like, well, we decided to this activity, but actually it's ruin our lives because it's four nights a week and like we never have dinner together and like, you know, it's like, but what can you do and the answers is like, we couldn't just not you could just said now I said no and I think actually if you would step back from them then like what you know it's really important to our family is like getting to sleep at the right time and having dinner together. You wouldn't have said yes to that activity in the first place. And that's that's the idea that we really have to decide what's important and then that's going to constrain our choices.

And like, that's okay. I've have some friends who came up like a family model.

like a fan. I have the .

government that you write, put thought, five sentences represent us as a family. And then you might say in the moment, hate this family once. To have this over for dinner is a friday night.

Well, hey, guess what? Our core models fun, let's go dull IT or hay. Our core motto is like together in this and not being busy. So actually maybe we going to say no to that. Do you think that's like that's probably really good way to to help provide some of that guidance?

absolutely. And I think there's a bunch of different ways. There's like family mission statements.

There's right on the foremost important things for you. There are a bunch of ways to do that, that can work. Different families are going to react differently. But I think, yes, getting those core ideas now and then using them to kind of come back to me like, okay, here's here's how we're going to Operationalize ze this because we ve all agreed this is what's important.

Okay, so you are talking about being overly busy and over scheduling the first episode of your podcasts about over apparently. Can you share the lessons that you are highlighting there.

what really came out? So the first episode is about kind of giving kids sort of physical freedom, having maybe we just need to be less involved. And and one of the things that came out of the reaction so that I thought was interesting was people saying, you know, hey, like this really resonates with me, but what you're describing would work in a society where everybody was doing IT. So rather than saying, like we need to change something in the individual level, I think there's a little bit of a push for saying like how can we organize the way that that our neighboring hoods are even our sort of small, like local kid friend groups are structured to allow for more of this kind of unscheduled boredom time, or kids playing together without without adults, which is really a lot of what those, a lot of what we're are pushing for, at least talking .

about that episode. So eventually, just second kids activities so they can run a rugged ge, which is so true even if you try to limit IT can feel I know this for percent experience like two socket races a week, two socket games a week. That's just one kid, two kids each having one sport they're participating in um and those activities have become more expensive too. Is any is any data, I guess, that can help us maybe make a decision about how much of those organize sports to put into our lizer .

or not a little bit of data on the benefits of extra curricular um and IT comes out a comes out of europe, I think mostly and and IT is based on kind of extra curriculum organizations inside schools and asking like you know what are the kind of benefits to kids of participating in extra cricket ors and there are some they seem to basically surround kids having A A sort of social environment or another setting in which they can excel or connect to different kids outside of, say, school.

So I think one way I often think about this is, you know, if your kid is like struggling at school, but they really love soccer, and soccer is like a place for them to sort of feel confident to have a sense of belonging, which is something that we know is very cool for kids, for kids mental health. When we look at the data, that IT isn't clear that having more of that is Better, right? Like that like, you know, ten hours a week of soccer is okay, but thirty hours a week of soccer, like your kids going to be super happy.

Like that doesn't scale like that. This is sort of about a smaller amount. And I think what that does illustrate is some of the some of the key to picking these activities as they should be things your kid likes and that your kid is like connected to because that's really where the benefit comes, not from me to picking the activity that is gonna. You know get your kid into college because you've decided there's a shortage of like tuba players and yeah.

I was a smart no is playing I to and so this makes me think like I feel like one of the things I rustle with is i'm rustling .

between spending money in the here and now on something like activities or like enrico activities or experiences that my brother, my kids horizons verses less to say, sock money away into a five twenty nine account where i'm saving for their future. How would you recommend to parents to start to think through or to approach that sort of decision making process right between the here, now or not?

I'm not even talking about generational wealth right like that. I'm not even talking about that. But even just like, I guess, saving for college.

I kind of think me I think that's really hard and it's not not a thing with an obvious answer.

I think there's a sort of simple way to think about money in general as economists, which is, you know like what what is the opportunity costs of this money? So like, what if I spent this money this way? What would I what would I be giving up in the future? And sometimes when you do that exercise, it's like if I didn't buy this unit, spend money on this sector circular now IT would cost me be like less vacation time or IT would be you know less like savings when i'm when i'm very old.

And you can sort of think about that trade off. I think one one sort of interesting caveat I would put to the way you're thinking about IT is you're framing this like I have an ample of money for my kids and it's going to be spent on the five, two and nine and it's going to be spent on extra cricket lors. And so if I take money out of out of the extra curricular, as you know, goes into the five, twenty nine, and that's kind of like keeping everything in one bucket.

But actually from an optimization standpoint, you want to to think about all of your money being interchangeable. And so it's not necessarily that extra curricular money substitutes for five twenty nine money, but maybe extra rick lar money substitutes for vacation money or for new car money or for you know like later retirement savings money. So I think being a little bit um thoughtful about kind of what's the next thing I would do with this money, what's the what's the sort of marginal use of IT as opposed to like what is something else in this category IT was substitute away from, I think that that's a sort of important .

part of financial the funeral funds approach person of finances.

Exactly one of the and one of the biggest decisions that parents have to make married parents like whether not they are going to go back to work, stay at home, whether they're gonna a two income household, and like what do folks need to think through on that front? There has to be a lot of data about not just reduce income, but the impact on the budget, the impact on the children from one of the one of the parents being at home during those early years. Like there's going to be a bunch of things where I through on that, right?

yes. So I think the the first place people often come with this is they say, well, what's Better for my kid? And I think the sort of reassuring news there is actually everything is fine, so impacts on kids of having working parents, not working parents.

They're very small. They go in a variety of directions. This is not a thing that should decide what you do.

And so of putting that aside. There's actually like two relevant things. One is what people want to do and what is the financial implications.

And the financial implications are something you you can calculate that like an easy calculation, but people get a sense of, you know, both in the short term, like how one person choose is not to work. What are the implications for budget? Know how does IT change our tax burden that you can do a breeze.

And then the other thing I think people don't always think about this is the future. So what's the plan? Like are we talking about staying? Somebody is staying home for five years, for ten years, for two years forever.

That's going to have some implications. And if you take time off, IT has implications for your you for your career path, for your kind of how your income to grow over, over time. So those are hard, but very tractable things that calico late.

And then this is really important, like people you people should think about, like both adults in the household, or all three adults or five, however many adults you are experiencing should think about what they want to do, like do you want to work? What do you want to do with your day going back to like being deliberated and thoughts about how you want to spend your day? Yes, that's a really important question.

What what do you want?

What it's important question and just like owit ah because I feel like often times we justify IT with like IT seems foolish to to turn down this opportunity or or to not pursue this path of a high regio. Oh, I got this. These are all things to consider but like you don't have to say yes or no to any other things if it's not really what you want to yeah .

no when you can just say and I think that would be so much Better. And this comes much more for women, although I think IT hens for men too, like to able to be, like, know, I choose to stay home with my kids because that's what I want to do. And because we were able to make IT work is should be totally like, reasonable, just like I should be reasonable today, I chose to work outside the home because that's what I wanted to do, and because we were able to make a work like those are perfectly valid choices.

and the economic trade us can be significant. One of my, one of my male friends, he would stayed home with this baby for the first couple years and had hundred family contacted them, was like, kay, we're got this job for you and now he's going back to work kind of like, I mean, I think he's make the are removing ment and think he's happy about IT. But in some ways he's like he's he's going to miss so be having that time at home with his child. So I think he's glad to have those couple of years. What is the typical economic impact though, Emily, of like taking a couple years off of work at home like is IT is IT a significant not just in lifetime earnings but in the amount that you're going to get paid .

at the next job back? It's very hard that's a very hard thing to answer because IT depends a lot on on what your job is. There are some there are some kinds of jobs where like there's really a latter.

And when you get off the latter, you never get back on. And we do see for women in particular, kind of the interruptions associated with childbirth are are long standing. There are other kinds of jobs where you can hop back in and uh and you be able to back on a different on different path.

nice. okay. Well, we talked about pricy kid activities and how we're often times over scheduled. Emily. Um when the kids are old enough to go to school, some folks, I think they are going to immediately default, just pricy private school. But even if you can afford IT, IT might not even be worth IT. What factors would you encourage folks to look at to focus on instead of just like oh, it's private IT is got to be Better .

in in general when we summarize school quality actually either private versus public or like comparing different public schools in different public school districts, we tend to focus on test score, right? That's like the thing you can measure up.

And so the the first thing I would tell people is just when you think about quality, people going to tell you their tesco's and like that one measure of quality, but there are other things you might care about and worth kind of trying to write down, like what's important to you in the school? How much do you care about the diversity of kids your kid is interacting with? How much do you care about the location of the school? Like what what else is is important if the other piece of this is the impact on your child of the quality of the school is much less important than the impact of you.

And that's just like that's just true. So if you said like there's a difference in test scores between these two schools of like twenty three point twenty testing points, the expected difference for your kid go into those two schools is way, way, way smaller than that because you are really important. So in some sense, like people can overstate, I think, the the difference for their kid in the in what they're going to get out of these different kinds of schools.

Um we do have a fair man of evidence that classic impacts achievement that's like a one really strong caul link. So one of the features are private schools. They do have ten debts smaller or classifies that something that people probably want to think about. But at the end of the day, there is a pretty important fit aspect of this and there are what a good choices yeah mean.

I think makes sense. But when you say that it's gonna a bigger impact because of how you feel about IT, is that just because of the nuts bolts aspect of, let's say, a private, private school and we're talking about your budget? Or are we talking about kind of the parents emotions and how they feel about the fact that their kid is receiving the nominally slightly Better education? You just like reading to your kids at night .

and how that means more than yeah, a lot of this is just like what you are caffe ding and home matters a lot. Are there books in the house? Are there even look at something like what happened to is during the pandemic, like the the kind of losses for a kid to our higher income, even within within a school, within a school district or much smaller, probably because there are more supports at home to do things like read.

reading that makes sense. Oh mean, don't even make me think back to the pandemic.

And lighting stuff on fire .

on zoom calls. Good times. So many stories like I like .

the things of people like put the sticky note over there camera and then we label their name as connecting and then just that was that something .

had a lot of with university student yeah they just .

they just start their camera and I like on my .

i'm now still so much ptsd from that. We get just a few more questions going to want to get to with you, including allowances, screen time, smart phones will look into a few questions about .

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We are back to the break talking about the high cost to make the not so high cost of kids with Emily oster. So cheap, so easy.

so easy.

Now I say it's easy, but maybe is not as expensive folks are making IT out to be before the break em we're talking about like elemental school.

Maybe private education has jumped to college, I guess, before we before we move on, how would you encourage families out there or even Younger listeners, ers who are looking to go off to college? How would you talk to them about the Price that they might pay for higher education for college or even the debt that they might take on as we're looking at maybe different degrees because I will say like one of the things we talk about fairly regularly on the show is just, hey, maybe it's worth looking at the average income of what that degree holder might be able to earn and keep in that deal check. Is is that as simple as that?

That piece of data I think that that piece of data is is important um and is certainly like one pic c data you could look at you know major in this major in that like what's the average uh what's the average income? I think the other thing is you know thinking broadly about the ranges of schools that you that you look at, you know there are a lot of places where the state schools are really good and are often quite a bit less expensive. Then the um like that they sort of comparably good private institution um and you know just parents and and kids kind of being open to our age of of possible choices is important.

In episode three of raising parents, you took on the topic of chrome food, which maginness um that's going to get you in trouble with some executives of food is and is a touchy subject. I feel like it's one word talking about more as a society right now. But the highly process foods, they can be more expensive and eating too much of them can be really bad for our kids self. And I know I think at the begin of the apps talk about chicken up, it's a maybe and how or I don't know, maybe I had somebody something about this recently, but just how that's like to everyone's shame that you don't talk about how many chicken and gets your kids eat because just feel bad about that. What was I opening to you when you are creating?

So I A lot of my academic research is about food um and so this was an episode that I knew like a tremendous amount about coming in. Although we are still always very surprising to me to think about the kind of average diet that people are consuming, which is not very good. You know, the share of people's calories that are coming from alter processed foods is very high.

And you know, I think exactly what is the problem with the other process foods? Is that literally the older process nature or more likely as the fact that these foods make you eat more and that that itself an issue that's really complicated. But the just the volume of of the diet that is this category and the low volume of the diet that's like apples or anything with fiber recognizable food.

yes. And I think that's um that's a shame. The other thing you know this didn't get as much in the episode as I would have done if if I were the dictator. But we talked to the guy, a guy runs food for a school district um outside and he talked with sort of incredible love about like how he is trying to like get these kids is very poor school district.

How is trying to like introduce them to blood or and like other interesting foods and how he's trying to engage them in the process of making foods in deciding what they should what they should serve in this. I found this very inspiring. I mean, I think, unfortunately, not everybody can have convince running their school lunch program. But he gave me a little bit of hope, which was good as an anto do to the other things. Yeah, yes.

I mean, an amazing how much priority we put on test cores and what our kids are learning in schools and then we feed them. I've been shocked like actually we move school this a couple years ago. And the school, my kids used to go to an elementary school. They literally grow food at the school like, and they will go outside and tend to the crops. And IT was awesome in the food was delicious and healthy.

That was a public school, yeah, that had a chef like he was chef bradys. That's what all the kids called him because he was into IT.

Then we moved up here, and the things that are available for my kids to buy for lunch is just insane. I didn't know what yoga boat was until I could be the kind of stuff that the kids can need for lunch. And then there's supposed to sit there and like, learn without the other issues.

No, no, I began, you know, the idea that that kind of these things are separable, I think is pretty problem that I can mean to definitely kids learn Better if they .

have eaten Better. Yes, yes, not taking a holistic look at the child. And I think was that that absolute? Maybe I think you may have mentioned that seventy five percent of money spent at grocery stores actually happens to be on these processed food is empty calories as opposed to the real food that you might find around the free.

But maybe the last quite question here for you for the kids that I say, yes, more vegetables. And what is your take on allowance for kids? Do you think that there are best practices out there? Because I would say, personally, I can fell off the allowance train.

I want my kids to earn like they don't there's no preset dollar amount, anything. They only receive commission when they're actually out there of the working. But is that a good taker? Yeah, I love to .

hear your thoughts. So there is no real data. I looked into us. There is no real data on, you know, whether it's good, give baLance or not, give them an allowance. And people make very different choices about this.

Some people make the choice you've described, which is kind of, i'm gna like, you know, you can earn, there are a jobs, you can earn some money. I think I do give, I will say, personally, I do give my kids in allowance. And the reason that is valuable is then they understand that things cost money that they want.

And so like my side now understands that that like things in rob locks cost money. And like you, he has a very small allowance that he can spend on that stuff. And he has sort of pushed a little bit of of kind of monetary understanding. But this is a place where as sort of getting back to some itself, we said the building, I think very reasonable people will make different choices depending on what works for their family.

For real last question, we are talking about ultra process foods, and that's one thing. But then I see the other thing that parents feel guilty about these days is screen time smartphones. My daughter's eleven, the smart phone conversation surprisingly has not come up to the extent I thought I would at this point time.

How much screen time is reasonable for kids? And um yeah, what do you waited on the win? A child should get a smartphone debate.

right? So first to start with screen time because they think there's a pretty simple way for parent to think about this, which is rather than focusing on the idea that screen time is good or screen time is bad, or like more is good to good at whatever IT is, think about IT as opportunity cost. So when your kid is doing screens, they're not doing something else.

What else would they be doing with that time? And when you think about IT like that, it's clear like some screen time is fine. You know, your kid would be like dragging on your leg while you try to cook dinner and screaming about how hungry they are. Maybe it's Better if they watch a half an hour of television while you cooked dinner like that's that's not substituting for quality time. If your kids watching eight hours of tb a day and they are not sleeping and they are not spending time in their homework, if that is substituting for something important.

So thinking about screen time in this, like where does that fit in my life um is a good idea as smart phones are so complicated and I it's almost impossible to say, you know, this is the right age or the right because what is a smart phone is IT a smart phone with instagram and is IT a smart phone without instagram? You know, I think this is a place where there is no substitute for talking to your kid about managing their relationship with the phone. I have a thirteen year old.

so this does come up OK do you have on? Yeah.

okay. But he is not. He does not have social media.

Yes, I like the key thing. You didn't get that one sentence. This is what I should do with my daughter out of family, but that's my folks to go and listen to Emily's podcast raising parents.

I really do feel like I should be like required listening because the way that you're approaching all these difficult time assembly is is so incredibly helpful. IT hits close to home are and certainly residents with us, with my family for sure. But I work and folks go to hear that. Learn more about you.

Winter up to so you can find a raising parents on apple podcast. But to fy any place to get your podcast and you can find and me at parent data where I write about parenting and data.

good stuff coming out all the time there. Emily oster, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate that.

Thank you so much for having me.

Alright, just as a fun conversation with guest Emily oster, that this was not a typical topic or not a typical kind of epsom, that we we do a lot more. I don't know. It's a judged call as to whether or not you want to have kids and nothing SHE. I was able to identify that that there is a whole lot of personal factors I go into, whether or not you want to have kids.

she's an economy. So i've always love talking to people who think about money in data, in in terms of like life. Now we live life because that's just it's really hard, I think, to mere one for one like you sing at the beginning, the data says this.

So clearly, my reaction should be this. There's a lot of interpretation that's needed inside of the subject. But he does a good job, I think.

interpreting that data. yeah. But did you have a big, big take away from our conversation today?

I did. I think I really like what you said optimized for what you care about most. And he talked about is especially effect that we all have limited resources. And so when we're talking about. What our families going to do, whether or not once spouses going to stay at home, how many extra curriculum activities we are or are not going to participate in, what our family dynamic is going to look like, what do we care about the most? Sorry, and that's what we talk about on the show a lot, right.

Is the why behind your money? What are you optimizing for? And if you're optimizing for the biggest bank account, you might be twenty, thirty years on the line, be a little bombs, maybe that you have eight million dollars instead of four million dollars because you could have made other decisions in the here now that would allow you to enjoy your life to the fullest. So but unless .

having the bigger bank account possible was what you're optimizing for.

but they might have like tired to listen this one gas, the point time of us what they are really going for. So I I guess I just appreciate that. That's how Emily thinks about this.

I think it's a good way for everyone to say, yeah, what is our family all about? What do we want out of our existence together on the start under this single roof to look like? And once you optimized for that, all those other things are going to fall in the place. You make your trend off accordingly.

It's just a much more thoughtful approach to live in your life. When I was asking her about like why I guess when we're talking about the family firm, which is her more sort of business like approach towards running your family. And what he pointed to was the fact that, that we're so busy and I think I think that's totally in the case, is the fact that we've got other things that are preoccupying our time, like essentially there are these other trees in our life that we get on and then we're gone really, really hard on those things. And I think the the net result is the fact that stuff at home tends to fault to the cracks.

And so what we find ourselves is like we then get pulled onto these other trade als, whether to be A A soccer, like a travel leagues with sports, that also happens to the cost a lot of money. But more than that, IT costs a lot of time, a lot of energy. And instead, maybe what should have happened was just the step, hey, maybe we need to sit down and think through, what is this gona require of us financially? What is this require us from a timetable point? What does require? What are we teaching your kids by the fact that we're going to be joining this for the next semester.

for the next season? You're talking about counting the cost ahead of time, right and right? I've known people who say and this honestly, this is my emo to say, opportunity that sounds like fun.

Let's do IT. And I haven't thought about how much it's gonna from me, how much just going to require for me to participate. nothing. I've got, got Better.

And over the years, because i've burned myself too many times, but this is a good, proactive question to ask yourself, is like, what is this gonna quire me? What is this gona require our family? And while this might sound like fun, is IT, is IT the best resource use of our resources? Is that the best use of our time? What do we actually want at a life? And I think when you're asking those hard questions, it's going to lead this similar decisions saying, hey, soccer is great, but maybe three nights a week as too much and we need to enjoy the league. It's one night a week.

something like that like a good economist, SHE said. The d opportunity cost a lot, which is I think it's something that we need to hear more often because there are opportunity costs to everything that we choose to do or do not do. And like you said, the ability to kind of forecast until I like look often into the future little bit and try to identify what IT is that you're going to like.

How are you going to feel about this thing off in the future from a financial staying point or from a life energy time? Same point as well. But yes, really fun conversation with somebody who is much smarter than we are almost felt we should have the be like, oh yeah, we should be.

We're drinking tea to stimulate brain as the post, enjoying our craft beer, or actually not so craft beer. In this case, we get to enjoy an october fest marsan, which is a beer by how to say that I anger I, Angel or Angel. But this is like a old school kind of classic german logging of fall fast can be what you thought. And one of them.

october fest math, which this is this still the time you're photos festival here? Yeah and this was like sweet caramel vibes perfect for fall, honestly. Like, looks like the colors of a lot of the leafs that are on the ground.

right? The smells like fall leaves. Yeah like even the smell of maybe think of kind of like the ry crisp leaves outside kind of taste exactly like IT smells like a combination of just classic beer but also some of those similar fall vives going on. A lot of brady melts as well. Perfectly enjoyable for a beautiful fall day like today.

I think a lot of people who don't like craft beer would be well suited by trying in october fest because it's got a little about that. Sweden, it's it's not too heavy, but it's also not so light that IT tastes like the kind of crime. If you turned off by your uncle's beer.

This might be like a good one. To to to to you think in october fast or mars in is like a gateway craft beer, maybe because they skipped this sweet ero bobs. I think a lot of people be into that even if they have had trouble eliminating to craft beer in the past.

Yes, this is a good one, but we'll make sure to link to Emily sight as well as her podcast up in the shows at how to money does com. But that's going to be a buddy. So until next time, best friends out and best friends out.