Social Capital Income
Living like a Trust Fund Kid Pt. III
Life can be a pig.
Make your family big.
Many don’t realize that the rewards of building large family social capital are not just intangibles like happiness, fulfillment, and meaning. There are tangible returns.
my wife’s younger sister moved into our spare bedroom for the year, rent-free, while she does an unpaid internship in this city. She earns here keep, explicitly, by doing dishes and helping care for her five nieces/nephews. Now my wife has a kitchen chore companion, sister makes breakfast when my wife has other things to do, she eats family meals with us, pays little of her own board, has become a good tertiary authority figure for the kids, and I can claim her as a dependent on my taxes. Everybody is happy with this arrangement.
My wife’s youngest sister (10 yr gap) did this w us when she moved out of their parents house and was there for my wife’s pregnancy and the first 18 months of my kid’s life, it was great
Same same. My sister stayed with us for the first 6 months after my daughter was born.
When we just had our oldest and she was sick, I have big family and they set up a rotation for someone to stay with us. My youngest sister stayed the whole summer. We paid it back by having an older daughter be a mother’s helper for her when she started having kids
My oldest daughter just moved by another daughter who is in college. The college girl just called us excited, she got to babysit her nephew and loved it.
Some older friends of ours told us that your big milestones with a big family are when your first kid gets old enough to babysit and then old enough to drive everyone around. They were right.
I’m the oldest of 8. When we started having kids, I told my parents it seemed easier the more we had. They said that your first was a huge change, the second was still a big increase in effort though not as much, the third was less but still noticeable, and after that there was barely a net change in the work load. It’s all “free.”
https://x.com/SimoneHCollins/status/2017708214419116537
https://xcancel.com/SimoneHCollins/status/2017708214419116537#m
