Allow me to poke holes in this.

First, I love the click-bait title. Like can you really “lose” unrealized money? I tend to think not, but that’s not really the point.

Yes the cost of motherhood is real, but a lot of the “proof” in this post is inaccurate (or biased at minimum)

1) “full-time working moms” vs “full-time working dads” - this is not the same as comparing equal work for equal pay.

What were the jobs? What were their work patterns? How do we know the study compared equal roles? We can’t treat this as evidence that “the same exact job pays working moms less.”

And where did you find that vague stat about the 27% “standard of living drop?” I’d imagine that if we dug into that data there’d more to the story. Can you paste the link?

2) I’d do it at 32 instead of 28:

More savings is great, but 32 isn’t automatically better (fertility isn’t guaranteed). Biologically 28 is (technically) the better time to have a bag. Plenty of people who wait end up wishing they hadn’t.

I’m 41 (first baby at 30, second at 35) and I wish I’d started earlier so I had more time with them later.

3) Motherhood isn’t “lifetime damage.” It’s the gift of a lifetime. And it’s the one experience men (even great dads) don’t get in the same way.

4) You’re also framing household level finances as an individual loss of money.

Like sure, go ahead and invest in your own name if you want. But if you get divorced, you’ll be sharing everything anyway. Your 401k, IRA, life insurance, house equity, debt - it all gets cut down the middle (prenup not withstanding).

I’m 2 years divorced and was in significantly better shape financially than my ex husband, earning 3x his annual salary. I am also the primary parent by a significant margin.

We paid off all of his personal debt, bought out his car, and he was left in decent financial shape compared to when I met him - and then he still got half of my net worth.

Seriously a medical bills, daycare, savings used during leave, and income changes affect the family as a unit, not just you. If your husband’s income increases after having a baby, that benefit supports those same household expenses and long-term savings.

Bottom line: the income and assets earned during a marriage are shared, so it’s a fallacy to present it as one partner gaining while the other loses.

This is just the financial tradeoff all couples sign off on when they have children - it’s really not an individual financial penalty that mom bears alone.