From our experience in the US, the birth is nothing compared to the financial drain of the other expenses. And at this age, childcare dwarfs all the other child-related expenses.

We have great insurance and don’t rely on family for childcare though, so the math is very very different for someone with “free” familial childcare and no/lousy insurance…

We’re expecting a baby. Do people travel with a baby? Is it safe? Is it insane? I think we’re just gonna have to stay put for 3 years or so.

If your baby isn’t super fussy, the transportation difficulty (in our experience) is more in the logistics getting to/from airport, and dealing with other ground transportation. We just flew 5+hrs (coast to coast, US) with a 2mo and a ~3yo, and it was a piece of cake (typing that, I’ve jinxed the return flight…).

We haven’t done international travel with our kids yet, but we will eventually. When I was 2 my family went to Europe — some countries were meh with respect to kids, but Italy (from my folks’ retelling) was fantastic, as there is (or was) a big cultural love for young kids.

YMMV of course, but it’s absolutely doable! Kids — even starting as babies — have personalities, and you’ll get a sense of what’s appropriate with yours. Good luck!

Many time zones: You get to a new place and look up what time zone you’re in.

Well, sorta — but it’s no effort at all because my timekeeping device (phone) does this automatically.

For me, the time of day is internalized in a way that I think is hard to switch. Same as how I was raised with imperial units — even though I prefer (and use professionally) metric, the intuition can be a little harder to get. But to each their own of course :)

I prefer the current way — I can be in another state or another country and I know that 7am is a good time for breakfast, around noon is a good time for lunch, and so forth. (If you don’t change latitude sure, just go outside to figure this out, but it’s complicated if it’s overcast, or the latitude isn’t what you’re used to, or…)

Time has a number of meanings — UTC is great for machines, local time is (IMHO) a good concept for humans.

It could grip it by the husk.

Well yes, but so is Canada, which has a higher HDI than the US.

Parent was asking why Mexico is excluded from the list while Canada is not.

By “don’t have incentive” I’m just referring to an on-paper incentive from an HDI ranking.

Canada has roughly the same HDI ranking as the US, whereas Mexico is somewhat lower. So from the “looking for a better life” perspective, Canadians don’t have an incentive to move to the US (other way around actually, from HDI).

Just a guess though.

I’d love to see something like ballot included in tax returns (for folks who don’t otherwise request a ballot). Near-mandatory voting, with abstaining being allowed.