"I'm not interested in working my butt off to pay a mortgage that we really can't afford and then totally lose out on enjoying our children and giving them the benefits of having me at home."

“Christina King and her husband Ian have a 22-month-old son and a two-month-old daughter. They recently decided to give up the idea of ever owning property because they are not willing to sacrifice time with their children to make the kind of money a B.C. mortgage demands.
“I’m not interested in working my butt off to pay a mortgage that we really can’t afford and then totally lose out on enjoying our children and giving them the benefits of having me at home,” she said.
King, 34, teaches yoga, but works around her husband’s schedule so one of them is always home with the children. The family rents a house in Metchosin, a bucolic community west of Victoria, from Ian’s parents. But Ian will soon be moving into a position as a farm manager in the same community, and a house on the farm will be part of his compensation.
“We’ve chosen a lifestyle over making a ton of money,” King said. “We’ve chosen that lifestyle because it’s something that we love to do, it goes with our values. It keeps us happy and not stressed, which I think makes us better parents.
“We’re still able to do what we love, but we’re not going to have to pay a mortgage for the rest of our lives.”
Sacrificing family time to pay for housing and child care is a decision young parents should not have to make, said Paul Kershaw of the University of B.C.’s Human Early Learning Partnership.“
- anecdote excerpted from ‘Incomes, house prices leave young B.C. families worse off than anywhere in Canada’, by Tara Carman, Vancouver Sun, 18 Oct 2011
[hat-tip 4SlicesofCheese]