The Cost of Children

It has been brought to my attention that babies are expensive. We have some really good plans to dress it in paper towel diapers (extra thick in the winter) and feed it table scraps, but everyone keeps saying it's going to require money to pull this off.

Well, I never really had any idea how expensive until I got an email from Janice. In this delightful electronic missive, I opened the PowerPoint presentation, listened to the wonderful music and set to learnin' about babies and dollars.

According to the various slides, it will cost us $160,140 to raise a baby from birth through its 18th birthday when, technically, we will be able to boot it off to some college and go back to our jetsetting lifestyle. Look out Miami Beach, here we come! In 2029...

Then again, I think we all know that baby raisin' doesn't stop at age 18. It also means that $160K doesn't even include college, which most people seem to think will cost another $160,000. That means the first 18 years are cake, it's the next four that really kill you.

Janice's little slide show isn't meant to be a horror movie. It actually works to comfort the expectant parent by breaking down the cost per day. It ends up being $24.24 per day to raise a child. For those of you who aren't good at math, that's $1.01 per hour. PER HOUR! Including the hours you're sleeping. I know parking meters that are cheaper.

I think the author of the presentation realized his mistake of trying to make people think that $1.01/hour is a reasonable rate to raise a child because it immediately switched to cute pictures of kids doing things kids do. Smiling, drooling, swinging, crawling, drooling, wobbling across floors, slipping drool, eating terribly messy foods, etc.

The whole goal, in my opinion, is to shock the living hell out of you by hitting you with the $160,140 number, then spending the next 10 minutes softening that blow with cute pictures of tiny toes. That way, by the end, you forget the original number - $160,140 - and they can still get away with, we-told-you-so.

I tried to put the PowerPoint on here, but it doesn't want to go. Sorry, you're going to have to come up with your own cute baby pictures. Or you can go here - http://www.itstime.com/priceofchildren.htm - and see a version of the presentation, without the cute pictures, but with cute clip art. Some of which even moves!

In any case, here is the text:

The Price of Children

The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 and came up with $160,140 for a middle income family. Talk about sticker shock! That doesn't even touch college tuition.

But $160,140 isn't so bad if you break it down. It translates into:

$8,896.66 a year,

$741.38 a month, or

$171.08 a week.

That's a mere $24.24 a day!

Just over a dollar an hour.

Still, you might think the best financial advice is: don't have children if you want to be 'rich.' Actually, it is just the opposite. What do you get for your $160,140?

Naming rights. First, middle and last!

Glimpses of God every day.

Giggles under the covers every night.

More love than your heart can hold.

Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs.

Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies.

A hand to hold, usually covered with jelly or chocolate.

A partner for blowing bubbles and flying kites.

Someone to laugh yourself silly with — no matter what the boss said or how your stocks performed that day.

For $160,140, you never have to grow up. You get to:

finger-paint,

carve pumpkins,

play hide-and-seek,

catch lightning bugs, and

never stop believing in Santa Claus.

You have an excuse to:

keep reading the Adventures of Piglet and Pooh

watching Saturday morning cartoons,

going to Disney movies, and

wishing on stars

You get to:

frame rainbows, hearts and flowers under refrigerator magnets

collect spray painted noodle wreaths for Christmas, hand prints set in clay on Mother's Day and cards with backward letters for Father's Day.

For $160,140, there is no greater bang for your buck. You get to be a hero just for:

retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof,

taking the training wheels off a bike,

removing a splinter,

filling a wading pool,

getting the cat out of a tree,

coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and

coaching a baseball team that never wins but always gets treated to ice cream regardless.

You get a front row seat to history to witness the:

first step,

first word,

first bra,

first date, and

first time behind the wheel.

You get to be immortal. You get another branch added to your family tree, and — if you're lucky— a long list of limbs in your obituary called grandchildren and great grandchildren. You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice, communications and human sexuality that no college can match.

In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there under God. You have all the power to heal a boo-boo, scare away the monsters under the bed, patch a broken heart, police a slumber party, ground them forever and love them without limits,

So, one day they will — like you — love without counting the cost. That is quite a deal for the price!!!!!!!

Love & enjoy your children & grandchildren!!!!!!!

 

 

Thank you, Janice!