Methinks the Facts Don’t Add Up
I was watching The Wright Stuff this morning, as we usually do, when I saw a bit pop up claiming that the cost of raising a child has gone up by half in the past eight years to a grand total of £210,000 to 21. I disagree with some of the considered costs right off, such as being to 21 – kids should pay for their own education. We’ll support our child(ren) if she/they wish to go to university, but I’m sorry – I don’t think she’s going to appreciate it if we’re footing the bill. My parents couldn’t even co-sign on loans for my siblings, but yet, my two sisters who went to college graduated and found themselves in gainful employment in their respective fields in the standard US four years flat. My brother and I both twiddled about in community college on our own dime as our parent’s insistence, but I didn’t find it suited me. My brother, well… his story is his own. 🙂
I also kind of take umbrage at the societal insistence that you need to send your children to afterschool clubs and tutoring in order for them to be ’rounded’ or to ‘succeed’, or any such bollocks. I know the big bad news boogeyman has many people convinced that every other person out there is a child molester and that being savvy to stranger danger is a must-have, but why do people think that shoving their kids in clubs makes up for paranoia? Personally, I grin when I see a child running rampant in the neighborhood without a parent attached – I think kids need to be able to play and explore without it having some sort of measurable ‘improvement’ or whatever upon it. But then, I am in a country that is creepy enough to have a national curriculum from childbirth…
But anyways, back to this claim of financial outlay. We definitely didn’t splash out £9,152 during the first 12 months of our child’s life, and there’s no way in hell that we’re anywhere on target to pay out £13,396 this year. And maybe I’m an odd one, but I don’t understand how anyone can blow so much money on vacations (we didn’t do many growing up, thank jeebus), pocket money (if we wanted money, we had to bust our ass for it), or leisure (what the hell leisure activity does a child need at that cost?!). Maybe the number seems even bigger, since obviously, it would go down for each child – hand-me-downs can’t have gone out style… have they? >< Or mayhap they’ve mixed the real people figures with the posh people figures, ’cause really… it just doesn’t add up.
That, or kids are really really spoiled beyond reason by guilty overworking parents.
Anyways, it’s food for thought, if you’re in the mood for something that’ll make you queasy to the core! *laughs* Me, I’m going to wander off for the day – it’s time to pack up and go home. And at home, hee… story writing is a-gogo! I had an epiphany about what I should write about while baking cookies, and got the appropriate blessings before and after getting started on it. Even if nobody else likes the story, at least two of us will.
And y’know… have a nice day. 😉
<3
Yeah… I agree with you on the school thing. Brad doesn’t. It’s a discussion we’ve already had a couple times even though it’s a far off issue for us. My parents refused to help with college costs because they simply couldn’t. Brad’s parents did help him. We both want to follow our parent’s example there. There’s no way we are spending $9k in USD let alone what the converted rate would be. Formula is about $20/wk which equals $1040. Diapers are about $40/month, so $480. Even if we round that up, that’s only $2k for both and that’s our largest expense. We spent maybe $500 on other baby stuff that was needed. Even if we round up and add in other luxury spending, we are still only looking at around $4k at the most? Yeah….
I thought more on the leisure activity thing… that particular cost makes sense if you’re child is like… going to the movie twice a month, or doing a weekly class, or something along those lines. I’ve not done the rest of the maths yet, but we definitely fully disagree with the vacation one!