One of the unnegotiatable conditions my wife told me before she will allow the two of us to get together again is for me to have an 80K/year salary. Her rationale is that that 80K is minimum to live a comfortable life with one child here in the northeast. I am nowhere close to making that amount of money and I am very uncertain how soon I can get high up there. She said that it shouldn't be so hard -- well, she is a pharmacist and is making $90K/year. Her position is that she will not work for the first two years when we have children.

I did some online research today and dug this up:

http://www.babycenter.com/costofchild/

I fell out of my seat when this amount showed up: $846,352. (That includes 4 years in college, btw). This amount translates to 47K/year for one child...that's about how much most American families make. Is this cost of child calculator just goofed up or what?

If you take into account health insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance, orthodontics, doctors appointments, sports, school supplies, clothing, christmas presents, birthdays, haircuts, food, clothes, diapers, formula....

My son costs about 7,000 per year in his one sport alone, my daughter's sport cost is about 5,000.

So yup- it could add up to that much. That number is an average though. You could end up higher or lower.

Of course that is ridiculous. They are plenty of people who make $30K/yr, with 3 or 4 kids.

There are many problems with this calculation:
- They are counting on inflation. (Remember what tuition used to be 18 years ago?)

- they are not taking into account time value of money. Adding today's dollars to year 2024 dollars is nonsensical.

- They are mixing average cost with marginal cost. When deciding whether to have a child (or do any project), you should look at what the diffence in cost to you is between if you have a kid and if you do not, and not how much the average price of the child will be. For example, if you are not moving into a bigger house because of the child, the marginal cost of housing is $0, even if the average housing cost for the child is $5,000 as they say. Only look at the increase in expenses and not for the child's share of expense.

$47K/yr/child? That's about $1K per kid per week. What would cost so much?

It's an average.

If you send your child to private school for 30,000 a year, buy them name brand clothing from Dillards, go out to eat every night, and spend 8 grand on sports--- it's going to cost more than a public school child who's mom shops at Ross and plays sports at the Rec center.

It's all relative.

Yes, if you are going to spend 30K per private school then it will climb to $45K/yr. But that is NOT average. Not average for most people that I know. People who spend $45K/yr/kid are spending way above average.

So, if you have some parents that spend a few thousand per yr on kids who play at Rec center and go to public schools, then in order for $45K to be the average, you are going have to have some people spending $60K, $70K, $90K per kid per year. Given that the median income of a household in the US is $41,409 ( in 2002, per http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/p60-221.pdf ), it is rather incomprehensable how an average family on a $41K with 2.1 kids could afford to spend about $90K on kids alone. Or do you think that only rich people have kids?

Yes, there are people who can afford to spend $45K/kid/yr, but that is NOT the average.

I think if you added up all you spend each year, on food, mortgage, cars, gasoline, utilities, clothing, toys, gifts, sports, musical instruments, etc...and divided them into equal parts...one for each member of the household, then yes, you could get to that number...with a lot of assumptions.

Why do that?

I think raffster should ask WW, why? What does this represent to you? This monetary demand...because it may be about screwing up as a mother, what it means to fail your child, wanting to secure something that isn't securable...

not money at all.

She may be asking him...what do we do when we feel like failures? How will you provide all that children need? And she's asking about that in herself...

Kids aren't scarred by poverty--they are scarred by their parents and how they handle poverty. I know. I was one. And their scars are theirs...they heal them...as the rich children do, the poor and all the inbetweeners. Their own issues and their own journey.

I was raising two children on $5/hour...$9k a year when I met and married my H. We had three on $15k a year...allotment for food? $5 a dinner. We've come a long way...and the cost of raising children? Priceless.

The scarring was free.

LA