An article in The New York Times about how much it really costs to raise a child has sparked a flurry of commentary. The main issue is the almost $2 million price tag the author came up with–an outrageous amount according to many readers, including myself. Although the amount obviously varies depending on each person's particular cost of living, I know for a fact that, in my case, several of the items the author included in her equation wouldn't factor in at all. For example, I don't plan on paying for my children's college education nor do I plan on supporting them financially until they're 25, like the author would do.
But, in all honesty, what go to me the most about this article is the idea that someone would actually take the time to figure out how much it would cost to become a parent!
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I never understood people who worried about how much it costs to raise a child. If I had actually tried to figure that out to the last penny, I would've never had children. That's not to say that my husband and I are the kind of immature and irresponsible people that wouldn't think things through before becoming parents. But I'd be lying if I said that we sat around with pen, paper and calculator to figure out whether we could afford to have a child or not.
To be clear, we knew it was going to increase our expenditures for years and years to come, but we were financially stable enough to take the plunge. In other words, we knew we wanted to have children even if that meant we'd have a lot less money for thing we thought were necessary before becoming parents.
That probably sounds super irresponsible to some very anal people, but I'm totally fine with that. In the end, if you really think about it, trying to figure out whether or not you can afford to have a child in advance of having one makes absolutely no sense as nothing in life is guaranteed.
Image via Tax Credits/flickr
