Expensive Kids

Back on Jan. 25 Barbara at Mommy Life posted a little article from Time called For a Few, the More Kids, the Merrier . I love reading articles about big families, especially in places like Time magazine. "Experts" give their opinions after observing a big family or two, like it was a zoo exhibit. They especially love to postulate about reasons why people might possibly have more than one or two kids, and this article did not disappoint.

Of course, big families never really disappeared. Immigrants tend to have more kids, as do Mormons, some Catholics and a growing cadre of fundamentalist Christians. But in the U.S. today, the average number of children per mom is about 2, compared with 2.5 in the 1970s. While 34.3% of married women ages 40 to 44 had four or more children in 1976, only 11.5% did in 2004, according to the Current Population Survey. Though factoring in affluence can be statistically tricky, an analysis by Steven Martin, associate professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, shows that the proportion of affluent families with four or more kids increased from 7% in 1991-96 to 11% in 1998-2004. Andrew Cherlin, a sociology professor at Johns Hopkins University, speculates, "For most people, two is enough because there are so many other competing ways to spend your time and money. People prefer to have fewer kids and invest more in them. My guess is the wealthy are having more because they enjoy children, and they have the time and resources to raise them well. They don't have to make those trade-offs."

It goes on to talk about a couple with 5 kids at home from New York who have nothing in common with any other large family I have ever even heard of; a family who, it sounds like, relies on a bevy of baby-sitters to make any sort of order in their life. Just like us! Ha!

The article even mentions Loudoun County, home of yours truly, by name, as a place where "highly educated, highly compensated couples [are] popping out four or more children--happily and by choice".

This is funny, since I don't think most people in this area would consider an Air Force Lt. Col. with a stay-at-home wife to be "highly compensated", LOL. But hey, we must be, because the government has figured out that it takes a whopping $269,520 to raise one child until the age of 17.

Raising a passel of kids is an enormous financial undertaking even for the affluent. An oft quoted 2004 study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that families earning at least $70,200 a year spent $269,520 raising one child--and that's just until the age of 17. Tack on four years of college, and you're looking at a nearly half-million-dollar tab for each, or almost $3 million for six. "If you sit down and write out the numbers, nobody would have children," scoffs Jen Reid, 37, a stay-at-home mom in Berwyn, Pa. "You would scare yourself out of it every single time." She and her husband Charlie, 43, apparently don't scare easily; they've produced Charlie, 10; Lizzie, 8; Michael, 7; twins Mary Grace and Marta, 5--and Baby No. 6, due in February. Charlie's work as a real estate lawyer covers expenses, but "we spend what we make," says Jen.

That's $15,854 a year!!! As soon as I saw that number, I thought, "That is a ridiculously insane number. How on earth did anyone come up with that? Obviously not by talking to people with lots of kids." So I did some googling, and I found a short little article detailing some of the problems with the methadology, a large part being how the government accounts for housing and transportation costs. Obviously, each time we have another child, our housing and transportation costs do not go up 1/6. In fact, we go less places, since it's a hassle, so many things decrease!

I decided to think about how much Nathan is costing us this year, since he is the oldest and has the most expenses. By that I mean he's pretty much the only one who gets new stuff, and even that is rarely. I would say 90% of his clothes are either passed on to us by friends or bought at a consignment sale, so don't be feeling too sorry for the other boys! Here is what I came up with using very generous estimates:

food: $2000 (I am estimating $1000/month for food and other WalMart-type toiletry expenses for all of us, a generous estimate in and of itself)

clothes: $200 (mostly used; I do have to buy maybe 3 new pairs of shoes, but we get cheap ones at WalMart, and we pass down the church shoes)

school books: 100 (mostly used)

co-op: $50

Upward basketball and soccer: $170

Camp Caleb: $150 (I think that's about right--I couldn't remember exactly, but it's less than $200 for sure)

gifts (Christmas and birthday): $100 total

That all adds up to $2,770. Even if we round up to $3,000, that still is not that much, and the other kids don't cost as much, since they wear the clothes and use the books that we already have. So for 6 children, not counting housing, insurance, utilities, and transportation, we spend less than $18,000. Hmmmm. I guess this is why it is somehow possible to have more than 2 kids, live comfortably, and yet not be independently wealthy. And frankly, I haven't noticed in the general population at large how "having fewer kids and investing more in them" is neccessarily turning out incredible citizens all around. I honestly don't think we've made any trade-offs by having a big family. Even if we were only blessed with 2 kids, I would STILL shop mainly at consignment sales and used curriculum sales, and I would STILL avoid expensive Disneyworld vacations like the plague, because I can't stand crowds! Sometimes I wonder if I didn't want a large family to give me a good excuse to do the things I would do naturally, LOL!

Here's the conclusion of the article: So why do it? Why, in this day and age, would any American adult--rich or not--have so many kids? Because they love them. Because professional achievement and money are something, but, asks Kellie Weiss, 37, a mother of five in Oradell, "What does it mean without family?"

Yep, we love them! And the more we have, the more we love. And the more fun we have. Really! Maybe someday someone will come ask us about it. We'll even break down how we do it for them! In the meantime, I would guess they are observing us in the aisles of WalMart and jotting down their observations so they can scurry back to their lab and make hypotheses, LOL.