Are Kids Too Expensive?

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, it costs $234,900 on average to raise a kid. This is up from an inflation adjusted $191,000 in 1960. By the way, these numbers do not include college costs.  

The chart below, from a Washington Post article on this topic, shows how this money is spent.

    

Not surprising is more people are citing this cost as the key reason they aren't having kids. The New York Times essay Opting Out of Parenthood, With Finances in Mind covers this growing trend.  Key quote:

MOST people want to be sure that they can buy and pay for a home, save up for an emergency fund and enjoy a comfortable retirement... My husband and I, both in our late 20s, share those kinds of goals with others like us, but it seems obvious that the single decision that can best help us achieve them is one that many newly married, affluent young adults don’t usually consider: Don’t have children.

Another recent New York Times article, The Age of Possibility, also talks about this trend as well as the growing trend towards being single instead of married:

"The number of Americans who are living alone has shot up from 9 percent in 1950 to 28 percent today. In 1990, 65 percent of Americans said that children are very important to a successful marriage. Now, only 41 percent of Americans say they believe that. There are now more American houses with dogs than with children."

The changing American family is a powerful social trend. Put simply, the Ozzie and Harriet days of yore are long gone - so far gone that many readers (maybe most) won't even get this reference.  

But the idea of marriage and kids ripples through our society and many of our social, economic, and business assumptions and institutions are based on a world where most people get married and have kids. 

Obviously these assumptions are going to have to change. Just ask the Republican party.

Click here to see more on the changing American family.

Comments

[Bill Kerschbaum]

What's sad is that children are increasingly seen solely in terms of a financial bottom line, and their impact on me. Our individualism is becoming more and more narcissistic and "value" is reduced to ROI.

You can't reduce a person's life to the degree of economic impact on yourself. Investing hundreds of thousands of dollars into a single person is really investing into our culture's future and its hope for a thriving society.

[Steve]

Bill: I agree. And as someone who has kids I think the psychic value of having them is way understated.

I know kids aren't for everyone, but they've made my life so much better in so many ways that their financial cost is, in my mind, negligible.

[JillyanScott]

Bill and Steve: I have to agree with you guys. I am a single mother raising a seven year old son. Yes the expenses are getting bigger and bigger as he gets older.

And Steve you said it all with this line "they've made my life so much better in so many ways that their financial cost is, in my mind, negligible."

My son is an extension of me, I hate to turn this blog into a motherly discussion but financials for a child will never be an issue for a parent because for a parent they will do whatever they can to see their child happy, healthy and well rounded.