TIME magazine had an article recently that, from my point of view, was meant to scare people from either ever having kids, or from having any more than what they already have. Most everyone knows that children are expensive. Between toys, growing bodies that need new clothes each year, food, health care, college, and maybe the occasional piano lesson and soccer team for good measure (among many other things), the cost does add up. TIME did its best to “crunch the numbers” for all of us, and came up with a lovely 6 figure number of what it costs to raise a child over 17 years.
My rebuttal to this article is simple: that the benefits of having children far outweigh the financial costs you incur; that with a little creativity, you can have great memories that are inexpensive or, even better, free; and that when you send your kids off to college for the first time, the dinner bill to the extravagant restaurant that you took the family to, or what it cost to send them to space camp because they really wanted to be an astronaut, probably is the last thing you’re thinking about. Most likely, you’ll be recalling the memories you’ve acquired – picnics on the lawn, catching lightning bugs during the summer nights, art projects in the basement, dance parties in the living room, goodnight hugs and kisses, and so many more, that in the end, every penny was worth it.
And who can really keep track of pennies anyway?