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| Page 12 |
The Price of Children
The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from
birth to 18 and came up with $160,140 for a middle-income family.
Talk about sticker shock! That doesn't even touch college tuition.
But $160,140 isn't so bad if you break it down.
It translates into $8,896.66 a year, $741.38 a month, or $171.08 a
week. That's a mere $24.24 a day! Just over a dollar an hour. Still,
you might think the best financial advice is don't have children if
you want to be "rich."
Actually, it is just the opposite. What do you get for your
$160,140?
Naming rights. First, middle, and last!
Glimpses of God every day.
Giggles.... under the covers every night.
More love than your heart can hold.
Butterfly kisses and velcro hugs.
Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies.
A hand to hold usually covered with jelly or chocolate.
A partner for blowing bubbles, flying kites, building sand castles,
and skipping down the sidewalk in the pouring rain.
Someone to laugh yourself silly with, no matter what the boss said
or how your stocks performed that day.
For $160,140, you never have to grow up.
You get to finger-paint, carve pumpkins, play hide-and-seek, catch
lightning bugs, and never stop believing in Santa Claus.
You have an excuse to keep reading The Adventures of Piglet and
Pooh, watching Saturday morning cartoons, going to Disney movies,
and wishing on stars.
You get to frame rainbows, hearts, and flowers under refrigerator
magnets and collect spray painted noodle wreaths for Christmas, hand
prints set in clay for Mother's Day, and cards with backward letters
for Father's Day.
For $160,140, there is no greater bang for your buck. You get to be
a hero just for retrieving a frisbee off the garage roof, taking the
training wheels off a bike, removing a splinter, filling a wading
pool, coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and coaching a baseball
team that never wins but always gets treated to ice cream
regardless.
You get a front row seat to history to witness the first step, first
word, first bra, first date, and first time behind the wheel.
You get to be immortal.
You get another branch added to your family tree, and if you're
lucky, a long list of limbs in your obituary called grandchildren
and great grandchildren.
You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice,
communications, and human sexuality that no college can match.
In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there under God. You have
all the power to heal a boo-boo, scare away the monsters under the
bed, patch a broken heart, police a slumber party, ground them
forever, and love them without limits, so... one day they will, like
you, love without counting the cost.
ENJOY YOUR KIDS AND GRANDKIDS!
"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but the
moments
that take our breath away..."
So guess some of us are luckier than some but don't always realize
our
fortunes.......
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