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Do you think things are more expensive now compare when your parent's were raising you and your siblings and compare to how much people make back then?
I remember attending ballet class and my brother played soccer but other than that -- we played outside with all our neighborhood kids, watched TV, read books, played in our basement and on the weekends we hung out at home. We went out to dinner every Friday night and my grandparents came over every Sunday night. Umm, it was a great childhood but never going to happen with my kids today. They always want to sign up for activities because they hear everyone talking about their activities in school. I would never let them play around our neighborhood -- safety reasons and we don't have any children their age in our area. I do force them to play outside in our backyard but they feel that this is a punishment. Things are definitely more expensive now. Think about how much the cost of a movie theatre visit has changed over the last ten years! The more technology we get in the world--the more evolved we get and the more expensive everything becomes.
Geez, how could I have forgotten about the computer! My twins use the computer for homework, sometimes also having to do on-line work (requiring log in/password to get to the class website). So add in the cost of two computers and printers (because they both do homework at 6 PM and aren't going to take turns at a computer to get homework done). Cell phones are minimal (pepaid plan, $100 per child/year). And supply lists for school every single year x 2 kids!!!!! And gym suits and school sweatshirt x 2, dd's outfit required for the drama class play (2 plays a year), yearbooks x 2, school photos (fall and spring x 2 kids), and as others have said lots and lots and lots of fundraisers.
Reading this post makes me kind of wonder how I have somehow manged to raise four (with the youngest being eleven, the others being,thirteen, almost seventeen and eighteen) with absalutely no after school activities, lessons ect ever.Yet my kids are happy. I simply could not manage driving around to all the different things that some of you are posting about.
Well maybe if I had just had one kid I would not mind it. For me all the after school activity involving overseeing their homework and Dinner preparation was enough. Now I am homeschooling my eleven year old who has severe autism. That can cost as little or as much as I make it cost. I buy most of our homeschool stuff through ebay or at thrift stores. The others go to public school.We buy our clothes secondhand as well as just about everything else.
I think that one important thing to remember is that things like dance,gymnastics extra music lessons ect are OPTIONAL and are not appropriate for every child or even every family.If a family is well off enough to be able to afford these things without sacrificing something needed then more power to them. I think what the OP was getting at was the expense of things that are needed, not optional.
Our bills go like this: Insurance for our one car,utilities,rent,food, gas, credit (considerably lower now thank goodness)and cell phones (no landline). The average everday kid IMHO is only as expensive as his parents make him/her to be( I mean beyond the necessities ) Parents have a lot of control over what they spend and where. A lot has to do with choices and priorities. For example ( and this is hypothetical) parents can choose to live in a more expensive house or a less expensive mobile home. A lot of the people who complain about how much it costs to raise kids are the same ones whose kids have expensive hobbies and after school lessons.
Last edited by Floridamom1970; 04-09-2008 at 03:48 PM..
Reading this post makes me kind of wonder how I have somehow manged to raise four (with the youngest being eleven, the others being,thirteen, almost seventeen and eighteen) with absalutely no after school activities, lessons ect ever.Yet my kids are happy. I simply could not manage driving around to all the different things that some of you are posting about.
Well maybe if I had just had one kid I would not mind it. For me all the after school activity involving overseeing their homework and Dinner preparation was enough. Now I am homeschooling my eleven year old who has severe autism. That can cost as little or as much as I make it cost. I buy most of our homeschool stuff through ebay or at thrift stores. The others go to public school.We buy our clothes secondhand as well as just about everything else.
I think that one important thing to remember is that things like dance,gymnastics extra music lessons ect are OPTIONAL and are not appropriate for every child or even every family.If a family is well off enough to be able to afford these things without sacrificing something needed then more power to them. I think what the OP was getting at was the expense of things that are needed, not optional.
Our bills go like this: Insurance for our one car,utilities,rent,food, gas, credit (considerably lower now thank goodness)and cell phones (no landline). The average everday kid IMHO is only as expensive as his parents make him/her to be( I mean beyond the necessities ) Parents have a lot of control over what they spend and where. A lot has to do with choices and priorities. For example ( and this is hypothetical) parents can choose to live in a more expensive house or a less expensive mobile home. A lot of the people who complain about how much it costs to raise kids are the same ones whose kids have expensive hobbies and after school lessons.
IMO, things like dance, gymnastics, music lessons are NOT optional. They are enriching, fulfilling opportunities that help a child learn who they are. Sports and dance are important, for physical fitness. Also, otherwise kids are sitting around the house or watching tv.
My daughter just wrote an anti drug paper which quoted statistics concerning children/teens and drug use. Those children who did not have after school activities such as sports/dance/music were much more at risk for drug and juvenile behavior. Those with interests were at a much less risk.
This is something I just can not understand! Why do people have more children- just to offer them less opportunity in life for enrichment!
IMO, things like dance, gymnastics, music lessons are NOT optional. They are enriching, fulfilling opportunities that help a child learn who they are. Sports and dance are important, for physical fitness. Also, otherwise kids are sitting around the house or watching tv.
My daughter just wrote an anti drug paper which quoted statistics concerning children/teens and drug use. Those children who did not have after school activities such as sports/dance/music were much more at risk for drug and juvenile behavior. Those with interests were at a much less risk.
This is something I just can not understand! Why do people have more children- just to offer them less opportunity in life for enrichment!
They might be enriching, fulfilling opportunities for some kids but others are just plain not interested. I was one of the kids who would try something new for a few months and then get bored. Out of my four kids, two have low muscle tone, with one being autistic to boot.The other one with low muscle tone has learning disabilities and nuerological issues. Both have low gross motor skills and neither can run or jump very well. Neither one are even interested in any of that stuff anyway.
Another thing that really gets me is the sheer amount of homework a lot of these kids get even in elementary school. I overheard one of my daughters therapists telling someone that her first grade son has to read sixteen books a month and gets several (I forgot how many she said) hours of homework a night. then another parent said that her kid gets hours of homework even on the weekends. And this is in grade school! My thirteen year old is in a self contained class with a modifieed curriculum, so she does not get much. My high schooler is smart enough to do his fast I guess..
If kids around here are really getting that much homework in grade school then I have to wonder just when they would find time forr anything other than school and homework.
IMO, things like dance, gymnastics, music lessons are NOT optional. They are enriching, fulfilling opportunities that help a child learn who they are. Sports and dance are important, for physical fitness. Also, otherwise kids are sitting around the house or watching tv.
My daughter just wrote an anti drug paper which quoted statistics concerning children/teens and drug use. Those children who did not have after school activities such as sports/dance/music were much more at risk for drug and juvenile behavior. Those with interests were at a much less risk.
This is something I just can not understand! Why do people have more children- just to offer them less opportunity in life for enrichment!
I only have two children, but they do not do dance, gymnastics, music lessons. We homeschool, and they do have other things that they do. They don't sit around and watch tv in the afternoons (when schooled children do their homework), they go play outside! Kids don't need every minute structured, and playing with siblings/friends provides plenty of real-life enrichment. Contrary to popular belief, there is no detriment to children learning to entertain themselves.
The children in afterschool activities are at less risk of drug use/abuse because they are supervised. Being home with mom and lots of siblings after school is not an unsupervised situation where children are left to run amok and do drugs... being a latchkey child is. If the choice is to be a latchkey child and to do go music classes, then of course music classes are the right answer, but if the choice is between having time with their family and running to a class, I can't see that one would be better than another.
Children need to know how to function when there is not unlimited money for entertainment and "enrichment." Some families who have only one or two children might not be able to afford all of these lessons, but that does not mean that they will get into trouble, into drugs, or that they don't have interests and things to look forward to. Some people may feel that a trip to DisneyWorld or Europe each year is more desirable than having a large family and that's fine... but most people with large families don't see it that way. Who ever says that they regret having antoher child because it takes away the funds available to travel or take ballet lessons?
I've found that raising my children when little costs very little. You can find a ton of second-hand beautiful clothes, breastfeed, use cloth diapers, don't really need all those baby gadgets, etc.
It is when they are older, especially in school, that things start adding up. My older son tried and failed at many sports until he tried bicycling. Well, even with the used equipment I buy, the entry fees, equipment, and driving to the races costs a bundle. I'm so glad he's found a real love and I'm happy to pay for it, but it adds up quickly, even doing it frugally.
I can't run all over creation, but I allow my children one special activity at a time to be involved in - i.e., cycling for my older son and karate for my younger son. They can change this activity at any time (for example if they would want to try music lessons or another sport), but I don't have enough energy for "doubling up" on each child. I also wait until they express interest in an activity before I sign them up, so for my kids that wasn't until around age 6. We also are all involved in our church's activities.
However, even for the more expensive older ones, I use lots of coupons for the mass quantities of food, buy second-hand clothes and furniture whenever possible, conserve/reuse/recycle, etc.
Thats all fine but wait until they hit 15+ cars, car insurance school trips, my son is on the drum line last year that alone cost us 4500. Then college all these things are expensive.
Do you think things are more expensive now compare when your parent's were raising you and your siblings and compare to how much people make back then?
I would say at a percentage of income, no kids for the most part are not all that much more expensive then they were when we were growing up. I remember when my dad brought home one of the first hand held calculators, it cost $100, that same calculator today would cost a dollar--it pretty much only added, subtracted, etc. My first scientific calculator for high school math was about $50 so comparable to the graphing calculators we have to buy for our kids today.
Yes there are computers, cell phones, etc. but the cost of having a house phone back then was a LOT more then it is today, you PAID for long distance calls, etc.
We were in sports, music, etc. I went to Europe with our high school orchestra for about the same cost as our DS15's trip to China last year with his high school band. We all took private lessons, etc. too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by millie61
Thats all fine but wait until they hit 15+ cars, car insurance school trips, my son is on the drum line last year that alone cost us 4500. Then college all these things are expensive.
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. Things are definitely more expensive now. Think about how much the cost of a movie theatre visit has changed over the last ten years! The more technology we get in the world--the more evolved we get and the more expensive everything becomes.
