BellaOnline Forums Relationships Married No Kids WOW -- Kids ARE Expensive!!!

Here's another interesting article from USA Today that I just posted under the "Defending Your Decision" subject on the MNK homepage:

Parents of Teens Ride Waves of Expenses
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20060515/bs_usatoday/parentsofteensridewavesofexpenses

Most of what is discussed seems completely ridiculous to me. My sister and I were raised by a single mom, and we didn't have even a FRACTION of the [censored] these teens are getting.

We each went to only TWO proms, and we never got a new dress. We borrowed them from friends or family members. I wore a dress my mom wore in my uncle's wedding to one of my proms! The first formal dress I ever bought was my own wedding dress, and I paid for that (and the entire event!) on my own!

I also put myself through college, which is easier to do when you are less than middle class. The rich can afford to pay cash for college, and the poor get lots of grants.

But I digress.

The point is, the basic needs of a child are expensive enough! As this article shows, the "extras" can REALLY add up!

Kim
MNK Editor

Yes- I have been reading quite a bit about this lately...I am fortunate that my husband and I make good money, but sometimes we barely make it now (husband getting his business up and running)- can't imagine bringing another expense into the picture! Plus we want to have FUN!!! I have no idea how parents afford vacations and fun stuff with a family- maybe I just have expensive taste, but if we had a kid we'd be broke!

Also- did any of you watch "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" last Sunday? This family had 5 or 6 kids and had lost one to cancer which is very sad. The mom is now pregnant again and all of this while their house is falling down around them. It seems evident to me that these parents did not even consider financial planning as a part of their responsibility to these kids. It really infuriates me...If you don't have the money, use birth control!!! It just seems an irresponsible choice to me and then they are lauded on national television as being a model family. Well, doesn't a "model" family consider their choices before they make them? What about the impact that poverty is having on these children???

i teach in an upper-middle-class neighborhood, and the things these kids have just amaze me. ipods, razr phones, gameboys, camera phones (why does a 12 year old need a camera phone? to take pics of kids in the locker room and then post them on myspace?), expensive clothes, expensive shoes, weekly manicures, monthly highlights on their hair, etc. they're in JUNIOR HIGH! when we have dances, the girls show up in prom dresses that cost several hundred dollars. it's NUTS!

anyway, i can't even count how many kids have come to me to complain they've accidentally thrown away their cell phone with their lunch tray. or that their retainer was on their tray, and it got tossed. if they can't find it, they just say, "oh, well. i wanted a new one anyway because that one was ugly."

the funny thing is they all think my cell phone is cool. it's an old one- not even a flip-phone. no cool ringtone or anything. heck, it only has 1 game. they think it's neat because it's so "basic." one kid called it primitive.

in addition to all the accoutrements these kids need, they also have fees that need to be paid for sports leagues, choir uniforms, band instruments, music lessons, school clubs, physicals, dr visits, shots, etc.

okay, i'm starting to feel a bit better about being infertile. i mean, instead of going to europe for vacation, i could be spending all my money on things that my kid probably (some do) won't appreciate. and i'd rather go to paris and eat goat cheese phyllo puffs on baby lettuce than find out my kid threw away his/her cell phone. esp if said cellphone were nicer than mine.

okay, lunch break's over. gotta get.

Sheesh!

When I was a preteen and teenager (not too long ago), I hated how spoiled my peers were. I've always hated "trendy" clothes, I've always hated the idea of a teenager owning his or her own car, and I've hated every new tech toy that comes out (Ipods, cell phones, etc.). I wondered all the while if these kids hated their parents -- why would you make your parents spend all that money? It's like the kids don't realize how hard their parents work, and know nothing about taxes, bills that need paid, debt, et cetera.

I was raised to be frugal. Probably the most expensive gift my parents ever bought me was the sewing machine I received for my birthday. (This was back when I was in high school. I saw the sewing machine on sale, a deep discount, and asked for it for my birthday only after seeing that my parents could afford it.) I went on to use that sewing machine to make my prom dress and later my wedding dress, and many bridesmaids dresses and halloween costumes. It's saved a lot more money than it cost.

In high school, I skipped a lot of things in order to save my parents' money: I drove the family car and didn't ask for my own. I didn't bother with a class ring or senior portraits (very expensive). I rarely went clothes shopping, and when I did, I went to Goodwill (a local thrift store). For that matter, I used my allowance, not mom's/dad's money.

When I was a youngster, the girls and I just had fun doing simple things together. We sometimes had sleepovers where we'd cook dinner ourselves and watch a TV movie. We went hiking in the woods. We played board games and drew comic books. We always had such a great time, and it didn't cost us anything.

I'm lucky that I saw early on what a transparent joke all this consumerism is. The fact that teenagers even care what designer label they're wearing boggles my mind. At that age, I was concerned about getting into college and making my friends happy; there was no time to worry about what to wear!

Oh yeah, from about 4th grade I also actively boycotted most of the "trendy" clothes and shoes (Nike in particular) due to concerns about sweatshops and child labor! I insisted to everyone that American kids should not have nice things at the expense of foreign kids, and guess what? None of the horrible little brats listened!!

Parents must learn to say "no", or just not have kids in the first place.

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Holles, I went to the upper-middle-class high school. It is ridiculous. The cars in the student parking lot were nicer, more expensive, and better than the ones in the teacher parking lot. Kids were driving BMWs and such, getting brand-new cars from Mommy and Daddy as soon as they turned 16.

When it came time for prom, people were buying ridiculously expensive (and usually ugly) dresses, spending money to get their hair and nails done, and stuff like that. Even worse, they got to leave school early to do so. The rest of us who didn't go to prom didn't get the day off.

iPods didn't really become popular until I graduated, so there wasn't that at least. We were still using CD players.

Me, I still don't have a car (I'm 20 and not that I'd be able to afford the gas anyway), I never went to prom (the only formal school dance I went to was homecoming my freshman year and that sucked, so I never bothered with any more), and I have an iPod shuffle (Xmas present from my mother).

Eh, better to have scrimped in high school and have money for college. High school is a vast waste of time, anyway.

Still didn't prevent me from being a brat though....

I have a challenge for everyone:

For one month, only spend money on your needs, not wants. Do not go shopping for one month, only buy groceries and other real necessities. Let me know if you did and how it went.

As well, count your blessings.

Reduce Stress and Build a Happy Family

Hi there...Just wondering what is the point in this exersise?

cheers! <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Amazing.

School pictures twice a year?? That seems a bit excessive. I couldn't get my mom to STOP buying school pictures, though--I certainly campaigned for it in high school.

It amazes me how parents are willing to make their lives only about their kids getting ahead, rather than live their own lives for the sake of living. I always wondered this about animals, esp. insects--"what's their point of being here, if the only reason they live is to create more of themselves, that's the only thing they accomplish, and then they die? What would it matter if they all died off, really?"

And a lot of parents are the same way! They'll bust their heinies to get their kids ahead--will put themselves in dire financial straits, will devote their life to doing nothing but parenting and advancing their child, so the kid can get ahead--go to college, supposedly have a productive and better life...yet the kid will likely do the same thing. These parents could probably be so much and accomplish so much if only they'd live their own lives rather than living their lives for their kids' future lives.

Imagine if Madame Curie or Bach or Einstein had solely devoted their lives to the furtherment of their children, and hadn't lived their own lives and accomplished anything for themselves. The thought of what the world may be missing makes me shudder.

CELL PHONES: I don't think kids need cell phones. My mom gave me one in high school because sometimes I'd be late at school or somewhere for some function and sometimes I'd be there alone and she wanted me to have a way to get ahold of her in case of emergency and such. I knew it was only for emergencies, and besides, I'm too much of a cheapskate to use a cell phone for anything but; there are very few instances in which anything I have to say is worth fifty cents a minute! (I use my cell phone a lot more now simply because the phone at my work only takes incoming calls, so when any of us want to call out, we use our cell phones)

MANICURES, ETC.: What in the world do these kids need manicures and [censored] for? They're trying to attract, what, horny high school boys with whom they'll have a relationship with, at most, a few months? It's not even like they're trying to find someone to marry. What's the point?

DANCE EXPENSES, ETC.: I really can't see the point of buying an expensive outfit for one date. Hell, I still feel guilty about a dress I have that I got for our school's Senior Solo concert that I was playing in; it cost $60 or $70 and I've only worn it that one time (well, I wore it again later on a choir trip to go see Les Mis). I've never had an occasion to wear it again, and I wish I did; it's an awesome dress. No, I never went to Prom (no dates). I'm amazed at how nuts all this dance stuff gets, though. Bad enough that everybody has to have an expensive dress, go out for an expensive dinner, have a limo, have their nails and hair and makeup done, etc. for Prom. But I remember when Homecoming was "semi-formal"--i.e. you wore a nice dress but nothing uber-fancy. Regular dances were even less so than that. Even by the time I graduated high school, Homecoming was getting more and more Prom-like.

(of course, if I'd known then what I know now...and been the person then that I am now...I would've gotten my friends together, gone to Goodwill to find some spiffy stuff to wear, and gone to Prom as a big group and had fun. I always sort of lamented that there wasn't a Prom in college so I would have a chance to "do it right.")

Hell, when I lost my retainer in the trash at school once, my mom never found out about it, tyvm. My @ss would've been grass.

My ex was a spoiled brat. No one in either side of his family, that I knew of, was less than upper-middle-class. His dad's parents were downright rich. He got whatever he wanted, esp. from them. His tuition? Paid for by his grandparents. Ditto to his book expenses, his laptop (though after that died, he did buy a new one with some money his dad had put in the bank for him years ago), his iPod, his car, his car insurance and all other expenses, and when he got tired of living in the dorms, his apartment and all expenses associated with it. His brother gets the same deal--laptop, iPod, biking trips to other countries, you name it. My ex was--and probably still is--SO naive about money it would make your teeth hurt.

If he wanted something? Ask his grandparents and he'd probably get it. Dishonest, too--if his books cost $200, he'd tell them they cost $250 to get more money. That tactic never did sit right with me (I should've taken it as the red flag it was, as it turned out). His privileged-ness and attitude toward money never ceased to amaze me, especially as someone who's used to coming from a house where the living was usually relatively paycheck to paycheck. It took me a long time to get used to, for example, grandparents who would rent a sloop, take the family out on it, and treat all about 20 of them to dinner at a nice place afterward, and even then it was still hard for me to conceive of it.

My sister just had a baby, and is also caring for an 11 year old, and she's not working right now, and always complaining about how broke she is. It's pretty sad. Hubby and I both work full-time jobs and have two cats, and we are barely getting by as it is, and if a kid was thrown into the mix, we'd be bankrupt. LOL

It seems that a lot of women who want children really want babies, but rarely do they think about the consequences of their actions.