The Cost of a Child

This was on one of my friends' blogs this week.  It was too good not to share.  You may need some kleenex, I know I did.

The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to18 and came up with $160,140.00. Talk about price shock! That doesn't even touch college tuition. But $160,140.00 isn't so bad if you break it down. It translates into: $8,896.66 a year, $741.38 a month, $171.08 a week. 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." But depends on your definition of rich. What do you get for your $160,140.00?

• 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 and flying kites.
• Someone to laugh yourself silly with, no matter what the boss said or how your stocks performed that day.

For $160,140.00, you never have to grow up. You get to: finger-paint, carve pumpkins, play hide-and-seek, catch lightning bugs, never stop believing in Santa Claus. You have an excuse to: keep reading the Adventures of Piglet and Pooh, watch Saturday morning cartoons, go to Disney movies, and wish 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 a mere $24.24 a day, 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 hair
• coaching a baseball team that never wins but always gets treated to ice cream

You get a front row seat in history to witness the: first step, first word, first date, first time behind the wheel. You get another branch added to your family tree, and if you're lucky, a long list of limbs 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.