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I hope you don't take the comments in this thread as an attack on you personally. There are several reasons I have an only child and cost is one of them, should I decide to have more children my future husband and I would need to be in the financial position for me to either home school (and not work because I personally cannot do both) or be in the financial position to educate and provide care for that child to my standards.
I tell people of child-rearing age all the time that the cost of educating and providing childcare for children is the biggest birth control pill ever.
Childcare for children under two is very limited almost everywhere due to ratio requirements and very expensive. So expensive in fact, that I opted to stay home and find freelance work becoming a WAHM from the time my child was born until - she was school age.
Childcare / Preschool for children 2-5 is expensive as well and wait list are long get on the list for both infant care and preschool as early as possible.
Then your child hits school age and you expect cost to decrease but many (if not most) of the highest ranking public schools are in high COL areas so you are paying in taxes.
Alternatively you can opt for private school (I noted the cost in my area above) or religious schools that often do all the same fundraising (with the exception of the tax increase) and more!
None of this factors in after-school care or all the days off the school has, Thanksgiving Break (1 week), Winter Break (2 weeks), Spring Break (1 week) and Summer Break (8-10 weeks)
Maybe somehow college gets cheaper, LOL! Not really because the parents income is still factored into what they can qualify for aid wise.
Children are expensive..... hermit crabs are not, plan accordingly.
I tell people of child-rearing age all the time that the cost of educating and providing childcare for children is the biggest birth control pill ever.
Childcare for children under two is very limited almost everywhere due to ratio requirements and very expensive. So expensive in fact, that I opted to stay home and find freelance work becoming a WAHM from the time my child was born until - she was school age.
Childcare / Preschool for children 2-5 is expensive as well and wait list are long get on the list for both infant care and preschool as early as possible.
Then your child hits school age and you expect cost to decrease but many (if not most) of the highest ranking public schools are in high COL areas so you are paying in taxes.
- Those high COL areas often pass measures for additional parcel or sales tax to further enhance their schools so you are then double sometime triple or more taxed for the "free" public schools...
- Then those schools host fundraisers several times a year you are pressured to participate in to "off-set" the "free" public school (some even have formal galas and auctions).
- Then many of those high ranking public schools just plain outright ask parents to write a check per child to fill the gap between what they get from the gov and all the efforts listed above compared to what it actually cost to have arts, aids, etc. In my area they ask for $2500 per student which parents often happily pay because it is such a savings over the private schools that cost 15-30K per year.
Alternatively you can opt for private school (I noted the cost in my area above) or religious schools that often do all the same fundraising (with the exception of the tax increase) and more!
None of this factors in after-school care or all the days off the school has, Thanksgiving Break (1 week), Winter Break (2 weeks), Spring Break (1 week) and Summer Break (8-10 weeks)
Maybe somehow college gets cheaper, LOL! Not really because the parents income is still factored into what they can qualify for aid wise.
Children are expensive..... hermit crabs are not, plan accordingly.
that she was charging what everyone else in her area was charging.
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