"Michael Gurstein" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Interesting discussion but quite misleading in a lot of ways.
>
> First are we talking about cost to society or cost to the individual
> parents. We seem to be talking about costs to individual (upper
> middle class USA) parents since roughly half of the estimated costs
> are for university education.
Just to clarify that, the cited article said:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A middle-income family can expect to spend
$291,570 including inflation to raise a child born in 2008 to
adulthood, the government estimated on Tuesday, up slightly from
the estimate made a year ago.
The estimate covers food, shelter and other necessities for a
child to age 18, said the annual report by the Agriculture
Department. The FIGURE DOES NOT INCLUDE THE COST OF childbirth or
COLLEGE.
In colloquial 'Merican, "college" usually means the same as "university".
No argument with your main points, though.
There was a piece in the G&M recently by a mother who was disappointed
that her son wasn't interested in sports. She had started him in (I
forget which) organized sport at age 4 (!) in which he showed no
interest whatever. Over the next decade, she decreed, contrived or
wheedled his (serial) participation in two or three other organized
sports to which he responded with similar or greater lack of
enthusiasm. Eventually, she had to accept defeat and allow him to opt
out of further organized, competitive team jockery.
Aside from the matter of treating her kid as she might a pet dog or
trick pony -- a consumer item that she could "manage" to fulfill her
own ego needs -- she presumably bought a full panoply of hockey armor,
baseball gear, basketball gear etc. plus the SUV to haul it all
around, rink and membership fees, special kiddy-sports insurance
etc. etc. And this was a *Canadian* mother.
Jeez, give the kid an unrestricted account at Indigo, save $100,000
and have a literate, happy kid.
Grumpy today.
- Mike
--
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~.
/V\
[email protected] /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^
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