Can’t Buy Me Love

‘DO you know what it costs to bring up a child these days? No, the answer is not ‘Who cares? I never asked to be born’.

De rigeur for all middle-class parents

And neither is the answer, ‘My health, my sanity, my looks’, however worldly-wise that response seems.

The correct answer is £164,000. So, well done to Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard professor no less, and her daughter, Amelia Warren Tyagi, for getting that right.

And what’s more, the pair have put their workings down in the form of a book.

The Telegraph takes a look at their project – The Two Income Trap, Why Middle Class Mothers And Father Are Going Broke – and notes what passes for fact.

The authors say that married American couples with children are twice as likely to file for bankruptcy than those without children, while 75% are more likely to be late paying their bills.

News that mouths cost money to feed is hardly going to blow anyone’s romper suit off.

That children cost money is no sensation, as any American who has ever looked into buying a Chinese baby could attest.

Indeed, the report seems to be one filled with stating the bleedin’ obvious.

For instance, hands up who didn’t know that 16-19 year olds and their demand for ‘cool’ clothes are expensive to run.

But Ray, of Ray and Tina Currey, held up by the Telegraph as the typical middle class couple, thinks he has the spotted the root cause of the cost.

‘The biggest expense is peer pressure,’ says he. ‘We don’t want our sons to grow up spoiled, but neither do we want them to be the ones who didn’t have anything.’

So mum had to have the new off-road Jeep and dad was forced into buying the gold clubs and gym membership lest they should not fit in and cause their children to die of embarrassment.’

Posted: 4th, May 2004 | In: Broadsheets Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink