The Costs of Having a Child

Children, as we all know, are evil.

For those with children, one only needs to look upon their happy and carefree single, childless days as testament to that fact.

And for those of us without the hell-minions, we are constantly reminded of this fact everytime we call up one of our fallen brethren to see if they want to get a beer.

"Hey John, want to get a beer?"

"No, little Skyler contracted Ebola at school and infected the rest of us at the house. I'll be able to go out again in 18 years...assuming my wife doesn't want to have another one."

Of course, those with children will always say they are happy that they had children, but we know several things are wrong with this;

1. Misery loves company and their advocation of having children is merely propaganda for you to join them in Hell on Earth.

2. It's not like they can say, "Gee, I really wish I didn't have children." NOBODY will ever say that. Instead they will ALL say that "they're glad they had children." The way to tell the liars from the truth-tellers is that the liars aren't smiling when they say it and say it with a tone that sounds forced. Whereas those truly compassionate about children will not only tell you how happy they are they had children, but won't shut up about them either!

3. It's a fact of psychology that people don't like to admit they've made a mistake, so they'll trick themselves into believing they actually enjoy having children.

But the ultimate proof as to the evilness of children is that it says so in the bible.

Corinthians VI, Chapter 83, Verse 142

"Children are evil, sayeth the Lord. Have not any and thou shalt live a beautiful life, free of stress and pain."

The only reason you've never heard that is because it's a conspiracy of the religious right to increase their ranks through birthing more members.

Regardless, I only speak of children because at the age 30 I'm experiencing something I think some of the Luftwaffe pilots experienced in late 1940 when they challenged Britain,

Dwindling numbers.

Six years ago, there were scores of us. Hundreds of us, elite fighters and bombers, all flying in formation, carrying out our missions, flying about freely in the sky, drinking, dancing, hitting on girls at clubs, sleeping in till whenever we wanted. Then out of nowhere, droves of British Spitfires came in and started pouring hell on us. We immediately lost the stragglers, some of the weak ones in the herd, but were optimistically confident in our abilities and thought we could hold our formation. Oh, but how foolish we were, for those Spitfires were unrelenting.

With vastly superior firepower, speed and maneuverability we started taking heavy casualties from the Brits. Superior guns and marksmanship ensured their bullets met their mark with deadly accuracy. Bf-109s and wreckage of Ju-87's were falling from the sky, even I couldn't escape unscathed and suffered a hit. And before I knew it there was nobody left. Just me and a couple of fighters from St. Paul that had managed to escape the deadly wrath of being married with children.

Sadly we couldn't raise anybody on the radio to see if they'd want to get a beer. No, just their British captors would be on the other end saying, "John can't go out with you tonight. He has to go to church and then we're putting in pot rack and he's driving me to pilates."

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Thus, I feel it my patriotic and American duty as one of the few free fighters left in this god-foresaken war to remind you all about the evils of children and point out some of the economic ramifications of having them. Namely, what they cost.

Not many years ago when teaching at the local community college where they only accept the best the public schools have to offer, I noticed a fair amount of female students already had children, no husband to speak of, of course, but they had children. The trick was how could I adroitly show them what moronic sluts they were without getting in trouble with the PC powers that be. Thus to display the concept of "opportunity cost" I looked up what it costs to raise a child, $160,140 (circa 1999), and then deduced the following opportunity costs;

• a brand new Ferrari
• a doctorate degree at Harvard
• a new house
• a luxury yatch
• a Cray super computer
• 534 X-Boxes
• 457 pure bred wiener dogs
• a 5 year vacation
• roughly $600,000 had it been invested in the S&P 500 Index

When put in this kind of context, it should really make you ponder whether you want to dedicate such resources to the upbringing of ONE CHILD!!! Those of you having three children could have either been millionaires by now or had a luxurious 15 year vacation. And this says nothing about the headache, yelling, screaming, disease transmission nor lack of sleep you will surely endure.

Also be aware that $160,140 figure does NOT include college.

Now, this was somewhat dated material and like mortgages, retirements, etc., there are calculators online that allow you to calculate the costs of raising a child. Furthermore, these calculators are a bit more robust in that they'll allow you to change some variables. So for those of you stupid enough to pay for your little child's degree in Peace Studies or Sociology, you can include that in your calculations.

Best site I've found is this one at The Baby Center

So, to all of you out there with children or aspiring to have one, don't say I didn't warn you.

As for me and my few remaining battlefield friends, I think I shall get myself a little nap before I go out and treat myself to a nice dinner and maybe a show...all of which will be done on the spur of the moment as I need not find a baby sitter.