First off – don’t have kids. Expensive, heart-breaking, sarcastic little snots that bind your life. Don’t do it.
Please see prior/previous/former discussion … Quick refresher? No. That would be a hard no, full stop, end discussion. Not for you, but for them.
BUT! HOWEVER! NEVERTHELESS! if you (Other Person) elect to ignore sage advice … then have them all. All the kids, and 12 is not too many. Fifteen might be pushing it but if that uterus ain’t prolapsed get to work.
If must, go big.
Seven is not too many children. Twelve is good. The Duggars took a lot of heat … most of it was probably jealousy, tho’ … imagine having the confidence to completely disregard the size of the carbon footprint produced by solely your loins.
Good on you, Jim.
The greatest gift any parent can give a child is a sibling, and the more the greater the gift. Even if they hate each other long-term, there is a shared past.
With that in mind, tho’ … found another (what I/we/us consider to be) a helpful article re the actual, real-life costs of having a kid. At present? USDA says middle-class cost of raising single kid = $300K … my monkey is my child!
See, the only child thing? Sad, sad. TheKid is an onlyborn, and had I/we/thusly noted the joys of the loin offspring, Half and the other half would have bred much, much, much more.
Too late now. Heh. God flipped the lights on Club Breed.
So! If considering fertilizing some eggs, keep a few thoughts at the forefront …
– Increased costs of existence –
1. Housing
Got to make room. A two-bedroom, five-story walkup sounds like serious fun when you are just you, but children need space … and room … and doors, preferably with locks but a closet will do
2. Addressing the Daily Food = Fuel Problem
Fun Fact / Some Serious Nonsense – a healthy diet of fresh fruits/veggies, lean proteins, minimal fats? Expensive, like about an extra $500 per year.
BUT! Treat your body like a garbage chute? Cheap eats. Save money and die sooner. Great
3. Medical care / Yours & Theirs
Right now the woman person is required to birth the young, and unless she’s down to squat with a bucket and a hank of rawhide there’s going to be a need for insurance to cover the birthing costs … aaannnddd the medical costs for the newly birthed young … aaannnddd the ongoing medical costs until the young age and can pay for their own …
Cheaper alternative = holistic shamanic practices + lawyer fees to get kids back from CPS/family court
4. Clothes
Babies need hats.
5. Care for Kid when You Can’t
Grandparents are out / 60 is the new 26 or something … lots of chlamydia in nursing homes go figure
6. Costs re Social Status
One can exercise significant control over this type of spending but not really … no one needs the Internet or cable or a cell phone, but try to live without that stuff – Ted Kaczynski had the right idea / wrong approach – and this represents all the crap that gets spent but is never accounted for … sports extracurriculars, popularity costs (iPhone 27 anyone? anyone?), social stigma avoidance (don’t want to pay for that but theKid will if don’t so must or must learn to love seeing child suffer) … the list is unended
7. Days Off / No Pay Days
Yeh somebody is going to have to stay home with the offspring when offspring cannot be unloaded onto others … and many times employers are of the opinion that child care is a personal problem that the individual must address / unrelated to the individual as an employee go figure
8. Education
Fun Fact / Some Serious Nonsense – If able, will spend more on (1) housing, for good school district, or (2) private school, for good schooling. And if offspring = dumbass / totally parents’ fault. And college.
9. Transportation
Funny story / not really … before theKid, Half and other half drove a sporty little attention-grabbing stick-shifted piece of fun … no room for the car seat. HAH! Joke’s on us. MINIVAN that’s a lie TRUCK
You know what’s another inherent cost of breeding? You got it … a debt monkey. Science says that parents tend to spend future money for current essentials, and the monkey just grows and grows … and the kids learn the debt habit from the parents … generational wealth / generational debt.
Time to create a new inheritance for the children. After all, they didn’t ask to be here.
Or maybe they did … maybe they stood in line early on a Monday morning for the chance to slip on the mortal coil / dunno how the process works, but I certainly don’t remember being asked if I wanted to be alive, just arrived.
Honest/full disclosure? The Fukushima collapse should have been a strong hint. The Pacific Ocean is radioactive, and I think we killed it. I wasn’t paying attention, though, per usual, and then theKid arrived. Oops. My bad. Here’s a PlayStation 42?
But the greatest cost of having kids? Lack of Planning.
Sad fact: most children are an accident, a failure of birth control and responsible sexing. So! You got in that bed with one person but are leaving with two (or more) … ewww.
Real planning means you don’t have kids. Sad, but not for them … for you. Modern civilization / habitable earth environment is flushed and swirling, and it is entirely unfair to breed in a dying world.
BUT WE DO WHAT WE WANT SO BABIES ALL THE BABIES if you (Other Person) decide to breed, give the kid a sib, or four, seriously. {Proverbs 17:6} ‘Cuz at that point, it stops being about you (and not just me you, Other Person You).