Talk:Cost of raising a child

I'm not sure where these stats came from, but here there are...they seem high to me:

Here are the median regional costs of raising a child up to 18:

New England: US$317,880
The West: US$332,190
The South: US$309,672
The Midwest: US$288,126
Rural areas with populations less than 2,500: US$289,080

These statistics are to age 18, which does not include any college.

Jonverve ^Talk ^Contrib 17:31, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Third world[edit]

The section titled third world appears to be original research (sources don't seem to give cost of raising a child). The estimate made based on the sources is highly questionable (e.g. a child doesn't take as much food/clothing as an adult, may take more medical care, etc.) Also, doesn't indicate what inflation value is figured in. Most significantly, doesn't indicate what cost of living measure is used to evaluate the "US dollar" amounts given, or what basis was used for converting the income amounts to US dollars. Without an indication of in what market, the dollar amounts given are meaningless. Zodon (talk) 07:37, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, so most moms stay at home with their toddlers[edit]

I live myself in France, and the cost of day care (either state-run or private) is enormous, more than 7200 euros per year, whereas the cost cited in the tables is about 6000 USD every 2 years... As I assume day care is expensive in the US, too, the only logical conclusion is that the vas majority of mothers stay with their babies until they get in the public school system (age 3, in France). Are you sure the stats are good? [User:Dpotop]

The stats are bogus. My mom had 7 children and never paid a dime for day care in the USA. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.31.106.35 (talk) 21:52, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Tables[edit]

Either I am stupid or the two tables are a complete mess. There is just no way the numbers from the individual rows add up to the ones in the "total" row. Or am I just missing something? - 193.84.186.81 (talk) 02:38, 5 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Developing Countries[edit]

I'm not part of WikiProject Sociology. I lurked around this "Cost of raising a child" page for a while because I'm still a fence-sitter when it comes to whether or not I want to be childfree, then I decided to try to research and update the figures in the U.S. tables based on figures from around 2005-2011. I then added basic information for raising a kid in the UK from birth to 21 years old.

I'm thinking that we could discuss a list of countries that would be considered "developing countries" and what criteria would be used to determine what country is developing. Once that gets settled, then we can break down the task of coming up with info on how much it takes to raise a child one developing country at a time. Buspirtraz (talk) 04:27, 13 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

merge with child care[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was to not merge (consensus and discussion stopped a year ago; Stale) Klbrain (talk) 16:22, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

the cost of raising a child is a subtopic that is better discussed under child care — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.165.246.181 (talk) 22:11, 12 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. I think child care is very different. Child care is a small subset of the full cost of raising a child. Nasa-verve (talk) 02:54, 14 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'd agree. The article on child care is an extensive one whereas this is a small page. Liberivore (talk) 19:44, 7 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The size of the page is unimportant.

Why would "what I do with my child while I go to work" (child care) be the main topic for "what it costs to provide basic necessities like food, clothing and shelter for my child" (cost of raising a child)? I don't think that these two pages should be merged. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:15, 7 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. The reason for merging is to hide the facts, and the chart and almost every publicized data is AVERAGE SPENDING, NOT COST of raising, which is the title. So the numbers are DECEPTION and the anti-father people want to hide the facts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Humane4kids (talk • contribs) 18:23, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No one is talking about hiding information. This is also not the forum to promote a social agenda or opposition to any social policy or living arrangements that you might disagree with. 331dot (talk) 01:20, 23 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I would disagree with a merge; the two subjects are different. Not to say there couldn't be See Also links. 331dot (talk) 01:20, 23 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Objectivity of United States Section[edit]

The paragraph discussing the "visitor parent" seems to be expressing a subjective opinion about the nature of tax credits and fraud, rather than an objective statement of fact. It should be rephrased to show that it is an opinion. Similarly, the paragraph referring to H. Swint Friday does not fit with the flow of the article, and should be rephrased as well.

Cost on the Earth/environment etc.[edit]

This might be worth a mention, in addition to the cost to the parents. Link it to the topic of overpopulation etc. 31.50.70.172 (talk) 02:59, 22 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The world is grossly underpopulated though. 210.185.170.57 (talk) 15:31, 16 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Labor/opportunity costs for raising a child[edit]

I don't have any sources, but am interested in correcting this omission.

Alázhlis (talk) 03:06, 21 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]