Family Matters: Scare stories that just don’t add up

A funny thing happened recently, a little story just about surfaced which said that having children wasn’t as expensive a pursuit as had been previously advertised.

For years a whole host of organisations have clambered over each other to release PR hand grenades designed to scare the wits out of anyone contemplating having more than one child.

A grand total of £222,000 to see your child from birth to 18 was one of the latest offerings from an insurance firm, up –they go on to turn the screw – 58 per cent since a decade ago. No one in their right mind could say its cheap of course. In fact our household expenditure on the legion of shiny children’s magazines that scream out to the young from supermarket and newsagents shelves feels like it hits bankruptcy levels on its own at times. Author Colin Brazier in his book Sticking Up For Siblings has labelled the regular “cost of a child” surveys as nothing more than scare stories. He suggests these blunt pieces of research fail to take into account the economies of scale, otherwise known as hand-me-downs, that multiple kids bring and also, I’d suggest from personal experience the distinct lack of plastic baby gadget tat you shell out for second time around, having realised too late with the first that most of it is a total waste of space.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The statistics though show that the financial frighteners seem to be working, with the number of single-child families having risen from 18 per cent in 1972 to 26 per cent in 2007. The “only child equals selfish introvert vs child with siblings making for a rounded little happy camper” line feels a bit too neat to take as fact to me, but nevertheless evidence does exist to show that we are better off as part of a brood.

What’s perhaps more pertinent though is that anyone who has had the merest hint of infertility issues in their lives, will know that when you are beyond desperate to have a child financial hurdles seem much more surmountable, or at least a whole lot less significant no matter how high. As the youngest of seven I’m perhaps a little biased here but a wise man once told me that you very rarely hear people on their deathbed wishing they’d had fewer children.

Twitter @mark_r_woods

Related topics: