3 ms·

$2000/month in camps/lessons/kids activities/afterschool care (far from entertainment).

nommm-nommm 10y ago
camps = entertainment lessons = entertainment kids activities = entertainment None of those are some sort of bare bones living expenses. They are nice to haves if you can afford it. afterschool care = not required if one parent stays home or works a different shift.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- vkou 10y ago
  Daycare is not entertainment. Daycare is what stops Social Services from taking away your kids. (Which wouldn't happen in the 70s, between multi-generational families, and less moral panic about unattended twelve-year-olds.)
  - laughfactory 10y ago
    Uh, daycare wasn't on the list. After school care was. Different animal. And yes, I'm going to be normative here and suggest as a society we do an awful lot of offloading our kids into the care of others. And if we're doing that, why the hell did we have them in the first place?
- watwut 10y ago
  The alternative is kids home alone. Not even legal in many us areas.
  - nommm-nommm 10y ago
    Since when was the alternative to piano lessons and dance class leaving your kids unsupervised? If you need bare bones supervision for your school age children you can get that at the Boys and Girls club and similar programs. Their summer program was around $1 a day per kid when I went.
    - laughfactory 10y ago
      Totally agree. Besides, in many states kids are allowed to supervise younger kids starting somewhere between 9 and 12. I.e., if your oldest is 9 in Utah, you can indeed legally leave them home alone with their siblings.
laughfactory 10y ago
I'm going to disagree with you hear. The list provided is absolutely non-essential. I mean, are you kidding me? To believe otherwise absolutely astonishes me. We think of it as an extravagance if we pay $50/month for our daughter to take a dance class. $200/month maybe, if all the kids are in a single class of some sort, but $2000?! Not happening, even if we could afford it.

camps = entertainment lessons = entertainment kids activities = entertainment None of those are some sort of bare bones living expenses. They are nice to haves if you can afford it. afterschool care = not required if one parent stays home or works a different shift.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
vkou 10y ago
Daycare is not entertainment. Daycare is what stops Social Services from taking away your kids. (Which wouldn't happen in the 70s, between multi-generational families, and less moral panic about unattended twelve-year-olds.)
- laughfactory 10y ago
  Uh, daycare wasn't on the list. After school care was. Different animal. And yes, I'm going to be normative here and suggest as a society we do an awful lot of offloading our kids into the care of others. And if we're doing that, why the hell did we have them in the first place?
watwut 10y ago
The alternative is kids home alone. Not even legal in many us areas.
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  Since when was the alternative to piano lessons and dance class leaving your kids unsupervised? If you need bare bones supervision for your school age children you can get that at the Boys and Girls club and similar programs. Their summer program was around $1 a day per kid when I went.
  - laughfactory 10y ago
    Totally agree. Besides, in many states kids are allowed to supervise younger kids starting somewhere between 9 and 12. I.e., if your oldest is 9 in Utah, you can indeed legally leave them home alone with their siblings.

laughfactory 10y ago

I'm going to disagree with you hear. The list provided is absolutely non-essential. I mean, are you kidding me? To believe otherwise absolutely astonishes me. We think of it as an extravagance if we pay $50/month for our daughter to take a dance class. $200/month maybe, if all the kids are in a single class of some sort, but $2000?! Not happening, even if we could afford it.