How much does it cost to have kids?

Biggest cost I believe is losing income of wife to stay home and raise a child. Matternity leave and govermnent support for family is inadequate. Our population is decreasing in Canada and government is doing nothing to stimulate (no pun intended) births. After having 2 kids its a no brainer...the wife/father should stay home watch both kids cause daycare alone is about 1500+ for 2 kids. Working full time and for an extra couple of hundred dollars and being away from your kids and at the same time pay someone else to raise them is just doesnt make sense. The goverment neeeds to step up and invest in families....they will more than make up in tax money when they start working. Better programs for parents should be in place to be able to raise families. There are some great companies that allow mothers to work from home till the kids are of preschool age. Its prove fact parents that are home with kids do better and have less social problems than other kids. Sorry to go off topic a bit but it just bothers me that we would rather allow imigrants to the gap of our kids. Many countries have much better parental benefits than we do. Most of Europe. Germany 3 yrs matternity leave. Romania 2 years of sallary paid. Sweden Year for each parent full salary. Canada 1 yr 55% of salary to a max of 1600$ before taxes. My belief is that the biggest expense is losing an income to take care o kids. Also dont mean to offend anyone but here in Canada and North America in general it just seems that having kids and family is just uncool. Mocked on pretty much every TV show and movie out there. I for one love to be married and having kids is a great thing maybe not for everybody but I think it would be for most people. You cant put a price tag on kids. Soon maybe will be calculating the foot print of each baby :).

Sure we don`t see the most money and time for maternity leave, but how many countries get nothing. We have it very well in Canada. Until a person goes to a third world, or developing country they may not realize this. Its all about balance. If the government decides to give more maternity benefits then they will have to take it away from something else. If you really can`t afford to care for your kids you could pass up the larger flat screen tv, or even your trip to mexico. Us Canadians are very greedy. We always want more of everything and are never content with what we have

Morris

Adrian has the right idea...as for Morris visit a third world country...how many kids do you see per family? 5 or more, they know they can't feed them. We see the government bridging the gap for our lack of children with immigrants. Look at the most ethnically diverse cities in Canada and then look at the crime statistics, murder, violence etc. We all pay for the extra Police needed, infrastructure, medical, schools, ESL. Vancouver British Columbia is begging for 400+ more cops...how come? Who pays for that. It seems we get punished for having children in this country. My TV is 10 years old, our family has one vehicle, we haven't left the country since I myself was a child...back then a family only needed one breadwinner, could buy a home, afford holidays and have a parent stay home and raise the kids. Are we greedy for wanting what the past generation had? Are we bad because we aren't a third world country? Why is a third world country a third world country anyway? Some can grow crops all year long, some don't need to pay for heat, hell some take in TRILLIONS of dollars every year by selling US thier OIL. Yet Morris calls Canadians Greedy, we work hard, we are one of the hardest working nations in the world, we made the country what it is and working class families are paying for everyone else.

The costs stipulated are absurd.
I'm an upper middle class income earner with 2 children.
Problem is it merely duistrubutes total fixed costs (housing, transport etc) over the enitre family
30% for housing? My mortgage didn't increase by one nickel for either child. Even if you have to buy a larger house for a child, an additional room does not justify dumping 30% of the cost onto the child. A more logical approach would be to alocate cost based the cost of the square footage of the additional room.
I need to drive whether i have children or not and the type of car I use/ buy has not changed since my children have arrived.
Hence the overall costs are way off
The largest cost for children: food, clothing & amenenties and even these numbers are badly skewed. 500.00 a month for food for a 1 yr child? are they eating hand delivered designer baby food?
People should stop publishing these types of negative articles. All they do is scare more people away from having children based on skewed information. I hope you read this Gordon.

I disagree with Morris in that we Canadians are a greedy lot. What I think has happened is that a lot of "family" virtues just aren't there anymore. Most young people who are about to get married/are married want it all at once - the big fancy wedding, the new car, the house, etc, as well as the big screen tv, cell phones - the list goes on and on. AND IT ALL COSTS MONEY!!! In my day if we wanted something bad enough we WORKED for it, SAVED up for it - but not at the cost of not having children. Yes, it does cost a lot to have and raise children, but certainly not the costs stipulated, as Dman points out. Having said that, I believe it is the PARENTS' fault for buying their children all the latest gadgets, big ticket items, designer clothes, etc, and I think they do this because they, as working parents, feel guilty about not "being there at home" for their kids. My hubby and I raised 3 - 2 girls and a boy and for a great part of their lives, I worked as a secretary. We have been married 43 yrs and have NEVER had a vacation to Disneyworld nor anywhere else outside Canada. Our family vacations consisted of driving to PEI or NB, where we were born and raised and visit with our familes at little cost - no cost for where we stayed but always bought groceries. We would go to the beach, on picnics or small day trips to see the sights. Not much is it, but we and our children enjoyed it as it afforded us all a break to our regular living routine. We bought our kids what we could AFFORD, not based on what "all the other kids" had or were wearing. Not the way it is today I am sorry to say. So in the end, it boils down to it being our fault as parents, trying to make up for (1) what we never had; (2) not being there for them; (3) just plain indulging regardless of how much in debt it leaves the parents. Why private schools, what's wrong with our public school system? But, I guess if you are rich enough and snooty enough, the private schools are where your kids go. All our kids were educated in public schools and, with a bit of help from us, put themselves through college, university. We passed on to them our family values and they are now passing them on to their children. If you don't care enough to enquire where they are going and set curfew hours, teach them not to lie, cheat or steal, to respect others and their property, to care about others in need and help wherever they can - then yes, you will have the "gangs", the shootings, and everything else that goes with it. So I don't think it's so much a question of being able to AFFORD to have children - it also goes hand-in-hand on how you RAISE them.

Ask yourself this:
When you are laying in your deathbed, who would you like to be surrounded by?
Also,
No one ever said while they were dying, "I wish I had spent more time at the office".

I agree with Adrian, we should get more help raising are kids, i'm staying at home with mine, and in return my husband has to work very hard, we can't aford to do anything esle but the rent, bills, food, and what ever else we need, no vacation or nothing, and than to say canadians are greedy were not all rich to be greedy, we can only go from week tweek to see what we can afford to buy.

Raising kids is not cheap, but to paraphrase the mastercard commercial - Raising 2 sons to be well adjusted self reliant adults? - PRICELESS.

I am in my mid 20's and At the moment I do not want to have children, one my spouse is unemployed got laid off a few months back looking for work, and I am part time at a local college, two I don't feel ready to have children but who ever is or was ready, three we are trying to see if we can get a home. but to do this I would have to get full time at my work and my spouse would have to get herself a decent job. Right now that's our plans for when we are thinking of getting children, the home may come later, but a lot of my friends rent places and they seem to move alot, same with my parents, we didn't have much, only till I hit about 10 years old that we started becoming middle class family. I guess in a way I am scared to go through what my parents went through to raise us. my dad Working from 6 am to almost 9-10pm almost everyday, my mom raising us. But the bright side my parents lifes seem to have gotten better as we got a little older, seems like most parents lifes are that way.

Do I thnk my parents regret having children? Not at all, they love having us around, they are proud of the lives we made for ourselves. I think most people should have children because, it seems like a wonderful feeling watching them grow up to be what you hope will be respectful adults, and I have to agree that you don't have to spend tons of money on your children, my parents never really did, they gave us nintendo's when they came out and always had healthy home cooked meals, and they raised us to be good people. they tought us that nothing is free, to work towards your goals don't expect them to be handed to you, respect other people and yourself, pretty much everything I am today is because of my parents' encouragement and love.

Also, the stats are probably high do to the small %age of people who make tons of money and spend 100s of thousands of dollars like people said Private schools, top of the line equipment, Toys like boats, atv, snowmobiles, cars, additions to there homes, probably take out food, and expensive name brand clothing for their children.

Seems we have some very wise people in this discussion.
I agree with most people that this article is ridiculous, starting with the Title. It should read "How much are you willing to sacrifice in order to have kids", and i use the term "sacrifice" very loosely here, since it's really relative.
My wife stopped working when my son was born 7 years ago. We now have a girl as well. We're not going to DisneyWorld or Cuba anytime soon, and I don't have a big screen TV.
We also see the difference in children's behaviors compared to other kids with working parents, even in the family.
I wish we had a government with enough balls to truely invest in the Family, instead of being hypocritical about it. In QC, Daycares get 50$/day/child. If the government would invest this in families instead of the black-holes of daycare, a family like mine would get 2k$/month for "raising" their kids.
Sure people are superficial and greedy, so it wouldn't change anything for most of them. They would still pay for daycare, cause they prefer working, making more money, comparing goods with co-workers and friends, and seeing their kids during the holidays in Puerto Plata. The Gov. is counting on this to make money from Income Tax.
But maybe for 15% of the people, they could now afford to have a parent stay at home, and teach their kids respect, understanding, and give them the love & discipline they need to become balanced adults. Here's where the Gov. would save big bucks (prisons, rehab, policing, etc.) and they don't realize it. Or maybe they just don't have the guts to invest in this "Long Term" project. When you're in the seat for 4 years and are only looking to get re-alected, why would even propose something like this...

My wife and i work full time. We have good jobs, but are not rich. We seem to get by rather well, even though we have 5 kids and one on the way. We have a fairly large house, haggled out a great deal. Two vehicals, a van and an suv, both awesome deals(not brand new). I have a good computer, but not the great one i want. I have a good big screen tv, but not the great lcd i want.
I don't scrimp on the kids, but the lavish items i could buy for myself will just have to wait.
People have to learn to make priorities clear.

To super daddy....you are brave to admit you both have full time jobs. Apparently to read most of the replies here, you have doomed your children because only families with stay at home parents can do a good job of raising their kids. No fear. It is possible for both parents to work and to have well adjusted - aka GOOD kids. I had mine back in the day of only 15 wks paid mat leave. I paid a heck of a lot in child care, but the end result is my kids turned out very well thank you and the money I paid in child care was an investment to ensure I kept a good job, seniority and pension for the years that the children are no longer requiring full time supervision. Now they don't have to look after me in my declining years. Fait Accompli!

I really agree with Super-Daddy.... I have 2 small children (20 months and 3 weeks old) and we are planning on having more. My husband and I met when I was 28 and he was 32... we both owned houses and had no debt (cars were paid off, etc)

We now own a 4 bedroom house, we still have no debt, and our children are well provided for. Did I mention that we are now a one income family? We can do it because we plan, and because everything we have we worked hard to get. We didn't get married and then decide to get it all immediately. It took us both over 10 years pre-marriage to acheive what we have.

I also agree that the government should do more to encourage Canadians to have kids as opposed to bringing in immigrants to help with population growth. I know several people that would love to stay at home with their kids if they were able to financially, but they can't so they work full-time to make an extra $400-$500 after daycare costs to watch their children being raised by strangers.