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Originally Posted by willx
^ Sounds like you had a decent childhood and the grandparents help/support during a time of crisis is fantastic. I actually grew up in an incredibly impoverished household and was an only child, so I'm not even sure how much I personally "cost to raise" ..
Anecdotally, one of my affluent colleagues has two boys and his costs right now include $35K a year on private school. This doesn't include hockey gear and other extracurricular costs. Obviously children of higher income individuals cost more to raise..
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My family is a good one, yes.
As for the higher income individuals spending so much on their kids, I think it's perfectly possible to raise kids well without all those bells and whistles. Though Private education is often of a high quality, the deficiencies in public education can easily be overcome by living in the right place and spending sufficient time with the kids. I learnt more at home then I did in school, because of the quality of my home environment.
I think a lot of people spend a lot of money in order to make up for the lack of time they spend with their kids. I think a lot of wealthy middle class parents over budget their kids time with tutoring, soccer practice and musical instrument lessons, all the while they spend all day at work and never have any contact with them. Parenthood doesn't get enough respect these days. You can't buy good parenting. Some of the best parents are the poorest, and some of the worst are extremely wealthy.
That said, you do need to have sufficient money to feed them a good diet, and provide them access to books and a computer. The rest is unnecessary, though nice if you can have it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sumeragi
KiraYamatoFan, you've missed the most important cost: That of education. If anything, that single cost weights everything else down. It might be you're used to your region's relatively "cheap" educational costs. That's not the case in Japan or Korea.
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I was under the impression that education in Japan is publicly funded?
Though people do spend ridiculous sums on cram schools. I think it's a bit foolish. For one thing, I suspect that the traditional "college" path to prosperity no longer functions as it used to in Japan anyway. The competitiveness is in the wrong place. Rather then being competitive in education, people should be pushing themselves to be more competitive in their entrepreneurship.