Kids Is Expensive

For a significant portion of my life, I believe my father, at least, saw me in part as a way to vacuum money from his pocket. I broke a leg, I needed braces, I took allergy shots for nine years, etc., etc.

But I had nothing on Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes fame, whom this writer estimated cost his parents better than $1,800 a month in various damages and associated expenses.

As is noted, though, in the strip reproduced at the end of the article, there were a number of counter-balancing influences to those costs. Which is the only part of my raising I ever heard about from my folks, anyway, and is the only part my dad seems to remember now when he talks about those days.

That'll do.