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Posted: July 13th, 2007 at 1:59am By: Anita Revel
I just got an email claiming the price of raising a child from birth to 18 is calculated at US $160,140 (before university fees, that is, and if you have a girl, before the cost of teen magazines, phone calls, lip gloss, pony club and the annual interior decoration of her bedroom). Obviously this is only an average figure — had the statisticians met my stepdaughter, the amount would have been more like half-a-mill.
Although a family of four kids (or just one stepdaughter such as mine) would equate to a house in Tahoe, when you break down the sticker price of one regular kid, it translates to just over a dollar an hour.
Some corporate junkie has tried justifying the cost. For the one dollar an hour you get things like naming rights, butterfly kisses, Velcro hugs and a heart bursting with love. You also get chocolate-covered car seats, abandoned-toy-induced sprained ankles, the right to join a conspiracy over Santa Claus and a lifetime supply of the word "whyyyyyy" (and "whatever" as she hits her teen years), but consider these advantages and you won't be bothered by them. (Also, don't think about that lost opportunity for a house in Tahoe, and your relationship with your child will flourish.)
If you think I'm sounding cynical, darned right. That's what you get from having an 18-year-old stepdaughter who insists on behaving like a 2-year-old. ("Waggy-wiggy-woo-woooo" — that's my inner 2-year-old responding to her latest tantrum, for the record.)
Well, I was cynical, that is, until along came Dr. Barbara Becker Holstein and her charming book, "The Truth, I'm Ten, I'm Smart and I Know Everything" — a secret diary written in the voice of a 10-year-old girl who is the juxtaposition of wise yet innocent. Her story takes the reader back to what it was like as a girl, and is a must read for those of us who have forgotten how all-consuming a little girl's life really is.
SELF is The Truth of a girl's life. Almost every young girl is all-consumed with her Self, her happiness and getting what she wants.
So what happens to the little girl in all of us when we become adult women? Why do we put up with crappy bosses, bad marriages and stroppy stepdaughters? (Or, as Barbara so eloquently describes it, why do we become "under utilized, under educated, and marginally productive"?) I mean, would your 10-year-old self have been satisfied with second-best, or would she have stomped her feet and demanded that she be put back front and center into the spotlight?
Indeed, this is the question that motivated Barbara to write the diary. "How do we carry the truth from girlhood to adulthood?" she asks. "How do we walk over that bridge into growing up, carrying the Truth? How do we not hide it?"
Behind this very easy read is the psychological message to women "that they can and must recapture the fire and passion of their girlhoods to flourish and be happy," says Barbara.
Otherwise it is too easy to sit around waiting for the handsome prince to rescue us, "rather than awaking ourselves to our own riches: our capacities for joy and fun, to create, study, invent, innovate, lead, recover, re-invent, feel, love, discover and share."
I guess what Barbara is saying, is that if we could position ourselves as the stars of our own lives, just as we did as 10-year-olds, then it would be easy to shine on in our adult lives.
The key is to return to a state of innocence and fun, just like the protagonist in Barbara's story. Take the time she discovers packets of rubber tubes in her father's night table:
You have to unravel them really carefully and then you can fill them with liquid, just like test tubes. I went into the kitchen and put sugar and water in one of them, salt and cinnamon in another, oil and pepper in a third, and cleaning powder and water in the last. I had fun shaking them. I pretended I was a scientist. I hope my parents won't mind that I opened all four of them.
Oh wow, I laughed out loud when I read this. It reminded me of my own Boy Wonderful at the same age. While we were driving one day, he asked me casually, "Mum, why don't you and Gavin have any babies yet?"
I was a little surprised, because the question came out of the blue.
"Because Gavin's had a vasectomy!" I replied.
"Oh right," he nodded. Then, "So that's why I didn't find any condoms in your bedside drawers."
Now THIS was a statement that nearly gave me apoplexy. "What does an 11-year-old want with condoms anyway?!!!" I screamed.
This is the short version of the story. (For the rest of the story, visit Barbara's blog.) But it is enough to remind me that while my Boy Wonderful has probably cost me less than the average $160K, in my eyes he's worth a million-gadzillion dollars.
— — —
Anita Ryan-Revel is the creatrix of Goddess.com.au, a content-rich website aimed at helping you connect with your beautiful, sassy, intuitive, lovable, sacred and authentic self. She has incorporated her journey into hundreds of articles, countless websites and numerous books, one of which is "The Goddess Guide to Chakra Vitality." You can read more of her columns here. © copyright 2007 by Anita Ryan-Revel.
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I just got an email claiming the price of raising a child from birth to 18 is calculated at US $160,140 (before university fees, that is, and if you have a girl, before the cost of teen magazines, phone calls, lip gloss, pony club and the annual interior decoration of her bedroom). Obviously this is only an average figure — had the statisticians met my stepdaughter, the amount would have been more like half-a-mill.
Although a family of four kids (or just one stepdaughter such as mine) would equate to a house in Tahoe, when you break down the sticker price of one regular kid, it translates to just over a dollar an hour.
Some corporate junkie has tried justifying the cost. For the one dollar an hour you get things like naming rights, butterfly kisses, Velcro hugs and a heart bursting with love. You also get chocolate-covered car seats, abandoned-toy-induced sprained ankles, the right to join a conspiracy over Santa Claus and a lifetime supply of the word "whyyyyyy" (and "whatever" as she hits her teen years), but consider these advantages and you won't be bothered by them. (Also, don't think about that lost opportunity for a house in Tahoe, and your relationship with your child will flourish.)
If you think I'm sounding cynical, darned right. That's what you get from having an 18-year-old stepdaughter who insists on behaving like a 2-year-old. ("Waggy-wiggy-woo-woooo" — that's my inner 2-year-old responding to her latest tantrum, for the record.)
Well, I was cynical, that is, until along came Dr. Barbara Becker Holstein and her charming book, "The Truth, I'm Ten, I'm Smart and I Know Everything" — a secret diary written in the voice of a 10-year-old girl who is the juxtaposition of wise yet innocent. Her story takes the reader back to what it was like as a girl, and is a must read for those of us who have forgotten how all-consuming a little girl's life really is.
SELF is The Truth of a girl's life. Almost every young girl is all-consumed with her Self, her happiness and getting what she wants.
So what happens to the little girl in all of us when we become adult women? Why do we put up with crappy bosses, bad marriages and stroppy stepdaughters? (Or, as Barbara so eloquently describes it, why do we become "under utilized, under educated, and marginally productive"?) I mean, would your 10-year-old self have been satisfied with second-best, or would she have stomped her feet and demanded that she be put back front and center into the spotlight?
Indeed, this is the question that motivated Barbara to write the diary. "How do we carry the truth from girlhood to adulthood?" she asks. "How do we walk over that bridge into growing up, carrying the Truth? How do we not hide it?"
Behind this very easy read is the psychological message to women "that they can and must recapture the fire and passion of their girlhoods to flourish and be happy," says Barbara.
Otherwise it is too easy to sit around waiting for the handsome prince to rescue us, "rather than awaking ourselves to our own riches: our capacities for joy and fun, to create, study, invent, innovate, lead, recover, re-invent, feel, love, discover and share."
I guess what Barbara is saying, is that if we could position ourselves as the stars of our own lives, just as we did as 10-year-olds, then it would be easy to shine on in our adult lives.
The key is to return to a state of innocence and fun, just like the protagonist in Barbara's story. Take the time she discovers packets of rubber tubes in her father's night table:
You have to unravel them really carefully and then you can fill them with liquid, just like test tubes. I went into the kitchen and put sugar and water in one of them, salt and cinnamon in another, oil and pepper in a third, and cleaning powder and water in the last. I had fun shaking them. I pretended I was a scientist. I hope my parents won't mind that I opened all four of them.
Oh wow, I laughed out loud when I read this. It reminded me of my own Boy Wonderful at the same age. While we were driving one day, he asked me casually, "Mum, why don't you and Gavin have any babies yet?"
I was a little surprised, because the question came out of the blue.
"Because Gavin's had a vasectomy!" I replied.
"Oh right," he nodded. Then, "So that's why I didn't find any condoms in your bedside drawers."
Now THIS was a statement that nearly gave me apoplexy. "What does an 11-year-old want with condoms anyway?!!!" I screamed.
This is the short version of the story. (For the rest of the story, visit Barbara's blog.) But it is enough to remind me that while my Boy Wonderful has probably cost me less than the average $160K, in my eyes he's worth a million-gadzillion dollars.
— — —
Anita Ryan-Revel is the creatrix of Goddess.com.au, a content-rich website aimed at helping you connect with your beautiful, sassy, intuitive, lovable, sacred and authentic self. She has incorporated her journey into hundreds of articles, countless websites and numerous books, one of which is "The Goddess Guide to Chakra Vitality." You can read more of her columns here. © copyright 2007 by Anita Ryan-Revel.
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