The Price of Children

Cebu - While many investors have seen the stock market plunge or maybe lost their money when financial institutions closed shop, here is one investment that could leave you broke, but very rich in many other things.

I got this email from my good friend Moises ‘Loloy’ Soriaga, I also call him Totch or Tuts or something that sounds like that which we actually started calling each other with since many years back in Bacolod City.

Please allow me to share it with you, most especially to my fellow sporting parents, who could probably add a few more lines. I don’t know when Loloy got this, but it’s really something worth reading:

The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 and came up with P5,404,725.00 for a middle income family. Talk about price shock! That doesn’t even touch college tuition.

But P5,404,725.00 isn’t so bad if you break it down. It translates into: P300,262.50 a year, P25,021.88 a month, or P6,255.50 a week. That’s a mere P893.64 a day! Just over P37.23 an hour.

Still, you might think the best financial advice is don’t have children if you want to be “rich.” Actually, it is just the opposite.

What do you get for your P5,404,725.00?

You have naming rights. First, middle, and last, glimpses of God every day, giggles under the covers every night, more love than your heart can hold. Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs, endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies, a hand to hold, usually covered with jelly or chocolate, a partner for blowing bubbles and flying kites, and someone to laugh yourself silly with, no matter what the boss said or how your stocks performed that day.

For P5,404,725.00, you never have to grow up. You get to: finger-paint, carve pumpkins, play hide-and-seek, catch lightning bugs, and never stop believing in Santa Claus.

You have an excuse to: keep reading the Adventures of Piglet and Pooh, watch Saturday morning cartoons, go to Disney movies, and wish on stars.

You get to frame rainbows, hearts, and flowers under refrigerator magnets, have hand prints set in clay for Mother’s Day, and cards with backward letters for Father’s Day.

For a mere P893.64 a day, there is no greater bang for your buck. You get to be a hero just for: retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof, taking the training wheels off a bike, removing a splinter, filling a wading pool, coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and coaching a baseball team that never wins but always gets treated to ice cream regardless.

You get a front row seat in history to witness the: first step, first word, first bra, first date, and first time behind the wheel.

You get to be immortal. You get another branch added to your family tree, and if you’re lucky, a long list of limbs in your obituary called grandchildren and great grandchildren. You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice, communications, and human sexuality that no college can match.

In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there under God. You have all the power to heal a boo-boo, scare away the monsters under the bed, patch a broken heart, police a slumber party, ground them forever, and love them without limits, so one day they will, like you, love without counting the cost. That is quite a deal for the price!

Love & enjoy your children & grandchildren & great-grandchildren! It’s the best investment you’ll make!

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MILESTONES: Two of my cousins are celebrating their birthdays today – Carlo Jann A. Quiñones and Dennis C. Iway.

It is also the birthday of a fellow sporting dad, who was also once an athlete now a shooting aficionado – Jerry Capacio. I won’t tell you his age, but it is like the caliber of a handgun issued to military officers…hehehe.

I wish you all a happy birthday and more power.

By the way, I’d also like to wish Sonia O. Nery, wife of my buddy Vince, a belated happy birthday along with their eldest child, Vinson. I missed your party last weekend. - THE FREEMAN