Les enfants, signe extérieur de richesse

Vous voulez montrer que vous avez réussi ? Exit la Ferrari.

 Selon le Washington Post, dans les grandes villes et les banlieues riches, avoir un troisième enfant ou plus serait l'ultime signe extérieur de richesse. Quand on voit ce que coute un enfant aux USA, dit le journal, ce n'est pas étonnant. Il faudra dépenser 204 000$ en moyenne par enfant, pour l'élever jusqu'à ses 18 ans (et après ça il faudra aussi payer les études, encore quelques dizaines de milliers de dollars au bas mot)). Et si vous voulez l'envoyer à l'école privée, lui payer des cours de ci et de ça, cela vous coutera encore plus cher bien sur. (Franchement, si vous les Francais qui me lisez voulez avoir trois enfants, je vous conseille de repartir ;0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008...

 Extrait :

It's true that, following in the designer maternity clothes of such fecund celebrities as Posh Spice (three kids) and Angelina Jolie (speculatively six), most of the people going for a third baby are well-heeled moms and their high-salaried husbands. A February analysis of Current Population Survey data by the Council on Contemporary Families found that in the past 10 years, the top-earning 1.3 percent of the population has seen an uptick in families with three or more children. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 12 percent of upper-income women had three children or more in 2002, compared with only 3 percent in 1995.

There's no question that it takes a lot more money to bring up baby nowadays. Many parents would scoff at the Agriculture Department's humble figures. When you get into the nitty-gritty, the price of kids feels more like a million dollars a pop.

Consider raising a single "luxury" child. By luxury, mind you, we're not necessarily talking hedge-fund rich, merely able to afford and "raise right." And the pressure to do that, even if you're not uber-wealthy, has become overwhelming. From the moment the heartbeat blinks across the sonogram screen, Big Baby starts in with its pleading and conniving: I'm your child! How can you spare any expense? Don't you care?

For a couple's every conceivable wish or worry, the parenting industry knows the precise formula of guilt, fear, hope, love and desire that will empty the parental wallet. Rather than fret about spending too much money, most parents these days are consumed by the anxiety of underspending -- the fear that somewhere, some other parent is offering her baby an educational toy or child-development class that will propel the toddler ahead, and that if you skimp, your child risks losing out and falling behind.

So parents quickly adjust to the demanding realities of the child-rearing industry. Baby showers have replaced bridal showers as the blowout du jour; American women today have an average of three. The accompanying baby registries have mushroomed into a $240 million business, according to research firm Mintel International Group. Between diapers and bouncy seats, parents can count on spending at least $6,500 on the first year of baby gear alone. "You walk into Babies R Us, and you're just overwhelmed," recalls Brooke Houghton, a 35-year-old mom from Chicago who said she ran out of the store in panic after 15 minutes. "There was just so much equipment I hadn't even considered."