Our new babies' future
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he British clergyman Father Ronald Knox described babies as, "A loud noise at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other."
That's about right, as far as it goes. But as those of use who are parents know, it gets a lot better -- and a lot more complex -- as time goes on. We were put in mind of Knox's description recently while reading Standard-Examiner reporter Tim Gurrister's interesting rumination on New Year's babies, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture prediction that it will cost a family between $180,000 and $270,000 to get that child to age 17.
Not only loud, but expensive too.
For example, a family with an annual income of $70,000 will spend $39,570 alone on food for that one child. It will cost $12,810 to put clothes on their back. And the health care tab will be $15,870. It's a good thing those costs come in bite-sized chunks; otherwise, parents might decide to cut back some on the kiddie output.
Or not. We don't know about you, but we wouldn't trade our children in if we could get the money back. Would you? (Didn't think so.)
Gurrister's story offered plenty of hope in addition to the dollar amounts. He noted that babies born this year can expect to live to ripe old ages, on average: 75.2 years for males and 80.4 years for females.
But more of them will be fatter, just as we're fatter than our parents, and they are/were fatter than theirs.
There'll be more of us, too -- Americans, that is: 314 million by 2010, and 500 million by 2047, when, as Gurrister noted, 2008's New Year's babies will be 39.
We wandered over to the Census Bureau's Web site and poked around a little, too. In 2010, the feds predict 31.6 percent of Utah's population will be age 18 and under. (Texas is next, with 27.5 percent under the age of 18.) Fast forward 20 years after that, to 2030, and Uncle Sam says the situation won't have changed much, since Utah will still have 30.4 percent of its population under the age of 18. In other words, building new schools and refurbishing the old ones will still be a hot industry.
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