A few weeks back I went to NY to hang out with some of my boys and I had a great time but I also had an odd man out, cheese stands alone moment. All of my boys have spouses or significant others and all of them have children; I on the other hand have neither. So my male biological clock had me on some, "why am I on the Tony Randall track to fatherhood?" Thankfully that clock is digital and I can hit snooze as many times as I like so long as my million men keep on marching. At the time though, I can't front, I was quite irritable at feeling like I was chilling with Wilson on Childless Island. Time went on and the feelings subsided and were replaced with rational thought, one which is that I am not in a financial position to take care of a child anyway. Right?
The funny thing is, unless you're coming from some serious old (or new) money, are you ever really in a prime financial position to have children? Probably not. Yet people with little to no money find a way to make it work. This rational train of thought is what comes to mind once the previous snooze has expired. Some recent conversations brought to light that never mind the financial ability, I may lack the financial willingness to have children. A co-worker told me how she pays tuition for her children to go to private school to better prepare them for college. On top of that, one of her children who is about to go away to college still is short the amount of money needed for tuition and she is trying to figure out a way to come up with the difference. Excuse me? The difference? I ain't tryna pay $15k+/year on top of scholarships and grants to pay for tuition. Hell I ain't even paying the $15k/year for them to go to private middle and high school. On top of property taxes??? What part of the game is this? It's called the parenting game and I may very well be too cheap to play. I completely understand the logic behind paying for your children to go to better schools and finish college with as little debt as possible. I put a dab of Vaseline on every check I write for my student loans and enclose a letter that says, "next month will you kiss me first?" Despite all of that, I can't wrap my head around spending all that money on education. LoL, yeah you read that right. It implies that I feel education is not a reasonable expense which isn't the case. Trust I wouldn't take that $15k and put some dubs and spinners on my Sebring but I feel like private schools are a form of prestige that encourages preferential treatment to the affluent as opposed to investing in improving "regular" schools so that everyone who attends can receive a better quality education (I know that makes me sound like a socialist pig).
I own the fact that I am being idealistic and in the real world you do what you gotta do to make sure you give your children every advantage they can possibly have, even if it means sacrificing, scrimping, saving, and selling butt scratchers to pay tuition. And since I don't think I'm quite ready to do that or can't resolve doing it I declare that currently I am in fact too cheap to have children. At this rate it's going to take a Powerball payout for me to even think of stepping into the Parenthood Arena. Thank God for my nieces and nephew...I can afford them. On your way out, hit that snooze button for me, will you? Thankzzzzzzzz......
