Family, Self

WHOA: This Is How Much It Costs To Offset The Stress Of Having Kids

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The Stress Of Having Kids Costs

Many of us throw around the word "selfish" when someone says they don't want kids. But believe it or not, there's a long list of cons that come with having a "little bundle of joy" — sleepless nights, terrible teenage years, and huge expenses, to name a few.

But science has finally broken down the stress of having a baby in a way we understand: money.

Economists published a paper called "The Stress Cost of Children" and found that compensation for a parent's additional stress of having one kid would be $66,000.

The paper came to this conclusion after looking at studies of 7,000 married couples from Australia and Germany. They determined that parents are more stressed than others, especially mothers.

"Parents' self-reported feelings of financial stress increase little after having a child. But time stress — or how overwhelmed and rushed parents feel — jumps enormously, especially for mothers, and it lasts several years," explains co-author of the study, Daniel Hamermesh.

"Translating that time stress into dollar figures shows that having a child produces a significant burden — on top of the $245,340 in food, housing, education and other costs that the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that it takes to raise a kid."

Yikes, that's a lot of stress. However, the study focuses more on new parents of little ones who need a lot more attention. It also touches a little about how kids affect you later in life.

"While the departure of a child from the home reduces parents' time stress, its negative impacts on the tightness of the time constraints are much smaller than the positive impacts of a birth," write the authors of the study.

It's no wonder that some people don't want to have children. Sure, parenting can be a great joy for parents, especially those who genuinely love children and wish to start a family, but at what cost?

All we need now a study that compares the happiness of having a child, but having an environment with less stress (if that's even possible).