Chris Herrington, Contributing Writer
Adults fail to remember the track we are on, that is that in our economy the number one agent of personal economic change is our selling our niche item to more people, regardless of age, including kids. Now, that does not mean that parents are bound by some law of thermodynamics to buy all these new games, toys, and iconically related action figures, but it does seem necessary that children have more than a passive knowledge of today’s display of ritual-cultural and pop culture figures and allusions.
Okay, maybe a child does not need at least one Spiderman related object. Or Batman, or Superman, or Star Wars, or Star Trek, or The Walking Dead, or The Big Bang Theory….or whatever may be the modern version of Spin and Marty, Nancy Drew, Howdy Duty, Bugs Bunny, or Leave It to Beaver. My generation would certainly do alright if they had never heard of Dick Van Dyke, Lucille Ball, Jack Benny, Johnny Carson, Milton Burl, Steve Allen, Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, or Elvis.
And the music these kids listen to. Have you ever sat down and listened to this stuff? I mean, with the Internet, you can download the lyrics and put them side by side the music as you listen to it. Most parents would be totally outraged to do just that. Louie Louie move over. It’s not just Tool, System of a Down, or Marilyn Manson, and we can’t blame rap and hip hop with the driving beats and heat wave lyrics. I mean, adults are the ones making the music and selling it to these kids, and then we invented home studio machines that allow them to make samples, pulling beat and samples from the airwaves and Internet so that they can create their own music and write their own lyrics and then turn into Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, or Avril Lavigne. I mean, God forbid your kid should have $2,000 worth of audio equipment and end up being a music giant, creating an online game worth millions, or learn to take photographs from the Internet and then end up working for National Geographic.
On a worldwide average, we can see that the average person makes around $600 per year, and if you divvy that up, and pair down for expenses and inflation, maybe the average kid on the planet gets about $0.40 a day for food, water, clothing, shelter, and cultural education that might lead to an interdependent understanding of his place in the universe on a molecular and spiritual level. You too can sponsor a child for just 40 cents a day. In the United States, the national average is somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 a month for child support. That is 500/30 = $16.67 a day: food, water, electricity, gasoline, clothing, entertainment, and all the stuff that goes with not being so out of it that the other junior high kids kick your pants with you in them. All of those costs vary from day to day. In a storm they go up. On perfectly wonderful sunny days like Sunday in June, it might be lower if you don’t leave the house and no one is getting married.
But, if you want a chance in the world that your child will be able to create intellectual property, something that will pay a residual check for life, then this kid is going to need to look deep into his or her soul and figure out how things tick and what it takes to become a fully integrated human being able to meet his or her own needs and the needs of others for generations to come. None of us want anyone to be economically struggling, especially our own kids. We need to prime that pump and take them to places that will inspire their imaginations, and we need to feed their senses and interests as often and as fully as we possibly can.
It’s true that this need not cost an arm and a leg. A smart phone is the first step, and they are expensive, but they provide a walking library of cultural activities and inlets. Yes, they are powerful and need to be used responsibly. They provide instant access to billions of links and waves of information on every topic and act as extra senses on many levels. There are apps all the time that we would have died for when we were kids. Move over Dick Tracy.
One last thing I want to say about this problem of child rearing costs. It increases by the day. It has to. By the time this kid walks out the door of your house, he is going to need $2,500 a month to live in any big city. That’s $83 a day. How do we make the leap from $16.67 a day to $83 a day? It comes in the form of a pay check. We go from making mom and dad split what they have been able to scrimp and save to our making our own $15 an hour. Or, we live with friends and share and learn to do without and we go out into the world and we see how tough it is to get back to the stage we were just in when we were in a home that provided us every opportunity to go out into the world and earn it for ourselves.
Kids are expensive, and theirs are going to cost even more. You do what you can, and then you send them out. But as much as possible, don’t short change them in order to give them a Mc Education and childhood experience. In the 1930’s we got along on hardly anything, but then we lived through the Depression. Engage your kids on every level and challenge them to think big. It will cost today’s child 5.5 million dollars to retire. Think: 80% of all money that is spent on higher education is spent at the top 20% of all colleges. What is it that the rich know that we just flat do not understand? The more you put into a kid, the more you get out. Raise responsible kids that are well rounded, have a sense of themselves, and who understand the value of every dollar they help you to spend. And then go at it.
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