The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 and came up with $160,140 for a middle income family (without childcare). Talk about sticker shock! That doesn't even touch college tuition.

But $160,140 isn't so bad if you break it down. It translates into $8,896.66 a year, $741.38 a month, or $171.08 a week. That's a mere $24.24 a day! Just over a dollar an hour. Still, you might think the best financial advice says: "Don't have children if you want to be rich." It is just the opposite. What do your get for your $160,140?

  • Naming rights (First, middle, and last!)
  • Glimpses of God every day.
  • Giggles under the covers every night.
  • More love than your heart can hold.
  • Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs.
  • Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies.
  • A hand to hold, usually covered with jam.
  • A partner for: blowing bubbles, flying kites, building sandcastles, skipping down the sidewalk in the pouring rain. Someone to laugh yourself silly with no matter what the boss said or how your stocks performed that day.

    • For $160,140, you never have to grow up. You get to: finger-paint, carve pumpkins, play hide-and-seek, catch lightning bugs.

    You have an excuse to keep: reading the adventures of Piglet and Pooh, watching Saturday morning cartoons, going to Disney movies, wishing on stars.

    You get to frame rainbows, hearts and flowers under refrigerator magnets, collect spray painted noodle wreaths for Christmas, handprints set in clay for Mother's Day cards with backward letters for Father's Day.

    For $160,140, there is no greater bang for your buck. You get to be a hero just for retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof, taking the training wheels off the bike, removing a splinter, filling a wading pool, coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and coaching a baseball team that never wins but always gets treated to ice cream regardless. You get a front row seat to history to witness the first step, first word, first bra, first date, and first time behind the wheel.

    You get to be immortal. You get another branch added to your family tree, and if you're lucky, a long list of limbs in your obituary called grandchildren.

    You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice, communications, and human sexuality that no college can match. In the eyes of a child, you have all the power to heal a boo-boo, scare away the monsters under the bed, patch a broken heart, police a slumber party, ground them forever, and love them without limits, so that one day, they will (like you) love without counting the cost.

    ENJOY YOUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN

    -Dawn Chet finishing up the paperchase for our sweet Maya patiently waiting in Nanjing China, SN cleft lip