$190,980

No this isn't my salary! It's the number, I read in this article in USA Today, that represents what it cost a middle-income family to raise a child from birth to age 18. According to the research, the bulk of these expenses came during the pre-teen and teenage years!

YIKES! This article is packed full of useful statistics, great ideas, and I think lays out some of the challenges that parents are facing today as they decide what to pay for and what not to pay for when it comes to their kids.

Here are a couple of highlights for me. First, I just realized as I was reading this article that I am not proactively teaching my boys about money. In fact, I can't remember any conversations surrounding money and its uses! That's going to change starting this week.

Second, this article really helped me realize all of the expenses the families in our student ministry have with their teens. I want to make sure that what we do isn't sucking the life out of our families financially.

Finally, I am realizing that my wife is going to have to start working more when our kids get older!