“It’s gotten increasingly popular on the internet to super exaggerate the cost of raising a kid. All those posts were a huge influence on me when I was pregnant. I even cried several times, feeling so much anxiety, like my life was over. I was going to be in poverty now.
My little Peanut is 18 months old now. If she really a gold-devouring beast? Not at all.
Necessities: It’s really just formula and diapers. I only fed Peanut for a month since she was born. I use New Zealand’s A2 formula, 200 RMB per can, 900 grams per can. At the height of her appetite, she went through a can every 8 days, 800 RMB per month. For diapers, I’d buy it second hand from Chinese craigslist. It’s the diapers that other people never got around to using because their kid grew too fast. It’s an average of 1 RMB per diaper. At the height of her diaper use, it’s still less than 10 RMB a day.
So bare necessities add up to 800+300 = 1100. It’s not like what people are saying on the internet, that just diapers cost 3K a month.
2. Clothing: I have yet to have an opportunity to buy clothes for Peanut, because I’ve gotten way too much second hand clothes from all my relatives and friends. Babies grow super fast. A lot of clothes get too small before they’re even worn once. Thankfully, Peanut has a cousin. Every month, I have to sort through her clothes and pack up what she can’t wear anymore for her cousin.
So clothing costs are 0 for now.
3. Toys: God, please, anyone who’s had a kid knows that their favorite toys are brooms, buckets, TV remotes, tissues…all the actual proper toys you buy, they’ll barely look at them. My understanding is that children naturally want to imitate adults. They’re the most interested in whatever adults use every day. For example, Peanut’s favorite toy is tea cups, because we drink tea every afternoon in my house. She has her own cup and she gets to drink along with the adults, and she’s super happy about it.
Average cost of toys per month is low two-figures.
4. Vaccines: Some have to be paid for out of pocket, others are free. I’ve spent a couple grand so far, but that’s money well spent.
Insurance: A little over a grand per year.
5. Education: At the current stage, my philosophy is to not interfere with how my kid explores the world on her own. I haven’t signed her up for any early tutoring classes. Every weekend, I take her out to nature to run free, and climb trees and swim with other kids. Being close to nature is a big need of mine. Even without a kid, I’d go camping every week. So this cost can’t be counted as a cost of raising kids.
6. Nutritional Supplements: The only thing doctors recommended is Vitamin D3. Chinese-made vitamins are super cheap. I don’t buy anything else. She drink a little pedialyte sometimes, and eats some probiotics, noting else. As far as skin care, I just use a big jar of Cetaphil to go over her whole body. It’s doctor recommended too, and a big jar lasts forever.
Every month, it’s an average of a little over 100 RMB.
I can’t think of anything else that costs money. Even without kids, I would need to travel, to eat out, to eat. I can’t count that money on the kid.
Before I gave birth, Li Xue (famous childcare blogger) said that “every child is born with their own starter fund”. From the shallowest understanding, the red pockets I’ve received for Peanut’s birth has far exceeded my expenses so far.
When I got married, I didn’t hold a ceremony, because I didn’t understand the purpose of exchanging red pockets back and forth. What’s the point in it? When Peanut was born, and I received all these red pockets from my friends and family, I could just lay flat for a whole year, don’t worry about a job, and focus on my kid.
At that moment, I understood the wisdom of our traditions. The energy of money is the energy of love. Now they’ve collected in my hands, and formed the most solid of comfort for me. When my friends and family need it in the future, I’ll pay this same love back just as generously.
All my rebelliousness and stubbornness vanished overnight. I’ve got family. I’ve got good friends. Humans are social animals. We can support each other.
This article doesn’t fit in with the single, child-free trend lately. Maybe I’ll get trolled a lot, but I hope people have an opportunity to hear a different voice.”
Comments say, “Babies aren’t a matter of money to me, it’s a matter of energy and stamina. They’re a mental torture to me.”
“I think that the material side of things is the easiest to fulfill. All the other aspects, like energy, love, is a lot harder. You can earn money, but you can’t fill up on everything else. Whenever my husband goes on and on about how much he does for our baby, I say, “With or without a baby, you’d have to go to work anyways. And it’s already late by the time you get off of work. Aside from taking the kid to school and buying some stuff for him occasionally, the only thing you ever do is let him play with an iPad. Have you ever once played with him?” And he can never find a reply for me.”
“I’ve bought Aptamil from Sam’s Club, and it’s only a little over 200 RMB per can. Nutrilon is imported from the Netherlands and it’s only a little over 100 RMB per can.”
A tiktok video of the flooding situation in Fujian, Fuzhou. The original news article says, “Sudden downpours has caused a rapid rise in water levels in Fujian, Fuzhou, with some areas like Mawei suffering from landslides and flooding. A citizen saw a refrigerator filled with ice cream float past her window, with her child demanding that they be allowed some ice cream. Local citizen Ms Hu says, “Due to the typhoon, a lot of families in Mawei has suffered damages, a lot of refrigerators, furniture, and cars have been swept away or destroyed. But everyone is keeping optimistic. So long as people are okay, everything will be fine at the end of the day.”
Comments say, “The local convenience store owner’s heart is bleeding.”
“Let them eat. Just throw whatever the cost is into the fridge in cash. It’s time to test your integrity.”
“What can you be, other than optimistic? Can you make the typhoon turn around by being pessimistic? Or crying a little? I’m waking up early every morning to look at the trees. When you’ve seen enough, you’ll be optimistic too. Don’t act like it’s the end of the world.”
A screenshot of a conversation, that goes:
A: “Sweetie, I’ve discovered something super interesting. If you split a surname apart, and use both halves as the name, you’ll get a really nice-sounding name.”
B: “Like?”
A: “My surname is Li (李), so I could be called Li Muzi (李木子). There’s also 唐广君 (Tang Guangjun) 林木木 (Lin Mumu), 何可人 (He Keren), 崔山佳 (Cui Shanjia).”
B: “What else?”
Comments say, “史入口? (Shi Rukou - sounds exactly the same as “eating shit”)”
“What if your surname is 昆 (Kun)?” [The two parts of 昆 is 日比, which sounds like “fucking pussy”)
”吕口口 [Doge]” (Lv Koukou - 口 means mouth, but it also resembles the blank boxes your writing gets replaced by if there are sensitive censored terms in it.)
“My classmate says I’m really stingy and a penny pincher, and I almost cried. I’m a financial aid student (贫困生 - a student in poverty, a label that can get you a scholarship and stipend—apparently, there’s no such word in English?) in sophomore year. My tuition comes from a student loan. My food money comes from work I do over summer and winter break, and part-time work while I’m in school. Because I’m poor, I often take advantage of people. Like, when I buy thing online, I’ll look for a coupon first before buying. And when I eat at the cafeteria, I’ll put a lot of thought into what’s the most amount of food I can get for my money. I always calculate super hard when it comes to spending money, because I’m worried about wasting money. I’m worried I won’t have enough to live on. I’m constantly worried about where food is going to come from tomorrow.
After I got done eating dinner with my classmates, we were chatting, and my friend says that I’m really stingy, that I’m obsessed over tiny things. I almost cried when I heard that. It’s all because of my family’s economic situation that I behave this way. I never thought that my taking advantage would cause them to think ill of me.”
Comments say, “Isn’t it normal to use coupons? I use Pinduoduo (wholesale website known for being cheap) all the time. By the way, does anyone know any bloggers recommending coupons? I really need it lately.”
“Dude, you’re not taking advantage. You’re just normally budgeting. Taking advantage would be, like, not spending any money at all and just using other people’s stuff for free.”
“If you were my classmate, you would be my god. You can teach me all your money-saving tricks.”
“My month-sitting nurse keeps letting the baby sleep on top of her. What do I do? Picture attached below. I just fired a lazy month-sitting nurse, and got the agency to introduce me a new one. She’s super hard-working, cooks different dishes every meal, and cares about the baby a lot. But every time, she lets the baby sleep on top of her for over half an hour at a time. At night, she lets the baby sleep like this for an hour or two before putting her down, or maybe even longer. She can sleep herself in this position too. Sometimes, I’ll tell her to put the baby down, and she won’t do it, saying that the baby isn’t deep asleep yet.
But I’m super anxious. I don’t know how to get in this position myself comfortably. I’m studying how she’s doing it every day, but I only vaguely have a concept. The baby only likes her right now. Once she leaves, I’m going to be in a pile of shit.
Just asking other mother, do two-month-old babies really need to be held this long? After every feeding, she burps the baby, and then lets the baby sleep on top of her. She barely puts the baby down all day long. Anyone got any advice?”
Comments say, “It’s hard for her too. My two-month-old baby slept on top of daddy all the time too, because of colic.”
“Two-month-olds are like this, yes.”
“My two-month-old sleeps like this too. It gets better when she turns three months.”
A tiktok video of a man in Guangdong, showing off his carefree little fat gold fish. Commenters are exclaiming, “Wow, I woke up too fast today. How am I seeing a litter of pigs swimming around? And other comments are sighing, “Looks like swimming really doesn’t help you lose weight after all.”
Comments say, “Oh my god! So many ponyos!”
“If these little cuties were in the south, they would be dead from heatstroke already.”
“At first glance, they look like shrimp meatballs XD”
Under an instagram post complaining, “A new record broken—went through a big can of formula in three and a half days.” Is a compilation of comments.
“I can’t imagine how much better my life would be if this 5-6K spent on formula every month could be spent on me.”
“Oh my god, I’m single and child-free, and I thought a can of formula would last at least a week.”
“Oh wow, so “making money off of formula” isn’t just a saying!!” [A Chinese saying similar to “taking candy from a baby”]
“No wonder your chest gets flat and droopy from breastfeeding! With this appetite, you’re lucky that baby doesn’t eat you!”
“Giving heart attacks to random naive uni students.”
“Help! How is it so expensive to have a baby?”
“I just saw a post the other day about the benefits of breastfeeding, and they listed being able to save money on formula. What manipulative cheapsakes men are.”
“Dogs are so much easier to take care of.”
“I finally understand how some men can say that a menstrual pad will last all day. I thought this can would last half a year.”
“When I went with my ex-boyfriend to the supermarket, I went out of my way to show him how expensive formula is. And I was like, “With formula at these prices, how can you even consider asking me to have kids?” And he told me that we can just breastfeed. >: (“
“I’ll do a little PSA on what the average family spends on babies. If you’re purely breastfeeding, you gotta prepare about four visits to the lactation specialist to clear blocked ducts, costing about 300 RMB each time. Normal diapers cost about 2 RMB per diaper, and you’ll go through 12 every day. The first three months takes the most amount of diapers, because they poop all the time. For vaccines, it’s a matter of if you bother to get the out of pocket ones. If so, then they range from 100 RMB to 6-700 RMB. In the first 9 months, we spent 6-7 grand. After 6 months, you have to start adding in baby food. Utensils and snacks and rice powder put together is gonna be 3-400 RMB a month. From 8-9 months, you’ll start running out of breastmilk. You’ll go through a can of formula per week, and each can costs about 300 per week. Plus other snacks and diapers, it’s about 2-3K per month to keep a baby alive. And some early vaccines are super expensive. I’m not even adding in clothes, and kids grow like crazy.”
“You didn’t add in allergy-prone babies, sis. My baby, for example, drinks 4200 RMB in formula every month. Add in clothes, diapers, baby food, and toys, and it’s another 2000 RMB. That’s 6K per month on its own. And I’m not adding in how often we have to run to the hospital.”
A real estate expert shows a submission he got, “I want to ask a serious question. If your future daughter-in-law comes from a much richer background than you, but she requires that her children have to take her surname, would you agree to it?”
The real estate expert replies, “Absolutely not. If my son insists on marrying her, I’d cut him off.”
Comments say, “It’s just that there’s no need to get bullied like this. If you’ve got money, but you still need to be humiliated, then what’s the purpose of your money?”
“Would you agree to having two kids, and they take mommy and daddy’s surname respectively?” OP replies, “If she has a good attitude, I’m open to negotiations. But if her attitude is that they have to take her surname, then she needs to fuck right off. But I don’t want my son to marry someone richer than me anyways. There’s no need.”
“I can answer this for you. It’s easy enough to guess the answer. To speak bluntly, this blogger is the archetypical patriarchal old fart. To speak gently, he’s got a very traditional mindset. Just like my husband.”
A blogger asks, “Who the hell still believes in Chinese medicine?” He shows a screenshot of advice from a Chinese-medicine doctor, reading, “People with skin diseases, don’t eat bamboo shoots, because bamboo can erupt out of very hard earth, and human skin is relatively speaking very thin. If you eat too much bamboo shoots, your skin problems will erupt too.”
Comments say, “I mean, to put forth an extreme example, if China stops using all western medicine today (that is, modern medicine), can we make it? If America stops using all traditional Chinese medicine today, can they make it? It’s a pretty clear answer.”
“Stop talking about pointless bullshit like this. Once you’ve met a good Chinese-medicine doctor, you’ll realise how magical it all is…if you can’t find a good Chinese-medicine doctor, then sure, don’t take Chinese medicine, because bad doctors can screw up a lot of shit.”
“Why wouldn’t you believe in something that we’ve passed down for thousands of years?”
Those goldfish sure are cute!!
The TCM vs Western medicine debate is interesting to me because it always ignores traditional western medicine — which is probably right at about the same frequency as TCM. However ‘western’ as in ‘evidence-based’ medicine actually draws from all kinds of traditions. In fact, my mom’s physio is having her do cupping because it may help break up fibrotic tissue!
“I mean, to put forth an extreme example, if China stops using all western medicine today (that is, modern medicine), can we make it? If America stops using all traditional Chinese medicine today, can they make it? It’s a pretty clear answer.”
I can't tell which side of the argument this person is on.