A friend put up the kind of Facebook post that makes people wince: a late-evening request for the name of a reputable washing machine repair service. I gave him the name of a company we used. Even though it was several years ago, I know the exact date: It was the day after we brought our newborn son home from the hospital.
I probably should have some fond memories of that time, but mostly I remember feeling clueless and tired. It was, of course, tougher on my wife, who was still in the process of recovering from the experience herself. There's also the huge pressure on the mother, who is somehow expected to just instinctively know, on day one, everything about taking care of her baby.
I played more of a supporting role, doing things like laundry. It didn't bode well when the first load of laundry I did killed the washing machine. About 12 hours and $200 later, the very helpful and understanding repair guy had found the problem: one of the boy's tiny socks got sucked into the water exhaust pipe, and got jammed in the bowels of the machine.
I started thinking about those statistics on the cost of raising a child. Any way you slice it, it ain't cheap. I briefly considered keeping track of every dollar we spent on the boy, just to see what that number would look like. I imagined presenting him an invoice when he turned 18.
Then I realized that probably would not have been the most effective use of my time and energy at that point.
