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Toxic media treats kids as luxury goods — and it’s destroying us

When Princess Eugenie announced last week that she’s expecting her third child, she was showered in social-media congratulations — and cattiness.

“Another leech in the oven,” read one response.

“What a way to keep trying to live off public money,” went another.

The gripes were in keeping with the media’s dominant narrative about having children: We’re being told, again and again, that raising kids has become financially impossible.

Eugenie is joining several royal moms, including Catherine, Princess of Wales and Zara Tindall, who are embracing life with three or more kids — well above the average number in both the US and the UK. 

And many observers are taking it as evidence that affording a third child demands vast wealth, or at least a spot in a royal line of succession. 

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Children, it seems, are now a luxury item.

Last month a study commissioned by LendingTree calculated that it costs $400,000 a year for a family with two children to feel financially secure in modern America.

News media routinely publish breathless stories about couples delaying or abandoning parenthood because they can’t afford the exorbitant costs — $300,000 from birth through age 18 — that now........

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