What you're really saying is that it costs a lot to provide a child with a middle-class life thru to independence. If you're a welfare mom just cranking out the kids and not spending anything on them, then your costs are considerably lower
And we can thereby see why the middle-class has such a low birth rate
Yep. The $200, 000 probably is for a lot more than just clothes, a roof, food-I'm sure it includes lots of goodies. And people feel guilty if they can't give their kids what they had, or what other kids have.
"Middle class life style" means that we raise our kids as though they were young lords and ladies. I didn't even have a radio in my bedroom when I was a kid, and I grew up in a Middle-class house. That was, however, before they invented the transistor radio and a radio cost relatively the same as a small TV set today. Fifty years ago people used to buy houses with the equivalent of today's welfare checks.