The other night, thirty-one-year-old Older Son showed up for his weekly family dinner at our house and launched into an impassioned speech about a documentary he watched on the high cost of raising children.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m delighted that Older Son still desires to hang out with his uncool, aging parents at least once a week. I’m even more pleased that, for the most part, he has learned to refrain from bringing up politics, which—considering that his political views are the polar opposite of ours—always devolves into a political powder keg, igniting a shouting match. Mostly his.

“You guys don’t understand what it’s like,” he said, as he helped himself to a massive slab of corned beef. “The guy in the documentary computed the minimum cost required to raise a child to the age of eighteen, not including things like extracurricular fees, and came up with half a million dollars. It’s like throwing money into a bottomless pit!”

I paused mid-bite and shot an incredulous look at Hubby, who shot a similar look at me.

“You do get the irony of this statement,” I said to Hubby, under my breath. Yep, he got it.

“Yes,” I told Older Son. “We’re vaguely familiar with the cost of raising children.”

Because—spoiler alert—we are still raising a child. HIM.

Let’s review the evidence, shall we?
• Phone bill? We pay it. It just made sense to put him on our “family” plan.

• Last week’s dentist appointment? Guess who got the bill? (Hint: not the one getting several thousand dollars’ worth of dental work.)

• Veterinary bills for his two dogs? Me, because I’m a retired veterinarian, which, on some level, must make sense.

• New roof for his townhouse? Us.

• New washer and dryer? Again, us. But it beats having him come to our house and monopolizing our washer and dryer. Older Son has the uncanny ability to do laundry at the exact time I need to do ours, usually leaving both the washer and the dryer full of clothes.

• New air conditioner? On our credit plan. Theoretically, he pays us back once a month. Notice I use the word “theoretically.”

But bless his heart, he’s warning US about the financial commitment of parenthood. Right. That must be why I fed him generic macaroni and cheese, made his Halloween costumes out of duct tape and cardboard (okay, not really—I bought costumes after Halloween when they were marked down and saved them for the next year), and carried my lunch to work every day for forty years.

Look, I love this child. I’d walk through fire for him. I HAVE walked through Legos at 2 a.m., which is basically the same thing. But when he starts lecturing us on the cost of children, I can’t help but feel like we’re living in a sitcom that never got canceled.

The cost of parenting doesn’t end when the kids move out—it just comes with bigger price tags and fewer tax deductions. Parenthood doesn’t stop at eighteen. Or twenty-one. Or apparently thirty-one. It’s like signing up for a lifelong subscription service you can never cancel—only the perks include late-night phone calls, vet bills, and the occasional political rant with dinner.

So, for now, we’ll keep smiling, keep swiping the credit card, and keep pretending that “independence” is just around the corner. I didn’t have the heart to point out that he and Younger Son are the reasons Hubby and I aren’t millionaires.