All kids’ activities in the area have become dramatically more expensive. The Aquarium in St Louis is now for rich people. We’ve been once, and are not planning to return because the cost is exorbitant. The local kid gym and trampoline park where we used to go without even wondering how much they cost became a rare treat.
I have a very good income, folks, and it’s still too expensive. If a tenured academic with a techie husband can barely afford it, there’s really something wrong.
The most annoying part is that these price hikes that punish parents are the result of the COVID policies that. . . also punished parents. Lockdowns wiped out kids’ activities, making the ones that remain very expensive. COVID stimuli created the inflation.
Clarissa's Blog 
I am experiencing the same problem. And we are on a single income at the moment.Just took our kids to the local trampoline park a few weeks ago for the first time since my son was born in 2020 and the price is nearly twice as expensive, plus now I have another kid to pay for. The best gift my kids received for Christmas this past year was a membership to our local science museum. We have free admission for a year and the museum also does reciprocal admissions intermittently with other state wide attractions. This month it is a visit to the aquarium. All year they can visit the zoo for free. My kids would not go otherwise, the cost is completely prohibitive. Look into memberships to your family’s favorite attraction. It’s absolutely worth it for families with young children.
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This has been quite a shock of parenthood. Most kids’ or family activities are simultaneously too expensive and too lame (not too lame for the price, too lame, period).
As a family, we went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland last summer. It was entirely in the whatever category, but very pricey. Local children’s museums and such, as well. Amusement parks. Taking the kids in any sort of aquarium is exorbitant. They gouge the price of admission and reduce the whole activity to a gift shop.
It’s all sad and just blech.
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