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Women having babies in the United States are more educated than ever, a trend that has accelerated during the recession.

The recession has been bad for a lot of people, but one sector is benefiting: babies.

Women having babies in the United States are more educated than ever, a trend that has accelerated during the recession, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.

In the three years after the recession started in 2007, there was a 17 percent decline in births among women who did not have a high school diploma. By 2011, only 14 percent of new moms lacked a high school diploma, according to the report released Friday.

As of 2011, 66 percent of mothers with infant children had at least some college education, compared with 18 percent in 1960.

“We have a short-term-trend that is an exaggeration of a long-term trend,” said Gretchen Livingston, a senior researcher at Pew and the lead author of the report.

That’s good news for the babies, the Pew report notes, because of other research that has made a strong link between maternal education levels and healthy birth weights, delivering at term, improved cognitive skills and higher academic achievement. 

“It is difficult to determine whether maternal education is causing some of these outcomes, or if it is serving as a proxy for some other causal factor (for example, economic well-being). What is irrefutable, though, is that on average the more education a woman has, the better off her children will be,” the report states.

The caveat to that element is that on the extreme end, older women tend to have higher health risks during late pregnancies, Livingston said. And while overall, women are having fewer babies since the recession started, the exception is women in their 40s, whose biological clocks leave fewer options to delay a pregnancy until the economy rebounds. Since 2008, birth rates are up 9 percent for women ages 40 to 44, according to the study.

“This short-term trend may be due to the fact that younger, less educated women have been particularly hard hit by the recession, and thus have delayed childbearing, the report states. “Or, it may be the case that younger women know that they have the time to ‘make-up’ childbearing when their prospects improve in the future, while the typical 40-year-old does not have that opportunity.”

The study also points out that the percentage of higher-educated mothers can be linked to the fact that the share of women with at least some college education has more than doubled since 1960 and has again stepped up since the recession started.

In recent years, the share of women ages 15 to 44 with less than a high school diploma declined by 5 percent and the share with only a high school diploma but no further education declined by 4 percent. During that time, the percentage of women of child-bearing age with a college degree increased by 6 percent while the women with at least some college education increased by 3 percent.

Does raising kids always have to be so hard on the wallet? Not necessarily, as I learned after moving to Japan with my husband and young children. Here’s a smorgasbord of 10 frugal parenting insights from Japan and other cultures. Although they can help us save a few pennies, their greatest value lies in what they teach us (and our kids) about being content with less.

1. Tone down the birthday parties. I almost couldn’t believe it when I realized that the kids we knew weren’t making lists of things they wanted for their birthday or at holiday time. In Japan, gift-giving isn’t a focus of these events. Instead of holding a big birthday bash and getting lots of presents, Japanese kids celebrate with a family dinner and one gift at most. In France, holidays like Christmas (another occasion for gift-giving in the U.S.) are traditionally celebrated with a family dinner. And while Christmas dinner is followed by a few carefully chosen presents, enjoying a meal together is the focal point. In Germany, birthday parties are simple, at-home affairs, which keeps costs to a minimum. In the U.S., informal surveys indicate that in some regions parents spend at least $200 on their child’s birthday party; that’s $400 for two kids. Assuming two children each bring a $10 present to 10 birthday parties, that’s a yearly outlay of $200. Go light on the parties and the gifts and save several hundred dollars.

2. Play outside. Consider doing away with toys completely and just have the kids play outside, as many parents do in Brazil. Brazilian parents aren’t in the habit of buying many toys for their kids because they expect them to play with friends or cousins, on their own -- and you don’t need much for that.

3.  Two wheels beat four. People commute to work or school by bicycle in places such as China, Denmark, and especially the Netherlands, a famously bike-friendly nation. In Japan, bicycles can be fitted with two child seats -- one in front, one in back -- for the ride to and from preschool or the grocery store. Once a child is in elementary school he walks to school on his own or takes public transportation. It is almost never the case that a child commutes to school by car -- if his family even has a car. (Two cars per family is a true rarity.) The average American family spent $4,416 on gasoline for the car in 2011, according to CNN Money. Think of the savings if you eliminate the twice-daily back and forth to school. 

4. Borrow your toys. Parents in New Zealand are lucky -- instead of buying new toys, they can borrow them from the widely available “toy libraries” that lend out toys and DVDs for the price of a yearly membership that costs about $100. Not only do parents stave off boredom/clutter syndrome (i.e., a new toy gathers dust after an initial wave of interest), borrowing toys reinforces the message that kids don’t have to own everything. According to the NPD Group, parents in the U.S. spent an average of $284 a child on toys in 2010, or $568 for a family with two kids. Reach out to a couple of friends and see if they’d like to start a toy rotation. The potential savings are significant.

5. Share your toys. Due to small living spaces and the lack of a heavy toy-buying tradition, children in South Korea claim title to just a few toys. Any toys a family owns are always meant for sharing among siblings. Sharing of toys and clothes extends beyond the family in South Korea, as well -- many neighborhoods hold a swap event twice a month for families to exchange clothes and toys for free. Here in the States, this is another opportunity to cut costs by joining forces with friends. 

6. Eat meals together. In countries with robust food traditions such as France, Italy, Spain, and South Korea, there’s simply no such thing as a separate kids’ meal. Kids eat and enjoy the same food as parents do, which saves money and time (no separate ingredients to buy and prepare or separate dishes to wash) and has the added bonus of teaching kids to eat widely and well. My friends in the U.S. report spending between $20 and $40 a week on an assortment of kiddie food items, such as frozen kids’ meals, chicken nuggets, pasta and sauce, macaroni and cheese, and apple juice. Potential savings are ample when everyone at the table feasts on the same menu.

7. Make your own toys. The first time I saw my friend’s 4-year-old daughter come home proudly from preschool lugging a used grocery bag full of what looked like trash, I didn’t get it. But once my own kids started school, I understood. It’s common for Japanese preschools to use recyclables -- bottles, caps, milk cartons, egg cartons, cardboard boxes, newspapers -- extensively and regularly for crafts instead of buying new supplies. Not only does this give kids a chance to exercise their creativity, it teaches them about the value of recycling in a concrete way. Kids also see their parents reuse everything, including paper and shopping bags. Based on prices posted at Walmart.com, a rough estimate of the cost of new craft supplies, including paper, sequins, markers, glue, paints, etc. in the U.S. comes to about $100 dollars a year. Repurpose what you might have thrown away and you’ll save a hefty portion of that sum.

8. Forage for your food. In Finland, an extremely modest and frugal mindset prevails. The high cost of new items means parents often go to one of the country’s many flea markets or secondhand stores to buy clothing. And it’s a tradition for families to forage for berries and mushrooms together in the summer, gathering enough to stock the freezer with a winter’s supply for the entire family. Consider joining a community garden to cut down on produce costs during harvest season.

9. Get out those handkerchiefs. I hadn’t seen anyone use a handkerchief since I was a little girl. I didn’t even know they still existed. But in Japan, everyone carries one -- from preschoolers to old men and women. Hankies are used to wipe hands after washing, to mop off a sweaty brow or clean a smudge of dirt. Little children learn early on how important this is: They’re required to bring a hankie to preschool, and elementary school teachers sometimes hold “handkerchief checks” to make sure the habit is ingrained. If a family of four in the U.S. uses two boxes of tissues a month, each priced at $3.69, the annual cost approaches $90. Use handkerchiefs instead and save $90 (minus the initial investment and the ongoing cost of cleaning them).

10. Buy fewer back-to-school supplies. In Japan, the list of back-to-school supplies a first-grader needs is daunting: a set of colored pencils, regular pencils, scissors, erasers, glue, pencil box, gym clothes, and a few notebooks, all to be stored in a special backpack that is meant to last throughout elementary school. (The same tradition prevails in Germany.) That sounds like it could be costly, but think about it: there’s no buying new backpacks every year or two. And while there’s a large initial purchase of school supplies, each pencil and every last eraser is labeled with the child’s name so he’ll take care of them and use them until there’s nothing left. Assuming a backpack costs about $40 in the U.S. and school supplies run about $48 a year, according to a survey by Parenting.com and Women & Co., a Citibank personal finance service, you can save at least $50 a child by reusing last year’s backpack and cutting down on supplies. 

A parenting expert with a Ph.D. from Harvard University, Christine Gross-Loh raised her own children in Japan for five years. Her writing has appeared in Mothering magazine, Parenting magazine, Shape magazine and on Mothering.com. Christine’s new book, Parenting Without Borders: Surprising Lessons Parents Around the World Can Teach Us, will be published on May 2 by Avery/Penguin. For more information visit www.christinegrossloh.com.

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Parents always want their children to succeed, but the new Parents, Kids & Money Survey from mutual fund company T. Rowe Price shows many parents are “unrealistically optimistic” about their children’s financial future.  This over-confidence can result in behavior that ignores the long-term strategies and financial discipline required for kids to achieve financial success.

Most parents (73 percent) say they regularly talk to their kids about money issues – and that’s good. It’s what they’re talking about that concerns T. Rowe Price senior financial planner Stuart Ritter.

“These conversations are focused almost exclusively on short-term goals, such as back-to-school shopping or family vacations,” he said.

Kids and parents aren’t dealing with long-term family goals – like saving for college.

“Even with younger children it’s important for them to understand that there are longer-term goals and that planning for them requires making decisions today,” Ritter said. “This needs to be in the mix of the priorities and trade-offs the family is making.”

And it’s not just talk. They survey found that more parents save for vacation (46 percent) than for college (41 percent). And less than two-thirds talk to their children about how their college education will be paid for.

A surprising finding:  14 percent of the parents stated they discourage their kids from talking about money.

Ritter, a father of three young children, believes it’s critical to explain how the financial world works. Explain how bank accounts work. Explain the pros and cons of using a credit card. Explain how to save for that first car.

“Recognize that your kids are learning about money whether you’re talking about it or not,” Ritter told me. “They observe what’s going on … and they’re likely to come away with a lot of misconceptions and incorrect conclusions without the input and guidance that a parent can provide.”

His advice: Take advantage of everyday teachable moments to discuss how money works. Ritter believes this is critically important if your kids are going to develop the financial skills they will need.

Another key finding:  A third of the parents surveyed said their biggest financial regret is overextending themselves financially.

The survey shows that many parents are not covering the basics needed to create a secure financial future for their families:

• 50 percent do not save regularly for retirement
• 48 percent do not have emergency savings
• 54 percent do not have life insurance
• 74 percent do not have an up-to-date will

Nearly all of the kids surveyed (97 percent) said they learn their money habits from their parents. That’s hard to do when mom and dad don’t agree on the right way to handle money matters.

Nearly half the parents (47 percent) said that when it comes to family finances they don’t always see eye-to-eye, and the kids are picking up on that. Forty-four percent said they know their parents disagree about money issues.

“If the parents can’t agree, the kids don’t know what to make of that,” Ritter said. “They’ll be confused by that confusion and it will prevent them from learning what they need to know about making good money decisions.”

To help families talk about money, T. Rowe Price just launched MoneyConfidentKids.com which can be used by parents and educators. The site includes online games parents can use to start a conversation with their kids. They’ve also created an interactive game called The Great Piggy Bank Adventure.

Resources for Parents:

The Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy

The Mint: Money Talk with the Kids

PBS Kids: It’s My Life – Money

Schwab: MoneyWise

Herb Weisbaum is The ConsumerMan. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter or visit The ConsumerMan website. 

As teenagers demand independence and eventually move out, they’re not always quick to cut the cord when it comes paying their own cell phone bill.

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Many twentysomethings remain on their parents' family cellphone plan.

Often they’re perfectly OK staying on their parents’ cell phone plan and online subscriptions that allow more than one user, according to a new survey conducted by Harris Interactive for The Wall Street Journal. Harris surveyed 620 parents with adult children for its report.

Among 620 parents with 18- to 35-year-old children, more than 40 percent of those surveyed said they still pay for their kids’ cellphone service, and 29 percent were still doing so even if their children no longer lived at home.  

Usually those phone bills are paid through a family plan that lowers the cost for all users. Sprint, for example, allows up to five lines on one plan, with no requirement that users live in the same state. A $150 monthly rate pays for 1,500 minutes for two lines. Lines three through five cost $30 each.

Family plans are gaining in popularity, said Weston Henderek, the principal analyst for the wireless services sector at Current Analysis. “The incentive to be part of a bundles plan, like a family plan, is much higher than it used to be,” he said.

The economies of scale make it financially smarter for adult children to share a family plan with the parents and just split the cost, Henderek said. 

The wireless providers benefit too, because individuals are less likely to switch companies when they are part of a family plan. The pressure to stick to the family plan means less turnover for the phone companies, Henderek said.

The phone companies are reluctant to reveal how much business comes through group plans rather than individual accounts, but Henderek said AT&T recently said 80 percent of its customers (excluding pre-paid plans) use family plans or business accounts that operate like family plans. “Overall I estimate that AT&T and Verizon are in the same place,” he said.

The percentage is even higher if you count only smartphones. About 90 percent of AT&T's smartphone subscribers are on FamilyTalk, Mobile Share or business plans, an AT&T spokesman said.

All told, as of the fourth quarter for 2012, AT&T’s Mobile Share plans had 6.6 million customers across 2.2 million accounts, indicating about three devices per account, according to the spokesman.

“For the big carriers, they are all headed into this family plan structure,” Henderek said.

In 2010, a Pew Internet & American Life Project study found that most teenagers with cell phones have family plans paid by their parents.

“Seventeen seems to be a critical age in terms of cell phone responsibility; at that age, the percentage of cell phone users who are responsible for at least part of their cell phone bills jumps to 40 percent,” the Pew report states.

The percentages start to vary when race and family income is taken into account, according to Pew’s “Teens and Mobile Phones” report. Overall, 29 percent of teen cell phone users paid for at least part of their bills while the rate was 63 percent among black and Hispanic teens in households with incomes below $30,000.

The Pew study was based on interviews in 2009 with 800 teenagers ages 12 to 17 and their parents, and on nine focus groups conducted with teens between the ages of 12 and 18.

It's the rich parent's paradox. The wealthy want their kids to have middle-class values. To be humble, hungry and hard-working and to know the meaning of earned success.

But they also give their kids nearly everything they want: from cars and house payments to college educations and travel.

Wealthy parents know they can't have it both ways. And yet, they still try.

A new survey from PNC Wealth Management found that 82 percent of American millionaires said that their kids should be responsible for creating their own wealth. That's up from 65 percent in 2007.

More than 80 percent also said that raising successful, hard-working children is their most important goal.

More from CNBC: The costs of competitive kids

They want, in other words, the same middle-class childhood they had themselves. The survey found that 75 percent of the millionaires said they grew up in an "average" financial situation. Only 12 percent grew up well-off and 12 percent grew up "poor."

But when it comes to the lifestyle they're actually giving their kids, millionaire parents are anything but average.

They study found that half of them are leaving their kids more than $500,000. Fully 61 percent plan to pass along a "substantial" inheritance to their kids. That's not to mention the financial support they give them along the way.

More from CNBC: 'Rich kids of Instagram': Overserved and oversharing

"It's a conundrum," said Stephen Pappaterra, managing director of wealth planning for PNC Wealth Management. "There does seem to be a gap. They want their kids to be responsible and self-sufficient and independent. At the same time they're dealing the practicalities of their economic situation."

Pappaterra said that wealthy parents want their kids to make it on their own, but they also know that economic opportunities today may not be as plentiful as they used to be. Hence, the need for more help. Kids today also feel more entitled to support and material comforts, he added.

"If they grew up in an affluent town, they might expect to have their college paid for, along with car payments, and other things," he said.

So while wealthy parents may want their kids to be middle class, their economic reality is decidedly different.

Happy almost Father’s Day!

Let’s hope all you dads out there get a chance to spend the day relaxing with your families, rather than dwelling on all the stress and expense that has become part and parcel of modern fatherhood.

A Life Inc. post this week on the fact that more dads these days feel the pressure to “do it all” – succeed at work and be an involved dad and spouse – prompted a lot of discussion about whether there’s a double standard when it comes to family-friendliness at work.

About half of the more than 6,000 people who took our poll said employers don’t do enough to help dads balance work and home life.

“If a mom needs to take time off to care for kids, they get to -- no (questions asked). When a dad makes the same request, often he is told no,” one reader wrote.

But about a third said it depends on where you work, and that some employers are more supportive of dads.

“My husband works for a really great company that cares about its employees and their families. I suspect that's a rarity these days,” another reader wrote.

One thing both moms and dads have to struggle with: Balancing the budget while raising kids Another post this week looked at a government report showing that the total cost of raising a child, before college expenses, is expected to hit $234,900 for a child born in 2011 to a middle-income family.

Many readers said they could raise a child for less than that.

“It's called budgeting. That ‘bundle of joy’ doesn’t need Nike shoes, every new game player, clothing style or toy that comes along. Also, I’m not paying for my children’s college education. My father didn’t do it, his parents didn’t do it and their parents didn’t do it and we all did fine. Go in the military or learn a trade, work your way up, save money, budget and go to school on your own,” one reader wrote.

But other readers said they hoped they could provide their children with things like college tuition, to give them a leg up on life.

“When I was little, I remember being taught that the point of being a parent is to protect and raise your children while making the world a better place for your kids so they can make it better for their kids and so on,” one reader wrote.

Others said cost is one of the factors that is keeping them from having kids.

“Thanks, but I think I'll enjoy my life, follow my own dreams & travel the world instead. I mean, kids are cute and all, but I don't want one living in my house. Pretty much the same way I feel about chimpanzees,” one reader wrote.

If you do have kids, one of the many expenses you’ll have to consider is paying for the sitter. This week, we also looked at a report finding that babysitters cost an average of $12.75 an hour these days.

For many readers, the post brought back memories of when they worked at babysitter, earning far less than the going rate these days.

Some said this is one of the reasons they rarely, if ever, have a date night.

“We have literally never, not once, left the kids with a paid sitter. I didn't plan for it to end up that way, but sitters want more an hour than I make and I have yet to meet one that I'd feel good paying that much for. We have ‘date days’ once or twice a year when we use vacation time while the kids are at school. Having lunch out is much cheaper than having dinner out anyway. The whole idea is to spend time together, not to spend lots of money we don't have,” one reader wrote.

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If you think parents today are spending more than their parents did, you're right.

Many parents today are worried about how they’re going to send their kids to college given the high cost of higher education. But maybe they should be more concerned about the 17 years before the little darlings hit the road.

Food, clothing, and health care are just a few items that can add up into tons of expenses before adulthood. How much? $234,900 for a child born in 2011 to a middle-income family.

That's according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s annual report, “Expenditures on Children by Families,” released Thursday, which came up with the total by calculating the cost of a host of necessities parents pay for in the 17 years before adulthood. 

If you think parents today are spending more than their parents did, you’re right. In 1960, the first year the report was produced, a middle-income family would have expected to spend about $25,000 over the course of 17 years, or $191,720 adjusted for today’s dollars.

The cost of raising a child differs sharply depending on the resources available to the parents. According to the USDA's calculations:

• For households with annual income less than $59,410, annual expenses per child range from $8,760 to $9,970 on average,  depending on age of the child.
• For households with income of up to $102,870, the annual cost is about $12,290 to $14,320.
• For households with income over $102,870, the cost per child averages out at $20,420 to $24,510.

Housing was the biggest expense, followed by child care and education, food, and transportation. 

Since 1960, food expenditures have actually declined to 16 percent of income from 24 percent, while the cost of child care and education has soared to 18 percent of income from 2 percent.

And despite the high cost of fancy sneakers today, moms and dads are shelling out less to dress up the little tikes, at 6 percent of income, down from 11 percent in 1960. 

More from TODAY Money:

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What would you value more? Mom cooking dinner for the family, or Dad killing a spider in Junior’s room?

While women are still dealing with the gender wage gap at work, when it comes to the unpaid work moms do at home, their imaginary paychecks would be bigger than those of their husbands.

As Father’s Day approaches this weekend, it’s time to take stock of what dads do for their families beyond just bringing home a paycheck. Alas, the household chores they tend to do aren't worth as much as the sweat equity moms put in at home year round, according to two recent reports.

Insure.com calculated what they deemed to be daddy duties, including things such as barbecuing, killing bugs and mowing the lawn. The study found the domestic tasks would total about $20,248 a year if they were paid work. That compared to $60,182 annually for moms for doing things such as cooking, cleaning and nursing wounds. The value of the work was based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for how much similar jobs out in the real work world would pay.

Another study by Salary.com found that the value of what working dads do at home is actually rising. The company looked at online responses from nearly 3,000 dads who reported on the number of hours they put into tasks at home, including everything from cooking to driving kids around, and found the value of what the dads did jumped to $36,757 this year from $33,858 the previous year. A previous study of work done by working moms found what the moms do at home is valued at $66,979, compared to $63,471 in 2011.

The dads in Salary.com’s sampling were doing more laundry this year, about 1.4 hours, compared to 1.2 hours in 2011; but they cut back on their kitchen time, from 2.7 hours to 2.2 hours.

Women are still the ones doing the heavy lifting at home, said Nancy Folbre, a professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Massachusetts. But she cautioned against giving this type of data on what dads do too much credence.

“They underestimate both what mothers and fathers do,” she noted.

Indeed, Emmet Pierce, a spokesman of Insure.com, said his firm's research was not a scientific study but rather a “lighthearted view of fatherhood. It’s not that every dad conforms to this, but it gives a broad view of what fathers do.”

Dads are doing more around the house, but a shift from that 1950s mentality has been slow.

A study by the Bureau of Labor Statistics released last year found: “On an average day, 20 percent of men did housework — such as cleaning or doing laundry — compared with 49 percent of women. Forty-one percent of men did food preparation or cleanup, compared with 68 percent of women.” And a 2008 Gallup poll found that women are much more likely to do most of the household chores, while men are primarily taking care of the family cars and doing yardwork. 

But traditional family roles are being questioned. A report released Monday by Boston College’s Center for Work & Family found that those dads who choose to stay at home with their kids made “a conscious choice and commitment to be home with their children to the benefit of their families, their wives’ careers, and their own personal fulfillment.” And the center reported 3.4 percent of at-home parents are dads today, compared to 1.7 percent 10 years ago.

“Nearly all fathers are increasingly likely to experience active caregiving, and the result will require employers to adapt their thinking and their actions regarding who needs support to do so adequately,” said Brad Harrington, author of the study and executive director of the Center for Work & Family. “This is not simply a women’s issue.”

Folbre believes that gender responsibilities as they relate to household work are being “renegotiated” but there’s still some resistance and inertia when it comes to change. “We still have a really long way to go,” she added.

Here's a rundown on what working dads do at home and the value of their household tasks from Salary.com:

Along with a list of breast-feeding’s health benefits for mothers and children, pediatricians often tout an added bonus -- unlike formula, breast milk is free.

Not so fast, researchers say.  Breast-feeding comes with a cost to new moms that is often overlooked, according to a new study published in the American Sociological Review. The study looked at data from 1,313 first-time mothers in the U.S. who were in their late 20s or 30s when they gave birth.

Women’s incomes dropped precipitously when they choose to breast-feed for six months or longer -- and they remained low some five years after the babies were born, says the study’s lead author, Phyllis L.F. Rippeyoung, an assistant professor of sociology and coordinator of women’s and gender studies at Acadia University in Nova Scotia. 

Rippeyoung’s interest in the hidden costs of breast-feeding was sparked by personal experience. When she became a mom, she was flooded with information about the benefits of breast-feeding -- including the suggestion that it would save her money.

 “I thought that it was weird that they were saying it was free,” Rippeyoung remembers. “I was a grad student at the time driving back and forth between teaching and classes, and my milk was drying up since I couldn’t drive and pump at the same time. It was a very difficult thing, but I had to stop breast-feeding. If I’d continued I couldn’t have worked at the same time.”

The data for the new study came from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, which included information about the moms’ jobs and incomes, as well as stats on their family life, including the decision to give their babies formula or to breast-feed for a short duration (less than six months) or a long duration (six months or more).

The researchers found that on average women who breast-fed their babies for six months or longer experienced a dramatic drop in income.  Five years after the birth of their babies, the women were still making about $5,000 per year less than they had before the birth of their children.

One factor that explained much of the drop in income was a reduction in hours -- and this was true even though most of the women in the long-duration group were managers or professionals and said they worked because they liked to.

Rippeyoung doesn’t think that breast-feeding needs to come at such a cost -- and she isn’t advocating that women give it up.

“I don’t think it’s inevitable,” she said. “If there were more ways in which women could combine breast-feeding with working you’d see less of this earnings decline."

One thing that could help is if more companies offered on-site day care and allowed women time to visit their babies during working hours, she said.

“If there’s going to be a push for women to breast-feed then we need to take into account all of the costs,” Rippeyoung said. “And the responsibility for raising the children shouldn’t be solely borne by women.”

Chauffeuring kids around amid all the other responsibilities that parents face can be exhausting duty. To ease nerves and boost sales, automakers are offering vehicle-shopping parents an array of conveniences. Sifting through the latest models, Parenting magazine has come up with seven to suit just about everyone's taste — even those underage back-seat drivers.

Two of the seven featured in the magazine are:

Courtesy of GM Company

The Chevrolet Traverse can easily carry half your kid's soccer team.

Chevrolet Traverse
By the numbers: Three rows, up to eight seats, 17 mpg city/24 mpg highway

Carpool 2.0: Sliding second-row seats that children as young as 7 can operate. Play tunes on your smartphone through the sound system using wireless Bluetooth.

Mommy, I can do it: The seat belts are easy for kids to snap themselves into.

No sticky seats: The cup holders can accommodate juice boxes and sippy cups.

Price: From $29,510; chevrolet.com

Courtesy of Toyota Motor Corp.

The Prius V has plenty of room in the back — just don't forget the kids.

Toyota Prius V
By the numbers: Five seats, 67 cubic feet of storage with the rear seatbacks down (that's approximately 98 paper grocery bags), 44 mpg city/40 mpg highway

Appy family: The dashboard doubles as a tablet. Toyota's Entune multimedia system lets you use the in-dash touchscreen to tune in to The Muppets station on Pandora, search Bing for the nearest Pinkberry, or get live traffic reports.

Price: From $26,400; toyota.com

Of course, now you just have to find that middle ground between the wheels you want and the one the kids want.

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10 best cities for families 
Common car seat mistakes you may be making   
17 convertible car seats with extended rear facing

Just because your parents are wealthy doesn't mean they will sign for all your college bills. 

Nearly half of affluent parents did not or will not pay the full cost of their children's college education, according to Bank of America's latest Merrill Lynch Affluent Insights Survey.

The most commonly cited reason was not that they couldn't afford it but that their kids either got a grant or scholarship or were expected to. But many parents said they were making their children pay part of the cost to give them "a greater appreciation for their education" or "teach them about financial responsibility."

And 18 percent of affluent parents said they didn't or wouldn't have the money to pay the full freight. The Affluent Insights Survey reaches individuals with at least $250,000 in "investable assets," which these days might fund one student in a fancy private college, but not more than that.

Despite the stated desire to teach children financial wisdom, 82 percent said they would support their children financially during their early adult years by allowing them to move back home (with or without rent) or by subsidizing their living expenses.

The study also found that nearly half of affluent parents (48 percent) were more concerned about teaching their children financial responsibility than they were about their children finding the right spouse/partner, choosing the right career path or staying physically fit.