A $2G kids party. $8G for youth sports. Long Island parents sacrifice finances to give kids the 'best life.'

When her son was 3, Amanda Pastore raided her retirement account to pay for his birthday party at a local McDonald’s.

What the Levittown mother expected would be a roughly $150 party for her son and several daycare friends ballooned to more than $1,700 after decorations, party favors, and food and drinks for parents were added, she said.

The next year, Pastore said she again turned to retirement savings to cover a $2,500 birthday party for her son at Little Gym, an indoor gym and party venue in Levittown. Last year, unwilling to touch the account again, she and her husband sold the family’s second car — a used minivan — for $5,000 to pay for a $2,700 birthday party at Laser Bounce in Levittown.

Pastore, 36, who makes less than $100,000 a year as a full-time front desk employee at a Catholic Health satellite office, said trying to keep up with the lavish parties hosted by other families at her son’s daycare in Massapequa has taken a financial toll.

She knows the decisions are financially risky, but worries about her son’s standing among classmates and other parents.

“I couldn’t care less what people think about me, but I’m not going to have people talk about my kid, about what they are and not able to do in front of their kids so he can be bullied,” she said. “If I can suffer and sacrifice a little bit to make sure his life is a good one, I’m doing it, hell or high water.”

Across Long Island’s suburban landscape, many parents like Pastore feel pressure to “keep up with the Joneses,” spending money on birthday parties, travel sports, electronics, tutoring, vacations and other extras that can stretch household finances or push families into debt.

That pressure is colliding with the already high cost of raising children. A 2026 study by LendingTree, an online lending marketplace, estimated it costs more than an average of $303,000 nationally to raise a child to age 18. New York ranked eighth among states for annual child-related costs, at about $30,000, but that figure is likely higher on Long Island and in New York City because statewide averages include less expensive regions.

For many families, the strain goes beyond basic needs. A 2026 LendingTree survey of 634 people found 64% of parents reported going into debt for child-related costs, and 26% said they were currently carrying an active balance. The same survey found 61% of families said peer pressure pushed them to overspend.

Experts say the pressure is not simply about giving children an advantage. It is also about what parents feel they must provide to be seen — by others and by themselves — as good parents.

“Not everything is simply about the future or even the present of our children. It’s also about this performance of good parenting,” said Nina Bandelj, an economic sociologist and author of the 2026 book “Overinvested: The Emotional Economy of Modern Parenting.”

Melissa Murphy Pavone, a Westhampton Beach certified financial planner, said many Long Islanders don’t consider how much they spend on discretionary expenses, particularly when it comes to costs for children’s activities. 

“The money is coming in and going out, but they are not sitting down saying what percentage of money is going to discretionary spending like on the car or on the house,” she said. “People are paying more money on children’s sports fees than on their retirement accounts.”

‘We’re talking thousands and thousands of dollars a year’

Leslie Sadownick, a nonprofit employee from Rockville Centre, said she “didn’t understand why they called tennis an elite sport” until she enrolled her 12-year-old daughter Hannah in tennis lessons about six years ago.

Her daughter already showed promise, Sadownick said. But she noticed that as Hannah continued with the sport, other kids her age taking private lessons were improving faster.

In the race to keep up — between private and group lessons, paying for court time, rackets and other equipment — Sadownick estimated she probably pays around $6,000 to $8,000 annually on tennis.

Given what other parents spend to help their children excel in the sport, Sadownick said “there’s always that pressure,” to do and spend more.

“We’re talking thousands and thousands of dollars a year,” she said. “It’s a really expensive sport. And we’re in the thick of it, so there’s no turning back.”

Spending on children’s extracurriculars, particularly sports, has increased drastically since before the pandemic, experts said.

American families with a child in a sports program spent an average $1,016 on their child’s primary sport in 2024, a 46% increase from 2019, according to national survey data from the Project Play initiative of the Aspen Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit research organization.

The cost of registration fees, equipment, uniforms, travel and lodging, private lessons and group instruction have all gone up in recent years, said Jon Solomon, research director of the Aspen Institute’s Project Play initiative.

“It puts a burden on many families and they are feeling it,” he said.

That’s why Stony Brook resident Noah Lam founded the Lightning Warriors, a nonprofit sports organization that helps children ages 7 through 19 train and compete in triathlons. He said he sees firsthand the pressures parents feel to spend.

“When I have conversations with certain parents, I tell them, ‘Don’t buy the $5,000 bike,' kids will outgrow it very quickly,” said Lam.

Lauren Staley, a financial therapist in Valley Stream, said financial peer pressure is a frequent topic among her clients.

Money is more than just numbers; it’s emotional, she said.

“When you’re thinking about money in general for most people, it represents belonging,” she said.

Jim Miller, 56, of Babylon, said he knows another Long Islander who spends nearly $20,000 a year on lacrosse for their child, who got into college but did not get a scholarship to play the sport.

His son Lucas, 17, is also a lacrosse player who played for a traveling club team for four years and now plays for his high school’s varsity squad. He said he's benefitted from the experience gained playing year-round for the club team and that he knows other peers who haven't — and are "a little behind" the kids who do.

His father acknowledged that the dynamic "creates a lot of pressure for the parents."

"Because the parents want to see their kids play, and the only way the kids will play is if they have the skill level to play," he said. "And the only way they’re going to get the skill level is to be on these clubs. It’s kind of a vicious cycle.”

Keeping up with the ‘suburban ideal’

On Long Island, costs for a wide variety of activities can easily eat away at budgets.

Weekly charges at day camps during the summer can cost parents between $1,000 and $2,000, depending on a child’s age. Birthday parties at indoor play centers can range between $600 and $1,500. Dance classes can reach around $1,200 a semester, and elite travel sports programs can cost between $3,000 and $6,000 annually. 

Why do so many parents feel the pressure to overspend on their children, even if it’s to their own financial detriment? It’s not necessarily because they see it as an investment.

“People’s emotions, people’s relationships — that all gets expressed through what we do with money,” Bandelj said.

In surveys conducted during her research, parents "talked about love and commitment to their kids, and also, they talked about what they felt, or moral pressures on them to be good parents,” she said.

In her book, Bandelj describes a parent who felt compelled to spend $3,000 on SAT prep over a summer, even though it didn’t ultimately do much to boost her daughter’s score. But because other parents were paying for tutors, she felt pressured to do the same.

“She seemed motivated by a desire to ‘keep up with the Joneses,’ ” Bandelj wrote.

The urge to compare financially with neighbors is hardly unique to Long Island. But local economists said the region’s postwar suburban culture — where homes, cars, schools and children’s activities became visible markers of status — can intensify those pressures for families.

As Long Island became more populated after World War II, a consumer culture unique to the suburban region grew with it, said Gregory DeFreitas, economics professor and director of Hofstra’s Center for the Study of Labor and Democracy.

“Post-war, the federal government heavily subsidized the depopulation of cities and the suburbanization of places like Long Island,” DeFreitas said. With it, came the advent of a new kind of “private consumer culture.”

In contrast to city life, where residents were reliant on public transportation, apartment-style living and accessing the same municipal services, Long Island’s suburbs provided new opportunities to display financial standing to neighbors, he said.

“Few people see inside your apartment in the city, but everyone sees your house when they drive down the street,” DeFreitas said. Similarly, suburbanites reliant on cars “don’t want some jalopy in your driveway,” or for their kids to be walking around in “shabby clothes” after sacrificing to get them into a good school district.

“There’s massive peer pressure,” he said. “This suburban ideal brings with it a lot of pressure to conform.”

Robert Frank, a professor of management and economics at Cornell, said wealth inequality has helped intensify financial peer pressure because people judge what is appropriate to spend based partly on what they see others around them spending.

As higher-income households spend more, those expectations can ripple outward through what Frank called an “expenditure cascade.”

Mental health professionals said it's important that parents set realistic expectations for their children about what they can afford without causing unnecessary financial anxiety. 

“If a child believes money could run out and you could be in bad shape, get kicked out of your place or something terrible, that could be damaging, especially for younger children because they are fearful,” said Don Sinkfield, a mental health counselor in Valley Stream. "The way to have a healthy balance is for kids to understand that money is finite, to understand we can’t always afford something and we’re OK, and still we thrive."

Pastore said she's witnessed other households wrestle with social pressure to keep up with other families, but it's an issue that has largely gone unaddressed outside of a few private conversations with other parents.

“Nobody really discusses it," Pastore said, adding that it sometimes feels like parents are competing with one another. "It’s definitely not something that’s healthy. 'I have this, I have that.’ "

For her own financial health, Pastore said she won’t be turning to her retirement savings again for future parties.

She said she plans to limit the celebration for her son’s upcoming sixth birthday to a smaller gathering at her home.

“It shouldn’t be in the thousands to have fun,” she said.