How much ruin can a 6 - year - old maybe wreak ( assuming Calvin “ represents the bad - case scenario in terms of the amount of legal injury a child can do ” ) ? One dedicated soul has take through the comedian ’s integral test to incur out .
report in the Honest and Reliable Data sub - daybook of Proceedings of the Natural Institute of Science * ( PNIS - HARD ) , investigator Matt J. Michel attempts to allow “ an explicit approximation of the amount of damage that children can cause , ” in a half - serious effort to increase the accuracy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture ’s estimated toll of raising a child from birth to historic period 17 ( $ 226,800–$264,600 aggregate , for middle - classers ) .
To do so , Michel read through every published cartoon strip of Bill Watterson ’s Calvin and Hobbes in chronological order and identify every representative in which Calvin or his tiger have forcible damage . Also include were cases where expressed mention was made of Calvin having stimulate damage :

For every consequence , I recorded the date of the slip and the type of damage caused ( for instance if it was a specific item , or was prop damage ) with a brief verbal description of the circumstances conduce to the damage . There had to be an denotative depiction or reference of forcible price in order for the issue to be recorded . Thus , any damage perhaps ensue from episodes like “ the noodle incident ” ( or its predecessor , “ the salamander incident ” ) were not count .
The monetary cost of damages is only mentioned on a handful of occasions in the course of the strip , so Amazon was consult in estimating the cost of damaged goods . homewyse.com and fixr.com were referenced in estimating price for place damage . The result of Michel ’s analysis is the chart you see at the top of this post , from which he concludes that Calvin get an guess $ 15,955.58 worth of damage , or $ 1,850.55 p.a. .
Michel has since update the paper withan errata clause , which learn as follows :

For the article , “ How much damage can a 6 year - old peradventure do ? An analysis of the price of raise a minor like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes , ” by Matt J. Michel , which appeared in Volume 1 , September 12 , 2014 , of Proceedings of the Natural Institute of Science - SOFD ( Volume 1 , Paper 1 ; first published September 12 , 2014 , andavailable online here ) , reddit exploiter zeinshver pointed out that the idea of $ 50 to replace a coffee table into which Calvin had hammer eight nail ( click here for comedian ) lacked an estimation of the price want to supplant the eight aforementioned nails . The author grant this point and apologize for the error . On page 2 , the first sentence of the “ Results and Discussion ” division should show , “ In sum , Calvin caused an estimated $ 15,955.58 Charles Frederick Worth of equipment casualty … ” and not “ In total , Calvin have an estimated $ 15,955.50″ worth of damage … . ” The source also notes that the entry for “ December ” in Table 1 should read “ 672.58 ” and not “ 672.50 . ” In addition , the generator notes that bod 1 should be changed but that the author is too otiose to make a fresh graphical record .
He has also publishedan errata for the errata .
- concord to its About / FAQ section , PNIS is :

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