For $235,000, you could indulge in a shiny new Ferrari -- or raise one child for 17 years.

A government report released Thursday found that a middle-income family with a child born last year will spend about that much in child-related expenses from birth through age 17. That's a 3.5 percent increase from 2010.

The number only accounts for expenses before a child's 18th birthday. It doesn't include the cost of college or the money parents spend on 'boomerang kids' who move back home because they can't find a job.