Tim Carney in the Post: The Ideal Number of Kids is Four (at a minimum)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And not one word about the health of the mother and the physical toll even a healthy pregnancy takes on a mother’s body. Never mind the risk of the mother’s life, the risk of complications, the risk of long-term health impacts on the mother. Who cares about her health? Not Tim Carney.

But the flip side is the more pregnancies and the more breast feeding the less risk of breast cancer

One of my best friends has had multiple episodes of cancer despite having four children. Pregnancy is not a health neutral.

[Anonymous]

Yes, my aunt had six kids and died of breast cancer at 60. Cancer reduction risk on a population level doesn't necessarily translate to an individual level based in other factors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But how does the 12 yr old feel about it?

great - she's happy as a clam and is often offering to help even when I don't need it.

You won't know she is happy as a clam until she grows up. She might be an extreme people pleaser.

Agree. That's how she gets your attention - by being the perfect little parent helper.

I’m the youngest of four. My oldest siblings didn’t have to “raise” me but my sister, who’s the oldest, was desperate for a baby sister and in so many pictures when I was a baby, she’s holding me with a huge grin. We’re still super close today and she has three kids of her own. She loved being a big sister - I think you’re projecting a lot of your own defensiveness onto larger families. The second born in my family is one of my brothers, and he’s an amazing father also to three kids. He’s actually a lot more involved than his wife and is always doing fun things with his kids. They both grew up to love kids. My other brother and I - numbers three and four - have less patience with kids because we didn’t really grow up with young kids around us.

Oldest daughter of a large family here. You sweet summer child. You have no idea.

+100

Actually I don't think you can claim to know this.
I'm the opposite - I was one of two and longed for siblings so much. I was maternal and would have loved this role. I now have a larger sized family. It really is dependent on the child and what they like. Some love the number of children in their family, clearly some think it's too many and some (like me) think it wasn't enough. I found it isolating being raised essentially as an only as my sibling was much older and dinners out with two older parents were "boring". People on this thread act as if being raised with only 1 or 2 children is ideal. It may be for some, and not for others.
There isn't a "right" answer. So much generalizing.

DP. Middle child/first girl here. I was maternal too, and that made things WORSE because adults felt even more entitled to take advantage and neglect.

I love when the first girl is “the difficult one.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mom of five here. It is 100 percent easier to have 5 kids than 3. I found 3 the absolute hardest. Now my older kids entertain and help with the younger kids. The year my third was born was the least happy year of my life. I am now the happiest I have ever been since becoming a mom with my fifth almost turning one. I am way more relaxed and it is 100 percent true that older kids help so much. For example on Saturday mornings I will wake up and my 12 year old has changed my toddler's diaper, turned on his cartoon, and gotten him a bowl of cheerios while I lounge in bed with DH.

What I am looking forward to is parents of 2-3 kids trying to explain why those of us with 4+ don't actually know what we are talking about when we say it's easier and we are happier than you all.

Oh and PS my career is on fire.

Good for you - now what is your waist measurement?

Oh and hows the old pelvic floor???

I have one awesome child and I do not pee myself when I sneeze, how about you?

You're gross and an a-hole.
I have more kids than a friend and don't have this issue. They do. It's largely genetics and how your delivery went.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mom of five here. It is 100 percent easier to have 5 kids than 3. I found 3 the absolute hardest. Now my older kids entertain and help with the younger kids. The year my third was born was the least happy year of my life. I am now the happiest I have ever been since becoming a mom with my fifth almost turning one. I am way more relaxed and it is 100 percent true that older kids help so much. For example on Saturday mornings I will wake up and my 12 year old has changed my toddler's diaper, turned on his cartoon, and gotten him a bowl of cheerios while I lounge in bed with DH.

What I am looking forward to is parents of 2-3 kids trying to explain why those of us with 4+ don't actually know what we are talking about when we say it's easier and we are happier than you all.

Oh and PS my career is on fire.

Good for you - now what is your waist measurement?

Oh and hows the old pelvic floor???

I have one awesome child and I do not pee myself when I sneeze, how about you?

You're gross and an a-hole.
I have more kids than a friend and don't have this issue. They do. It's largely genetics and how your delivery went.

+1

Oftentimes pelvic floor issues don’t manifest until after menopause too, so I wouldn’t be so quick to gloat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mom of five here. It is 100 percent easier to have 5 kids than 3. I found 3 the absolute hardest. Now my older kids entertain and help with the younger kids. The year my third was born was the least happy year of my life. I am now the happiest I have ever been since becoming a mom with my fifth almost turning one. I am way more relaxed and it is 100 percent true that older kids help so much. For example on Saturday mornings I will wake up and my 12 year old has changed my toddler's diaper, turned on his cartoon, and gotten him a bowl of cheerios while I lounge in bed with DH.

What I am looking forward to is parents of 2-3 kids trying to explain why those of us with 4+ don't actually know what we are talking about when we say it's easier and we are happier than you all.

Oh and PS my career is on fire.

Good for you - now what is your waist measurement?

Oh and hows the old pelvic floor???

I have one awesome child and I do not pee myself when I sneeze, how about you?

You had one child too many. You have problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mom of five here. It is 100 percent easier to have 5 kids than 3. I found 3 the absolute hardest. Now my older kids entertain and help with the younger kids. The year my third was born was the least happy year of my life. I am now the happiest I have ever been since becoming a mom with my fifth almost turning one. I am way more relaxed and it is 100 percent true that older kids help so much. For example on Saturday mornings I will wake up and my 12 year old has changed my toddler's diaper, turned on his cartoon, and gotten him a bowl of cheerios while I lounge in bed with DH.

What I am looking forward to is parents of 2-3 kids trying to explain why those of us with 4+ don't actually know what we are talking about when we say it's easier and we are happier than you all.

Oh and PS my career is on fire.

Good for you - now what is your waist measurement?

Oh and hows the old pelvic floor???

I have one awesome child and I do not pee myself when I sneeze, how about you?

You had one child too many. You have problems.

+1 such an immature response. Like a pp said, wait until you get a little older.

[Anonymous]

Breeder fetishist who wants more subsistence workers to enrich the capital owner class.

[Anonymous]

If you can't fields your own baseball team, you are a failure as a family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know anyone that grew up in a large family as one of the older children that has their own large family. Generally, the older siblings who had to help parent their younger siblings are not happy that they had to do it.

Younger siblings on the other hand...I know a few of these, too, and a lot of them wanted and have large families. Probably because they were the younger siblings and got a lot of attention from a lot of people. They didn't have to do the work.

Nobody in my large family had more than 3. Even those were obviously oops babies (one with FSA, so lovely.)

FSA or FAS?

[Anonymous]

I do home health caregiving and have cared for disabled women from midlife to very elder years. I’ve seen a lot of prolapsing uteri in my years - it’s amazing the pelvic floor issues many mothers endure for decades as one of the prices of motherhood. Women who don’t have the issues have often no idea and little compassion for what other women suffer with.

The more awful stuff I’ve seen over the years, the happier I’ve been about skipping that rodeo and not risking my pelvic floor, risking urinary and fecal continence, impaired sexual function, chronic pain/neuropathy, etc.

I guess I understand why nobody tells young women this stuff either in health class or in the ladies coffee klatsch. Who wants to talk about the horrors that can happen and which can persist for a lifetime? Many more women might choose not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do home health caregiving and have cared for disabled women from midlife to very elder years. I’ve seen a lot of prolapsing uteri in my years - it’s amazing the pelvic floor issues many mothers endure for decades as one of the prices of motherhood. Women who don’t have the issues have often no idea and little compassion for what other women suffer with.

The more awful stuff I’ve seen over the years, the happier I’ve been about skipping that rodeo and not risking my pelvic floor, risking urinary and fecal continence, impaired sexual function, chronic pain/neuropathy, etc.

I guess I understand why nobody tells young women this stuff either in health class or in the ladies coffee klatsch. Who wants to talk about the horrors that can happen and which can persist for a lifetime? Many more women might choose not.

I think it's good to talk about the impact of pregnancy and childbirth on women's bodies. It's real and gets largely ignored in the way many aspects of women's health get ignored, and that can make it an unpleasant surprise for women, or a source of shame and embarrassment. It should be neither.

That said, talking about these things using words like "horrors" or acting like these things are grotesque or that women are permanently ruined by childbirth does not actually help. It swings too far in the other direction -- the goal should not be to try and scare women out of having kids. We need to talk about these aspects of pregnancy/childbirth in order to help women understand these are normal, and to get the medical community to provide better treatments and support to women. If you do not want children, I fully support you in that choice. But many women *do* want children. Trying to scare them straight by acting like the common, normal consequences to childbirth are a disgusting outcome to be avoided at all costs is not as feminist as you seem to think it is.

[Anonymous]

My mom had ten siblings. They all attended college and had good lives but I don't think that it's as easy now to "put yourself through school" as it used to be. Of all those children, none had more than three kids themselves.

[Anonymous]

I'm the oldest of four. It wasn't easy but I don't think I would have been happier if I were an only...my parents were pretty intense so spreading out their attention helped. I wouldn't want that many kids myself but I know several friends and relatives with 3-5 kids who seem happy. What I care about is what policies Carney supports to help people with larger families. Does he want more WIC and home visiting? Medicaid for a year or two after birth to reduce maternal mortality and postpartum depression? Elimination of TANF household limits? Restructure the eitc so it doesn't max out at 3 kids? Daycare subsidies? Caregiver credits for social security?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mom of five here. It is 100 percent easier to have 5 kids than 3. I found 3 the absolute hardest. Now my older kids entertain and help with the younger kids. The year my third was born was the least happy year of my life. I am now the happiest I have ever been since becoming a mom with my fifth almost turning one. I am way more relaxed and it is 100 percent true that older kids help so much. For example on Saturday mornings I will wake up and my 12 year old has changed my toddler's diaper, turned on his cartoon, and gotten him a bowl of cheerios while I lounge in bed with DH.

What I am looking forward to is parents of 2-3 kids trying to explain why those of us with 4+ don't actually know what we are talking about when we say it's easier and we are happier than you all.

Oh and PS my career is on fire.

Good for you - now what is your waist measurement?

Oh and hows the old pelvic floor???

I have one awesome child and I do not pee myself when I sneeze, how about you?

You had one child too many. You have problems.

So I’m guessing, not great?