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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you do it right, one is enough.

I'm not against big families but I do think it's easier to mitigate the negative aspects of having 1 or 2 than to mitigate the negative things about having 4 or more. Like a family with an only child can do things to address stuff like entitlement or loneliness.

I think having a very large family is a bit like roulette. If it hits and everything works out, the bounty is plentiful. But a lot can go wrong. I grew up in a big family where a lot went wrong. I chose to have a small family and am thoughtful about things that might be harder with fewer kids.

Also, all of these arguments assume that a family is an island unto itself. That's not true. How do you compare an only child who lives 20 minutes away from a gaggle of cousins they see all the time, with a child who has 4 siblings but no extended family to speak of or whose extended family are all very far away? Or kids in a family where the parents are social and get together with friends and neighbors (and their kids) frequently versus a family that is insular and rarely spends time with other families? A lot of the arguments about large or small families hinge on this idea that kids are spending all their time with just their immediate family. That's actually not how a lot of families operate.

This is an interesting point. My husband grew up one of four but they were very insulated and had no family around. He enjoyed his childhood but he’s the sort of guy not to complain about anything. They also had no major health issues / special needs.

On the flip side, I was one of two but we had tons of extended family. I grew up in a large immigrant community and we had so many people at our holiday events and it exposed me to all different types of people/ experiences.

I will say the biggest difference as I get older is that extended family doesn’t show up for you the same way sibling will (or feel the need too) but to counter that I feel like my husbands parents are tapped out trying to balance the needs of all their adult children (has this been discussed yet?). I know people talk about the teen years being hard but not there is also an expectation that you show up for your adult kids too. For example, my in laws will have to balance moving one of their kids out of their apartment, trying to launch their youngest and balancing multiple grandkids and helping out. It does create some bad blood if one kid gets more than the other. So something else to consider.

I think this is a fair point. I am one of the posters from a family with four children, and as adults, two are extremely demanding of my parents time and attention. It has always been the case that the “launched” adult children (my sibling and I) are sort of left alone because our other two siblings require a lot of attention. BUT I don’t see that is a lot different from families with two kids…if one is total chaos, the other will likely receive less attention and resources as a result.

2 adult kids vs 4-5 adult kids needs are very different. Most people can handle two adult kid needs even if one has alot of needs.

[Anonymous]

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.

That’s what I think. Just wait.

[Anonymous]

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.

That’s what I think. Just wait.

Several of my childless (by choice) female friends are older siblings from big families who were made to parent their younger siblings and decided that was enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you do it right, one is enough.

I'm not against big families but I do think it's easier to mitigate the negative aspects of having 1 or 2 than to mitigate the negative things about having 4 or more. Like a family with an only child can do things to address stuff like entitlement or loneliness.

I think having a very large family is a bit like roulette. If it hits and everything works out, the bounty is plentiful. But a lot can go wrong. I grew up in a big family where a lot went wrong. I chose to have a small family and am thoughtful about things that might be harder with fewer kids.

Also, all of these arguments assume that a family is an island unto itself. That's not true. How do you compare an only child who lives 20 minutes away from a gaggle of cousins they see all the time, with a child who has 4 siblings but no extended family to speak of or whose extended family are all very far away? Or kids in a family where the parents are social and get together with friends and neighbors (and their kids) frequently versus a family that is insular and rarely spends time with other families? A lot of the arguments about large or small families hinge on this idea that kids are spending all their time with just their immediate family. That's actually not how a lot of families operate.

This is an interesting point. My husband grew up one of four but they were very insulated and had no family around. He enjoyed his childhood but he’s the sort of guy not to complain about anything. They also had no major health issues / special needs.

On the flip side, I was one of two but we had tons of extended family. I grew up in a large immigrant community and we had so many people at our holiday events and it exposed me to all different types of people/ experiences.

I will say the biggest difference as I get older is that extended family doesn’t show up for you the same way sibling will (or feel the need too) but to counter that I feel like my husbands parents are tapped out trying to balance the needs of all their adult children (has this been discussed yet?). I know people talk about the teen years being hard but not there is also an expectation that you show up for your adult kids too. For example, my in laws will have to balance moving one of their kids out of their apartment, trying to launch their youngest and balancing multiple grandkids and helping out. It does create some bad blood if one kid gets more than the other. So something else to consider.

I think this is a fair point. I am one of the posters from a family with four children, and as adults, two are extremely demanding of my parents time and attention. It has always been the case that the “launched” adult children (my sibling and I) are sort of left alone because our other two siblings require a lot of attention. BUT I don’t see that is a lot different from families with two kids…if one is total chaos, the other will likely receive less attention and resources as a result.

There are lots of two kid families like this. My sibling was on her second marriage at 36 and has struggled to maintain relationships (friends and family as well as romantic) and steady employment, the latter despite graduating cum laude from a SLAC and receiving a desirable professional degree. My husband is one of four and his siblings all had struggles in their 20s despite being high achievers but more or less figured things out and are thriving more than my sister is in their 30s. This is probably due in part to the fact that my husband’s parents’ are very wealthy and have unlimited resources and my parents do not. But this is the problem with doing these types of comparisons. Family size is only one factor that might influence a child’s ability to achieve and life course.

The quality of parenting when children are young matters a great deal as does mental health and substance use when it comes to a positive life course. Neurotic and overbearing parents who emphasize achievement over a blend of self-acceptance/personal fulfillment and a good work ethic are going to be more damaging to most kids than someone who takes a more balanced approach to parenting.

I also am struggling to understand how asking an older to child to take some responsibility for a younger sibling, whether it to be driving a younger sibling to a practice or helping them with homework, is going to negatively influence their life course to the extent suggested in the comments I’ve read. My older sister went to boarding school and received her license late because of that. I would occasionally drive her places and pick things up for her when she was home from college and I was in high school and it didn’t scar me for life. I also babysat younger cousins (sometimes for free) and this allowed me to then get paying babysitting jobs outside my extended family. My husband also drove his siblings places (he had two younger siblings) and babysat one of them occasionally and he’s never said anything negative about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Well I was an older sister and I never wanted to be the “little mother.” Not much fun. it’s great if the older girls enjoy it, not so great if they are forced to be free childcare.

My point is that they weren’t forced to be childcare. My sister and brothers are huge achievers and were in tons of activities and went to Ivy League schools. They are very successful and well adjusted adults. Our family was well off and had resources for whatever activities, tutoring or resources we needed. We went to private school and all skied, played tennis, were on debate teams, mock trial, and each did all of the “elite” extracurriculars. We were honors and AP students and national merit scholars. DCUM wants to keep pushing this narrative that large families are miserable and deadbeats… and that’s just an awful generalization. I can’t speak to “parentifiction” of kids, because my parents didn’t do that, but dcum acts like having a teenager babysit a younger kid is child abuse and anything short of raising 1-2 (max) entitled self centered brats is unacceptable. Many kids from families of 3+ are so happy to have more than one sibling, including myself. My siblings are my best friends as adults and we’re close with our parents.

But you are doing the same thing. Yes there are people on here who are against big families. But here you are describing people who prefer smaller families as raising "self entitled brats."

I’m not. I have two kids! Fully acknowledge the benefits of smaller and larger families. But people on dcum come out with pitchforks - that people with larger families can’t give the best of everything to four kids (which isn’t necessarily true, and can also be true with two kids- entirely dependent on income) and are therefore bad parents. I can’t stand that judgemental attitude. They are saying if a child has to (gasp) consider others in the household, they’re at a disadvantage. In my opinion that’s a reason NOT to only have two kids

Regardless of family size, every family member should consider the others. That is very different from what happens in many large families, particularly where the oldest is a girl. In many cases, the oldest girl gets treated more similar to a parent than a sibling to the younger ones.

I'm not sure the point of your response, other than to demonstrate the judgmental attitude pp was talking about!

Not surprising. People who parentify their children are always in denial.

[Anonymous]

I do not understand this logic. Even if I never parent my younger kids and let my two oldest do all the work, don't I still need to parent my two oldest to some degree? Wouldn't it be easier to just have those two, and kinda ignore them? Afterall, giving birth or adopting are work that I can't outsource, so surely 2 parentified kids plus two kids being mostly parented by their siblings is more work than just 2 kinda ignored kids.

Note: I am not advocating kinda ignoring your kids, but if the goal is to do as little work as possible, and to have kids who aren't intensively parenting, it seems like just having 1 or 2 would still be the easiest way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you do it right, one is enough.

I'm not against big families but I do think it's easier to mitigate the negative aspects of having 1 or 2 than to mitigate the negative things about having 4 or more. Like a family with an only child can do things to address stuff like entitlement or loneliness.

I think having a very large family is a bit like roulette. If it hits and everything works out, the bounty is plentiful. But a lot can go wrong. I grew up in a big family where a lot went wrong. I chose to have a small family and am thoughtful about things that might be harder with fewer kids.

Also, all of these arguments assume that a family is an island unto itself. That's not true. How do you compare an only child who lives 20 minutes away from a gaggle of cousins they see all the time, with a child who has 4 siblings but no extended family to speak of or whose extended family are all very far away? Or kids in a family where the parents are social and get together with friends and neighbors (and their kids) frequently versus a family that is insular and rarely spends time with other families? A lot of the arguments about large or small families hinge on this idea that kids are spending all their time with just their immediate family. That's actually not how a lot of families operate.

This is an interesting point. My husband grew up one of four but they were very insulated and had no family around. He enjoyed his childhood but he’s the sort of guy not to complain about anything. They also had no major health issues / special needs.

On the flip side, I was one of two but we had tons of extended family. I grew up in a large immigrant community and we had so many people at our holiday events and it exposed me to all different types of people/ experiences.

I will say the biggest difference as I get older is that extended family doesn’t show up for you the same way sibling will (or feel the need too) but to counter that I feel like my husbands parents are tapped out trying to balance the needs of all their adult children (has this been discussed yet?). I know people talk about the teen years being hard but not there is also an expectation that you show up for your adult kids too. For example, my in laws will have to balance moving one of their kids out of their apartment, trying to launch their youngest and balancing multiple grandkids and helping out. It does create some bad blood if one kid gets more than the other. So something else to consider.

I think this is a fair point. I am one of the posters from a family with four children, and as adults, two are extremely demanding of my parents time and attention. It has always been the case that the “launched” adult children (my sibling and I) are sort of left alone because our other two siblings require a lot of attention. BUT I don’t see that is a lot different from families with two kids…if one is total chaos, the other will likely receive less attention and resources as a result.

There are lots of two kid families like this. My sibling was on her second marriage at 36 and has struggled to maintain relationships (friends and family as well as romantic) and steady employment, the latter despite graduating cum laude from a SLAC and receiving a desirable professional degree. My husband is one of four and his siblings all had struggles in their 20s despite being high achievers but more or less figured things out and are thriving more than my sister is in their 30s. This is probably due in part to the fact that my husband’s parents’ are very wealthy and have unlimited resources and my parents do not. But this is the problem with doing these types of comparisons. Family size is only one factor that might influence a child’s ability to achieve and life course.

The quality of parenting when children are young matters a great deal as does mental health and substance use when it comes to a positive life course. Neurotic and overbearing parents who emphasize achievement over a blend of self-acceptance/personal fulfillment and a good work ethic are going to be more damaging to most kids than someone who takes a more balanced approach to parenting.

I also am struggling to understand how asking an older to child to take some responsibility for a younger sibling, whether it to be driving a younger sibling to a practice or helping them with homework, is going to negatively influence their life course to the extent suggested in the comments I’ve read. My older sister went to boarding school and received her license late because of that. I would occasionally drive her places and pick things up for her when she was home from college and I was in high school and it didn’t scar me for life. I also babysat younger cousins (sometimes for free) and this allowed me to then get paying babysitting jobs outside my extended family. My husband also drove his siblings places (he had two younger siblings) and babysat one of them occasionally and he’s never said anything negative about it.

My sister is like this (divorced, struggles to stay employed despite educational advatanges growing up). Do you know why your sister ended up like this and not you?

[Anonymous]

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.

That’s what I think. Just wait.

There are kids from families of 1-2 that aren’t happy either, or fail to launch. You all seem to be assuming it’s completely family size, but there are a lot of other factors at play.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m the eldest girl in a big family (5 kids) and I think my parents tried hard not to force me to raise my younger siblings. I loved having a younger sister in particular and enjoyed taking care of her. What I did not enjoy was never ever getting any focused attention from my dad and very little from my mom. One sibling had significant issues and any bandwidth went to dealing with him (and it wasn’t enough). I wanted a different experience for my own kids, which is why I only have 2.

This was my experience in a big family. I was one of the kids kind of lost in the middle -- not the youngest or the oldest, a "good" kid who got good grades and didn't complain. I had several experiences early on where it was made clear to me that needing any extra attention -- to deal with recurrent nightmares, to help with social adjustment to school, etc. -- would be seen as an annoying distraction from all the other kids. So I learned to have no problems. Ever. In some ways this did make me resilient and independent, just like Carney suggest. It also means that as an adult, I am allergic to asking for help or even just telling someone when something is going on. I apologize for myself compulsively and have very low self esteem, something that has made both relationships and my career difficult. A few years ago I realized that I just carry around this longing to be seen and hear and understood, and I don't think anyone will ever be able to satisfy it because what I really want is to be a child and to be loved and seen in the way kids all want to be loved and seen. But I'm not a child and I'll never be one again so I just have to live with that feeling of absence.

I don't think all kids from big families feel that way, but I do. And I happen to know that another of my siblings feels the same. So I'm skeptical that large families can really meet the needs of every single kid. And it might seem like no big deal if 1 out of 6, or 2 out of 8, have this feeling of loss. But if you are the one experiencing it, it's deeply painful, a wound that will never heal.

so much of what you wrote resonated with me. it’s truly not something that ever gets discussed! I don’t think I’ve ever really met another one of us in person.

It resonates with me as one of two. I wouldn’t assume kids from smaller families feel “seen and heard”. Sometimes kids just don’t feel that connection, or the parents aren’t very emotional or both are working at intense careers or whatever the case may be.

I can see the feeling being similar to anyone who felt like their parents didn’t care, yeah.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I grew up as the middle child of three and I have four kids. I think that Carney's article provides a nice counterpoint to the dominant narrative right now, especially in a place like DCUM, that parenthood is a miserable slog. Considering that the U.S. birthrate is really low right now, positive representations of parenthood and large families seem like a good thing. The opposite view espoused by many on this thread just seems so sad and nihilist.

I think the revealed preference of women literally EVERYWHERE to have fewer kids as soon as they can access birth control definitively tells the story. Women don’t want to have 6 kids because it’s a miserable slog. (Remember that your 4 is not a large family to the Catholics.)

Women are having 1-3 kids now because that is their preference based on the objective fact of the amount of work it takes, not to mention the toll on your body.

Tim resolutely refuses to embrace policies that would provide women with additional support to have anothet kid or two. And of course he is absolutely pro-life. He thinks women should be at home having as many babies as their bodies can stand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you do it right, one is enough.

I'm not against big families but I do think it's easier to mitigate the negative aspects of having 1 or 2 than to mitigate the negative things about having 4 or more. Like a family with an only child can do things to address stuff like entitlement or loneliness.

I think having a very large family is a bit like roulette. If it hits and everything works out, the bounty is plentiful. But a lot can go wrong. I grew up in a big family where a lot went wrong. I chose to have a small family and am thoughtful about things that might be harder with fewer kids.

Also, all of these arguments assume that a family is an island unto itself. That's not true. How do you compare an only child who lives 20 minutes away from a gaggle of cousins they see all the time, with a child who has 4 siblings but no extended family to speak of or whose extended family are all very far away? Or kids in a family where the parents are social and get together with friends and neighbors (and their kids) frequently versus a family that is insular and rarely spends time with other families? A lot of the arguments about large or small families hinge on this idea that kids are spending all their time with just their immediate family. That's actually not how a lot of families operate.

This is an interesting point. My husband grew up one of four but they were very insulated and had no family around. He enjoyed his childhood but he’s the sort of guy not to complain about anything. They also had no major health issues / special needs.

On the flip side, I was one of two but we had tons of extended family. I grew up in a large immigrant community and we had so many people at our holiday events and it exposed me to all different types of people/ experiences.

I will say the biggest difference as I get older is that extended family doesn’t show up for you the same way sibling will (or feel the need too) but to counter that I feel like my husbands parents are tapped out trying to balance the needs of all their adult children (has this been discussed yet?). I know people talk about the teen years being hard but not there is also an expectation that you show up for your adult kids too. For example, my in laws will have to balance moving one of their kids out of their apartment, trying to launch their youngest and balancing multiple grandkids and helping out. It does create some bad blood if one kid gets more than the other. So something else to consider.

I think this is a fair point. I am one of the posters from a family with four children, and as adults, two are extremely demanding of my parents time and attention. It has always been the case that the “launched” adult children (my sibling and I) are sort of left alone because our other two siblings require a lot of attention. BUT I don’t see that is a lot different from families with two kids…if one is total chaos, the other will likely receive less attention and resources as a result.

There are lots of two kid families like this. My sibling was on her second marriage at 36 and has struggled to maintain relationships (friends and family as well as romantic) and steady employment, the latter despite graduating cum laude from a SLAC and receiving a desirable professional degree. My husband is one of four and his siblings all had struggles in their 20s despite being high achievers but more or less figured things out and are thriving more than my sister is in their 30s. This is probably due in part to the fact that my husband’s parents’ are very wealthy and have unlimited resources and my parents do not. But this is the problem with doing these types of comparisons. Family size is only one factor that might influence a child’s ability to achieve and life course.

The quality of parenting when children are young matters a great deal as does mental health and substance use when it comes to a positive life course. Neurotic and overbearing parents who emphasize achievement over a blend of self-acceptance/personal fulfillment and a good work ethic are going to be more damaging to most kids than someone who takes a more balanced approach to parenting.

I also am struggling to understand how asking an older to child to take some responsibility for a younger sibling, whether it to be driving a younger sibling to a practice or helping them with homework, is going to negatively influence their life course to the extent suggested in the comments I’ve read. My older sister went to boarding school and received her license late because of that. I would occasionally drive her places and pick things up for her when she was home from college and I was in high school and it didn’t scar me for life. I also babysat younger cousins (sometimes for free) and this allowed me to then get paying babysitting jobs outside my extended family. My husband also drove his siblings places (he had two younger siblings) and babysat one of them occasionally and he’s never said anything negative about it.

try being a 9 year old girl holding your screaming baby brother while you set the table. try having summer camp cancelled because you need to be available to babysit at 12.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Poor and stupid people will continue to sh!t out more kids for us to support.

Those kids are more valuable than your worthless, haggard self.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you do it right, one is enough.

I'm not against big families but I do think it's easier to mitigate the negative aspects of having 1 or 2 than to mitigate the negative things about having 4 or more. Like a family with an only child can do things to address stuff like entitlement or loneliness.

I think having a very large family is a bit like roulette. If it hits and everything works out, the bounty is plentiful. But a lot can go wrong. I grew up in a big family where a lot went wrong. I chose to have a small family and am thoughtful about things that might be harder with fewer kids.

Also, all of these arguments assume that a family is an island unto itself. That's not true. How do you compare an only child who lives 20 minutes away from a gaggle of cousins they see all the time, with a child who has 4 siblings but no extended family to speak of or whose extended family are all very far away? Or kids in a family where the parents are social and get together with friends and neighbors (and their kids) frequently versus a family that is insular and rarely spends time with other families? A lot of the arguments about large or small families hinge on this idea that kids are spending all their time with just their immediate family. That's actually not how a lot of families operate.

This is an interesting point. My husband grew up one of four but they were very insulated and had no family around. He enjoyed his childhood but he’s the sort of guy not to complain about anything. They also had no major health issues / special needs.

On the flip side, I was one of two but we had tons of extended family. I grew up in a large immigrant community and we had so many people at our holiday events and it exposed me to all different types of people/ experiences.

I will say the biggest difference as I get older is that extended family doesn’t show up for you the same way sibling will (or feel the need too) but to counter that I feel like my husbands parents are tapped out trying to balance the needs of all their adult children (has this been discussed yet?). I know people talk about the teen years being hard but not there is also an expectation that you show up for your adult kids too. For example, my in laws will have to balance moving one of their kids out of their apartment, trying to launch their youngest and balancing multiple grandkids and helping out. It does create some bad blood if one kid gets more than the other. So something else to consider.

I think this is a fair point. I am one of the posters from a family with four children, and as adults, two are extremely demanding of my parents time and attention. It has always been the case that the “launched” adult children (my sibling and I) are sort of left alone because our other two siblings require a lot of attention. BUT I don’t see that is a lot different from families with two kids…if one is total chaos, the other will likely receive less attention and resources as a result.

2 adult kids vs 4-5 adult kids needs are very different. Most people can handle two adult kid needs even if one has alot of needs.

+1

My DH is one of two with a sibling who is "failure to launch" (still lives when the parents in 40s) and has a lot of mental health problems. My DH sometimes does feel resentful of this dying, but his parents are still in our lives, remember our kids' birthdays, call regularly, and seem to care about our lives, even though much of there energy (and money) goes to my BIL.

I am one of four with no failure to launch siblings, but two siblings with some major issues (one divorced, the other has mental health/substance abuse issues) and a third sibling who has a good life but has very high expectations from our parents in terms of attention (and financial support) and a ton of resentment towards the two wayward siblings for not being able to get it together.

It is almost like I don't have a family. My parents don't visit, don't call. Nor do my siblings. When we visit them, they simply complain to us about one another or try to get us to pay for things. My kids barely know them, have almost no relationship with their cousins on my side. My parents mostly use me as moral support for dealing with my siblings (something I've started backing away from, thanks to therapy).

Two kids with one troubled kid can be hard, but is manageable. 4+ with multiple high needs kids? If you aren't one of the high needs kids, good luck. You're on your own.

[Anonymous]

Listening to guys talk about how happy their wives are as SAHM's reminds me of listening to guys in the foreign service talk about how happy their wives were to tag along and support their careers. In both cases, you should probabl ask the people actually making the sacrifices.
Often the same with military wives -- my wife just loves the fact that we live abroad in Germany and she's getting to see Europe, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m the eldest girl in a big family (5 kids) and I think my parents tried hard not to force me to raise my younger siblings. I loved having a younger sister in particular and enjoyed taking care of her. What I did not enjoy was never ever getting any focused attention from my dad and very little from my mom. One sibling had significant issues and any bandwidth went to dealing with him (and it wasn’t enough). I wanted a different experience for my own kids, which is why I only have 2.

This was my experience in a big family. I was one of the kids kind of lost in the middle -- not the youngest or the oldest, a "good" kid who got good grades and didn't complain. I had several experiences early on where it was made clear to me that needing any extra attention -- to deal with recurrent nightmares, to help with social adjustment to school, etc. -- would be seen as an annoying distraction from all the other kids. So I learned to have no problems. Ever. In some ways this did make me resilient and independent, just like Carney suggest. It also means that as an adult, I am allergic to asking for help or even just telling someone when something is going on. I apologize for myself compulsively and have very low self esteem, something that has made both relationships and my career difficult. A few years ago I realized that I just carry around this longing to be seen and hear and understood, and I don't think anyone will ever be able to satisfy it because what I really want is to be a child and to be loved and seen in the way kids all want to be loved and seen. But I'm not a child and I'll never be one again so I just have to live with that feeling of absence.

I don't think all kids from big families feel that way, but I do. And I happen to know that another of my siblings feels the same. So I'm skeptical that large families can really meet the needs of every single kid. And it might seem like no big deal if 1 out of 6, or 2 out of 8, have this feeling of loss. But if you are the one experiencing it, it's deeply painful, a wound that will never heal.

This resonates with me, as #5 of 6 kids. My parent-pleasing superpower was never needing anything from them. It worked out beautifully for them, but not so much for me.