Is having 4+ kids a status symbol?

[Anonymous]

In my neighborhood,
Family 1: dad works private equity fund, mom is a SAHM. Kid 4 was an oops, Catholic
Family 2: dad in IT, mom SAHM, wealthy CT family
Family 3: middle-class, dad is a Fed, mom is a public school teacher
Family 4: Catholic, pro-life stickers, they homeschool, dad works, mom SAHM

[Anonymous]

The Catholic schools I attended didn't charge the same rates to large Catholic families. My father was the youngest of 7. My brother-in-law was the youngest of 7. I attended Catholic school with at least two families with more than 6 kids. These weren't blended families, either.

It seemed like 2nd and 3rd generation Catholics tapered off from having large families because of birth control.

Utah has the highest birth rate in the country, where the LDS church is prominent in many family lives. I don't know why people think Catholics have large families, unless you're looking specifically at Hispanics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We just have a lot of wealthy catholic families.

I agree. Just look at the number of Catholic Churches and schools and their enrollment numbers.

I couldn't stand to be pregnant again after two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People on here don’t get that having 7 siblings means a lot of cousins for your kid to hang with at family gatherings, ideally. -Parent of 4 with no cousins on my mom’s side

So you’re just popping out kids to create future playmates? This is why I assume families with 4+ children are either religious nutters or profoundly unintelligent.

Usually the oldest raises the younger ones.

Not true.

We have 4. Four. Not a dozen. Everyone we know with 4 kids had them fairly close in age, so there’s no way for the oldest to raise the younger ones.

And, like others have already said, the 4th one is often a surprise due to unprotected sex—not religion.

The happiest most sexually active couples I know have 4 kids...and advanced degrees with well paying jobs.

Lol. Do you trade notes about the number of orgasms by family size? My childless cousin and her H are swingers, so I'm not so sure about your claim. That's why statements like yours are so stupid.

Literally every mom of 4 or more has shared the last baby was a surprise after a week of fabulous sex. It’s not that easy to get pregnant when you’re older. It’s usually the result of regular sex.

I’m a mom of 4 btw. And I think the comments about people like us being stupid, poor, and/or religious nuts are just plain wrong.

Mom of four here, All planned. We know how to use birth control.

[Anonymous]

Well, they better be rich. They are going to have to pay over a million dollars in college tuition alone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my area it’s a symbol of poor planning and overstretched exhausted mom.

I am sorry you couldn't have more kids. That must be hard for you to process.

Animals can have a lot of offspring too. It isn’t some grand achievement on your part, so you don’t have to be an ass.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, they better be rich. They are going to have to pay over a million dollars in college tuition alone.

Parents should help kids with it if they can, but there’s no law that parents “have to” pay for any college. I wish that were a law; I wouldn’t be drowning in state school loans still!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, they better be rich. They are going to have to pay over a million dollars in college tuition alone.

Parents should help kids with it if they can, but there’s no law that parents “have to” pay for any college. I wish that were a law; I wouldn’t be drowning in state school loans still!

Yep, several posters here with large families cannot afford to pay for college. Then you read on the money & finance board how hard it is to get ahead, the overwhelming feeling of not being able to afford a house, the envy for those who got a better start because of family resources.

This is national and international research. There is simply not enough attention to go to some many kids and they suffer

Researchers from the University of Houston and the London School of Economics recently evaluated 26 years of data for the National Bureau of Economic Research, a nonprofit think tank. They found siblings had lowered cognitive abilities and increased behavioral problems with each added child in the family. Girls tended to suffer more cognitive setbacks and have a higher risk of teen pregnancies; boys developed more acting-out behavior.

And, the researchers found, those difficulties persisted into adulthood. Adults from large families tended to have lower levels of education, lower earnings, and more criminal behavior, according to The Washington Post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, they better be rich. They are going to have to pay over a million dollars in college tuition alone.

Parents should help kids with it if they can, but there’s no law that parents “have to” pay for any college. I wish that were a law; I wouldn’t be drowning in state school loans still!

Yep, several posters here with large families cannot afford to pay for college. Then you read on the money & finance board how hard it is to get ahead, the overwhelming feeling of not being able to afford a house, the envy for those who got a better start because of family resources.

This is national and international research. There is simply not enough attention to go to some many kids and they suffer

Researchers from the University of Houston and the London School of Economics recently evaluated 26 years of data for the National Bureau of Economic Research, a nonprofit think tank. They found siblings had lowered cognitive abilities and increased behavioral problems with each added child in the family. Girls tended to suffer more cognitive setbacks and have a higher risk of teen pregnancies; boys developed more acting-out behavior.

And, the researchers found, those difficulties persisted into adulthood. Adults from large families tended to have lower levels of education, lower earnings, and more criminal behavior, according to The Washington Post.

But what constitutes larger families? I’m not convinced 4 kids trigger poor outcomes.

I’m one of 4 kids. Everyone got a degree. Nobody is struggling. Two of us make six figures, the other two are SAHPs.

I have 4 kids. My kids have passports and love to travel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know two types of families who have 4 kids. Very wealthy and very Catholic.

Or very poor.

[Anonymous]

In my experience there are big families where it was a religious choice or both parents have just always wanted that so it’s natural, and those where the mom derives all of her identity from being a mommy thus needs to keep going.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, they better be rich. They are going to have to pay over a million dollars in college tuition alone.

Parents should help kids with it if they can, but there’s no law that parents “have to” pay for any college. I wish that were a law; I wouldn’t be drowning in state school loans still!

Yep, several posters here with large families cannot afford to pay for college. Then you read on the money & finance board how hard it is to get ahead, the overwhelming feeling of not being able to afford a house, the envy for those who got a better start because of family resources.

This is national and international research. There is simply not enough attention to go to some many kids and they suffer

Researchers from the University of Houston and the London School of Economics recently evaluated 26 years of data for the National Bureau of Economic Research, a nonprofit think tank. They found siblings had lowered cognitive abilities and increased behavioral problems with each added child in the family. Girls tended to suffer more cognitive setbacks and have a higher risk of teen pregnancies; boys developed more acting-out behavior.

And, the researchers found, those difficulties persisted into adulthood. Adults from large families tended to have lower levels of education, lower earnings, and more criminal behavior, according to The Washington Post.

But what constitutes larger families? I’m not convinced 4 kids trigger poor outcomes.

I’m one of 4 kids. Everyone got a degree. Nobody is struggling. Two of us make six figures, the other two are SAHPs.

I have 4 kids. My kids have passports and love to travel.

More than 3 is large family. The academic achievement drops significantly with the 3rd. Search pubmed.

More: "Empirical studies have consistently reported a negative correlation between number of children in the family and intelligence test scores (Belmont 8c Marolla, 1973; Dandes 8c Dow, 1969; Eysenck 8c Cookson, 1970). Research relating family characteristics to academic performance found the same pattern as with intelligence, with children from smaller families having higher achievement test scores or grades than children from larger families (Eysenck 8c Cookson, 1970; Schachter, 1963). "

"Theory suggests a trade off between child quantity and 'quality'. Family size might adversely affect the production of child quality within a family. A number of arguments also suggest that siblings are unlikely to receive equal shares of the resources devoted by parents to their children's education. We construct a composite birth order index that effectively purges family size from birth order and use this to test if siblings are assigned equal shares in the family's educational resources. We find that they are not, and that the shares are decreasing with birth order. Controlling for parental family income, parental age at birth and family level attributes, we find that children from larger families have lower levels of education and that there is in addition a separate negative birth order effect. In contrast to Black, Devereux and Kelvanes (2005), the family size effect does not vanish once we control for birth order. Our findings are robust to a number of specification checks."

Again, I'm the PP who knows a family of 6 successful adults. The answer was hundreds of million of $ trust fund, individual nannies and tutors and Deerfield boarding for all. The drawback was one of the daughters doing so much coke in college, because nannies are not parents. It's impossible to have quality one on one time with more than two. Just some bedtime reading and homework help would get to 1 hour per child, so that's 4 hours daily minimum. Add dinner, jobs, sports, school etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, they better be rich. They are going to have to pay over a million dollars in college tuition alone.

Parents should help kids with it if they can, but there’s no law that parents “have to” pay for any college. I wish that were a law; I wouldn’t be drowning in state school loans still!

Yep, several posters here with large families cannot afford to pay for college. Then you read on the money & finance board how hard it is to get ahead, the overwhelming feeling of not being able to afford a house, the envy for those who got a better start because of family resources.

This is national and international research. There is simply not enough attention to go to some many kids and they suffer

Researchers from the University of Houston and the London School of Economics recently evaluated 26 years of data for the National Bureau of Economic Research, a nonprofit think tank. They found siblings had lowered cognitive abilities and increased behavioral problems with each added child in the family. Girls tended to suffer more cognitive setbacks and have a higher risk of teen pregnancies; boys developed more acting-out behavior.

And, the researchers found, those difficulties persisted into adulthood. Adults from large families tended to have lower levels of education, lower earnings, and more criminal behavior, according to The Washington Post.

But what constitutes larger families? I’m not convinced 4 kids trigger poor outcomes.

I’m one of 4 kids. Everyone got a degree. Nobody is struggling. Two of us make six figures, the other two are SAHPs.

I have 4 kids. My kids have passports and love to travel.

More than 3 is large family. The academic achievement drops significantly with the 3rd. Search pubmed.

More: "Empirical studies have consistently reported a negative correlation between number of children in the family and intelligence test scores (Belmont 8c Marolla, 1973; Dandes 8c Dow, 1969; Eysenck 8c Cookson, 1970). Research relating family characteristics to academic performance found the same pattern as with intelligence, with children from smaller families having higher achievement test scores or grades than children from larger families (Eysenck 8c Cookson, 1970; Schachter, 1963). "

"Theory suggests a trade off between child quantity and 'quality'. Family size might adversely affect the production of child quality within a family. A number of arguments also suggest that siblings are unlikely to receive equal shares of the resources devoted by parents to their children's education. We construct a composite birth order index that effectively purges family size from birth order and use this to test if siblings are assigned equal shares in the family's educational resources. We find that they are not, and that the shares are decreasing with birth order. Controlling for parental family income, parental age at birth and family level attributes, we find that children from larger families have lower levels of education and that there is in addition a separate negative birth order effect. In contrast to Black, Devereux and Kelvanes (2005), the family size effect does not vanish once we control for birth order. Our findings are robust to a number of specification checks."

Again, I'm the PP who knows a family of 6 successful adults. The answer was hundreds of million of $ trust fund, individual nannies and tutors and Deerfield boarding for all. The drawback was one of the daughters doing so much coke in college, because nannies are not parents. It's impossible to have quality one on one time with more than two. Just some bedtime reading and homework help would get to 1 hour per child, so that's 4 hours daily minimum. Add dinner, jobs, sports, school etc.

Academic achievement doesn’t equal financial success.

The founder of UA was the youngest of a “litter” of kids, and he struggled academically.

The studies you’re referring to are really tracking low income people. Think: communities of color, welfare recipients, etc.

Dcumers with 4 kids aren’t the same as your high school dropout cousin in Alabama or the welfare mom in Miami.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, they better be rich. They are going to have to pay over a million dollars in college tuition alone.

Parents should help kids with it if they can, but there’s no law that parents “have to” pay for any college. I wish that were a law; I wouldn’t be drowning in state school loans still!

Yep, several posters here with large families cannot afford to pay for college. Then you read on the money & finance board how hard it is to get ahead, the overwhelming feeling of not being able to afford a house, the envy for those who got a better start because of family resources.

This is national and international research. There is simply not enough attention to go to some many kids and they suffer

Researchers from the University of Houston and the London School of Economics recently evaluated 26 years of data for the National Bureau of Economic Research, a nonprofit think tank. They found siblings had lowered cognitive abilities and increased behavioral problems with each added child in the family. Girls tended to suffer more cognitive setbacks and have a higher risk of teen pregnancies; boys developed more acting-out behavior.

And, the researchers found, those difficulties persisted into adulthood. Adults from large families tended to have lower levels of education, lower earnings, and more criminal behavior, according to The Washington Post.

But what constitutes larger families? I’m not convinced 4 kids trigger poor outcomes.

I’m one of 4 kids. Everyone got a degree. Nobody is struggling. Two of us make six figures, the other two are SAHPs.

I have 4 kids. My kids have passports and love to travel.

More than 3 is large family. The academic achievement drops significantly with the 3rd. Search pubmed.

More: "Empirical studies have consistently reported a negative correlation between number of children in the family and intelligence test scores (Belmont 8c Marolla, 1973; Dandes 8c Dow, 1969; Eysenck 8c Cookson, 1970). Research relating family characteristics to academic performance found the same pattern as with intelligence, with children from smaller families having higher achievement test scores or grades than children from larger families (Eysenck 8c Cookson, 1970; Schachter, 1963). "

"Theory suggests a trade off between child quantity and 'quality'. Family size might adversely affect the production of child quality within a family. A number of arguments also suggest that siblings are unlikely to receive equal shares of the resources devoted by parents to their children's education. We construct a composite birth order index that effectively purges family size from birth order and use this to test if siblings are assigned equal shares in the family's educational resources. We find that they are not, and that the shares are decreasing with birth order. Controlling for parental family income, parental age at birth and family level attributes, we find that children from larger families have lower levels of education and that there is in addition a separate negative birth order effect. In contrast to Black, Devereux and Kelvanes (2005), the family size effect does not vanish once we control for birth order. Our findings are robust to a number of specification checks."

Again, I'm the PP who knows a family of 6 successful adults. The answer was hundreds of million of $ trust fund, individual nannies and tutors and Deerfield boarding for all. The drawback was one of the daughters doing so much coke in college, because nannies are not parents. It's impossible to have quality one on one time with more than two. Just some bedtime reading and homework help would get to 1 hour per child, so that's 4 hours daily minimum. Add dinner, jobs, sports, school etc.

Well I know a family of 7 from a blue collar white family in the Midwest, and all but one sibling is super wealthy. Collectively, we’re talking about 4 bedroom apartments in NYC, a ski house in New England, a villa in Tuscany, beach houses around the globe, nyc privates, etc.

Sure, money makes things easier. But plenty of public school grads (especially from around here) end up very successful...even when they have a few siblings.

Those studies tend to pull from people they have access to and can incentivize to participate. Specifically: lower income/on the rolls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I only see it with Duggar, Kardashians and other illeducated types.

Is illeducated a work, Karen?

lol, do you mean "word"?