Is having 4+ kids a status symbol?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why would anybody in their right mind want 4 kids?????

Just off the top of my head...

1-Built in playmate for the other siblings
2-More people to care for you when you’re old
3-More People for family game night

[Anonymous]

One of four siblings. Hard no.

[Anonymous]

My husband is one of 8. Parents have no money. Every single kid is crazy successful. The kids have 3-5 kids each.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have four kids.
I do bedtime reading with all of them together. We roll out sleeping bags on the floor, and I sit in the poang chair in my oldest son’s room. After that, the younger two go to bed, and DH and I talk for a while with the older two, sometimes all together. Sometimes 1:1.

I usually make dinner and help with homework simultaneously. Kids don’t need you hovering over them while they do their homework, but they need you to be available if they have questions.

They do have to be more independent than some of their peers. We taught them to ride bikes early and showed them how to get places they want to go. They have to be responsible for a lot of their own things. They have to help out around the house.

Hence my point that you cannot spend quality time one-to-one. Research from different countries points to the fact that they will be less successful, due to less individual attention and resources, than their peers from smaller families. I absolutely agree with you that they have to be more independent, regardless of their personalities. It's a survival skill; even my second child is more independent than my first.

Why did you have more than 1 kid? That was dumb, given what you are saying. Where's the line?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have four kids.
I do bedtime reading with all of them together. We roll out sleeping bags on the floor, and I sit in the poang chair in my oldest son’s room. After that, the younger two go to bed, and DH and I talk for a while with the older two, sometimes all together. Sometimes 1:1.

I usually make dinner and help with homework simultaneously. Kids don’t need you hovering over them while they do their homework, but they need you to be available if they have questions.

They do have to be more independent than some of their peers. We taught them to ride bikes early and showed them how to get places they want to go. They have to be responsible for a lot of their own things. They have to help out around the house.

Hence my point that you cannot spend quality time one-to-one. Research from different countries points to the fact that they will be less successful, due to less individual attention and resources, than their peers from smaller families. I absolutely agree with you that they have to be more independent, regardless of their personalities. It's a survival skill; even my second child is more independent than my first.

Why did you have more than 1 kid? That was dumb, given what you are saying. Where's the line?

If you read the research, the line is 2. The 3rd one will be significantly worse off and the trend continues with each child. It's the opposite of dumb, two is ideal but you actually have to read the research. The two siblings get all the advantages of socialization and also an increase share of resources, including parents' attention. Again, I'm one of 4 so I speak from experience; I'm the third child.

[Anonymous]

To answer OP as to whether it’s a status symbol, I think some parents might think it is, but it’s not always so rosy for the kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have four kids.
I do bedtime reading with all of them together. We roll out sleeping bags on the floor, and I sit in the poang chair in my oldest son’s room. After that, the younger two go to bed, and DH and I talk for a while with the older two, sometimes all together. Sometimes 1:1.

I usually make dinner and help with homework simultaneously. Kids don’t need you hovering over them while they do their homework, but they need you to be available if they have questions.

They do have to be more independent than some of their peers. We taught them to ride bikes early and showed them how to get places they want to go. They have to be responsible for a lot of their own things. They have to help out around the house.

Hence my point that you cannot spend quality time one-to-one. Research from different countries points to the fact that they will be less successful, due to less individual attention and resources, than their peers from smaller families. I absolutely agree with you that they have to be more independent, regardless of their personalities. It's a survival skill; even my second child is more independent than my first.

Why did you have more than 1 kid? That was dumb, given what you are saying. Where's the line?

If you read the research, the line is 2. The 3rd one will be significantly worse off and the trend continues with each child. It's the opposite of dumb, two is ideal but you actually have to read the research. The two siblings get all the advantages of socialization and also an increase share of resources, including parents' attention. Again, I'm one of 4 so I speak from experience; I'm the third child.

You act as if this “research” is black and white. It’s not. There are so many more factors at play; finances, whether one parent stays home, temperament of the children and parents, spacing of the children.
And, you speak from one limited experience. I find it hard to believe you had a second child because the research showed “that was correct”.
It is an odd and unemotional way to look at child bearing. I hope you chose two children because that is what you and your spouse wanted and the right amount for your situation, not because of research. You should respect that the number is different for other families. I am one of two so I speak from experience. I didn’t find it the ideal number.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would anybody in their right mind want 4 kids?????

Just off the top of my head...

1-Built in playmate for the other siblings
2-More people to care for you when you’re old
3-More People for family game night

My sister and I hated each other so not a built-in anything.
You assume parents and kids have the relationship that kids will take care of them. With four kids you aren't fully spending much time with any.
Family game night - from the posts here they aren't doing family game night.

[Anonymous]

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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.

This is the only family you know with more than two kids where the kids are doing well?
My mom is one of ten. She grew up on a farm in rural Ohio. All ten kids are more or less successful. 6 are very successful in DCUM terms and are professionals and business owners. The other four are a teacher, bank manager, builder/contractor, and farmer. They all have long lasting marriages and kids are doing well.
My babysitter is one of 10. All of her older siblings have gone to college, and she will go too. The oldest two are married to really nice people and have children of their own.
I can think of a few large families where one or two siblings are messed up, but I can think of a few small families where that’s true as well.

Yes, but I'm younger. The wealth gap has increased significantly since the 1970s and the college costs are out of control. What worked in the 1970s - 1990s is no longer sustainable now.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/camilomaldonado/2018/07/24/price-of-college-increasing-almost-8-times-faster-than-wages/

Yep. A lot of parents posting here had kids from 1996-2005ish, and that’s a different generation.

Shrug.

I had my 4 kids between 2004 and 2012.

In-state tuition is still affordable.

I honestly think the silver spoon approach to parenting two kids can be detrimental. Kids won’t learn to hustle if you helicopter and placate their whims.

$35k/yr for most people, especially x4 kids and 4 years each is not affordable for most people and means loans. Bless your heart.

UMD is around $12K without room and board for books and tuition. There is no excuse a parent doesn't help with that who can afford it and isn't lower income (under $80-90k). You start slowly saving at birth. Every birthday/holiday gift goes into the 529 and you put what you can in.

That’s your opinion. In most states college tuition is really expensive and I guess you’re fine with making your kid live at home all 4 years, because rent costs money and so does room and board. Go look up tuition and r&b in PA, Vt, IL, NH, and Maine and come back. $12k/yr x 4 years x 4 kids is not affordable for most people.

Yes, I'd be fine with my child living at home as long as they go to college. We have a prepaid and on top of that a 529 with room/board/tuition and hopefully some left over for graduate school depending on the school (if they go to UMD plenty). I want to pay for college and graduate school. I would never have 4 kids as no one has that much time even us with a SAHP and a parent who works at home/very flexible job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Better no one has that many kids. The world is already over populated.

But if you must, I would rather rich people have 4+ kids than poor people.

Poor people can get financial aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have four kids.
I do bedtime reading with all of them together. We roll out sleeping bags on the floor, and I sit in the poang chair in my oldest son’s room. After that, the younger two go to bed, and DH and I talk for a while with the older two, sometimes all together. Sometimes 1:1.

I usually make dinner and help with homework simultaneously. Kids don’t need you hovering over them while they do their homework, but they need you to be available if they have questions.

They do have to be more independent than some of their peers. We taught them to ride bikes early and showed them how to get places they want to go. They have to be responsible for a lot of their own things. They have to help out around the house.

Hence my point that you cannot spend quality time one-to-one. Research from different countries points to the fact that they will be less successful, due to less individual attention and resources, than their peers from smaller families. I absolutely agree with you that they have to be more independent, regardless of their personalities. It's a survival skill; even my second child is more independent than my first.

Why did you have more than 1 kid? That was dumb, given what you are saying. Where's the line?

If you read the research, the line is 2. The 3rd one will be significantly worse off and the trend continues with each child. It's the opposite of dumb, two is ideal but you actually have to read the research. The two siblings get all the advantages of socialization and also an increase share of resources, including parents' attention. Again, I'm one of 4 so I speak from experience; I'm the third child.

spacing also affects things.

[Anonymous]

I couldn’t care less about what others are doing.
That’s MY status symbol. My shit is infinitely more important than whatever car you drive or how many kids you have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would anybody in their right mind want 4 kids?????

Just off the top of my head...

1-Built in playmate for the other siblings
2-More people to care for you when you’re old
3-More People for family game night

My sister and I hated each other so not a built-in anything.
You assume parents and kids have the relationship that kids will take care of them. With four kids you aren't fully spending much time with any.
Family game night - from the posts here they aren't doing family game night.

I’m sorry to hear that. But the reasons mentioned are reasons why people have 4+ kids (why are you responding if you only have one sibling?). Don’t be so hateful toward your sister.

[Anonymous]

Of you have 6 siblings moist likely you get along with at least one. Of you have 2-3 more likely none of you get along.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would anybody in their right mind want 4 kids?????

Just off the top of my head...

1-Built in playmate for the other siblings
2-More people to care for you when you’re old
3-More People for family game night

If your thinking is this astoundingly shallow then you really shouldn’t be having any children at all.