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

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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]But how does the 12 yr old feel about it?

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

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

I am 100 percent certain she's happy, because I somehow miraculously still parent despite having 5 kids. She's an A+ student with a blossoming social life and extracurriculars and even went on a solo trip with just DH and myself for her birthday. Often in the evenings with sit alone with just her and chat about life. Because again, it's a myth you can't find time to parent despite having many kids. Right now she's laughing in the front yard playing with 2 of her 4 siblings.

But I am not surprised, again, that the people with 1 or 2 kids think they know better than those of us with big families. [/quote]

Please stop. I am the oldest of 6 and I have 5 children myself. What you are describing is a parentified child; I know this intimately because my parents could have written the exact same thing about me almost verbatim.

I don’t know if you come from a large family yourself, but if you don’t I do empathize that it’s easier to parentify your oldest inadvertently and unknowingly. Your oldest will probably not realize they’ve been parentified until they become parents themselves and realize what they were asked to do as children versus what they ask their oldest to do, and while they still love you there will be feelings of anger and frustration that will need to be addressed by you and your spouse.

What you’ve described is not the ideal way to raise a larger family, even though I’m sure you’re doing your best and your kids love you and your family (because I did and still do love my parents and my siblings myself). Please stop describing parentification as a bragging point though. It’s making all parents of larger families look bad on this forum. This is not the only way to do it, and a lot of us don’t rely on older children to do our own parenting roles and responsibilities. [/quote]

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