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][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][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]

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

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.[/quote]

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. [/quote]

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 [b]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[/b]. 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.[/quote]

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."[/quote]

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 [/quote]

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

Not surprising. People who parentify their children are always in denial. [/quote]

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