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]If you do it right, one is enough.[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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. [/quote]
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. [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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