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]Backward reasoning.

1. The reason mothers of 4 are generally happier than mother of 3, is that they wanted a large family all along, and got it. Not that they ended up with a large family by accident, and then found out that it was "easier".

[b]2. I know lots of people who had to parent their little siblings. Most of them don't have kids of their own, because of the psychological toll it took on their childhoods.[/b]

3. While I would have loved a large family, my oldest was born with special needs. Parenting him was a full time job, and I missed my fertile window to expand beyond 2. But I certainly wouldn't have forced my oldest kids to parent the younger kids!

4. This man is a moron.
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Absolutely this. Go ahead and have 5 kids if you're going to have real adults taking care of them 90% of the time.[/quote]

+1 This.   If you've got the money to foist your kids on nannies great.  If you have the money to have a SAHD or SAHM with talent for kids, great.  But 2 working parents without means having all those kids because of reasons of faith (no birth control) or by accident is a recipe for disaster.[/quote]

Even the best SAHM cannot take care of say 4 kids under 7 competently. Nobody can. [/quote]

Says someone who thinks it’s fine to sends their kids to a daycare/preschool with a 8:1 ratio.  
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No judgment but I actually did not send my child to daycare until they were older in part because I didn’t like that ratio. Also daycare is 8 hrs/day, not all day, and the care workers have no duties other than attending to the babies. Very different from a mom with a newborn, preschooler, toddler, and a bunch of older kids to manage, plus housework.

I posted above numerous studies on large families having poor outcomes for children. It’s simple physics- just not enough parental resources that kids need to thrive. [/quote]

Meh. Besides the daycare example, kindergarten teachers watch 24 kids plus for 8 hours a day.  I think it's likely a competent SAHP could manage up 5-8 kids reasonably well.  The SAHP may be tired but they don't have the stress of working out of the home and presumably the other parent would be around to help with the kids and housework when they're not at work.[/quote]

Spoken like someone who has never lived in that kind of household. Kindergarten is 4-6 hours not all day. I think you literally have no understanding of this. [/quote]

Chill our anonymous poster.   Pre-birth control families were large.  And some families in America with a SAHP still live like it's the 1950s. No one is saying that it all runs beautifully and some of those SAHM end up psychotic from too much postpartum depression and harming their children (see Andrea Yates), but it is POSSIBLE to have a large family and have them happy.[/quote]

It may be POSSIBLE but Tim Carney & go literally think women should be forced into doing it. Get this through your skull: no birth control, no abortion. [/quote]

My understanding is that they think people who are called to Catholic marriage AND parenthood should have large families.  Of course many people have other callings in life.  
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No that’s not quite right- if you are Catholic and married, you have to be *open* to having children. BC is prohibited, NFP is the standard, but you are supposed to prayerfully discern when and if you have another child. You might discern to have fewer children because of debilitating morning sickness, post partum depression, significant special needs, or because there are two meaningful, demanding careers between you and your spouse.

As a mother of 5, my problem with this article is that he describes the “ideal” family size as being a large one. Obviously there are beautiful families of all sizes. Normally I wouldn’t quibble too much with word choice, but I think he should have argued that big families can be wonderful too and that they offer a glimpse into the value of landing the helicopter. [/quote]

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