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]Many many factors impact how hard or difficult parenting is.  But  undoubtedly, the difficulty goes up with the number of children. Sure, older kids help out a bit with younger kids and they do play together, but not really.  Kids close in age play together, but not kids with a five, 10 year age gap.   Plus there  is no way of getting around the mental load, and the schedules, and the paperwork, and the finances, and the emotional issues (the older kids can't manage that for the younger ones!), and the sports equipment, and practices, and games etc. etc. of. having five kids.  It's harder, no doubt.

But moms of many kids should just own it. You wanted a big family and you have it!  There are a lot of benefits of having many kids, but being easier is NOT one of them, so stop trying to make that argument.  [/quote]

One thing people don't talk about with the big age gaps (or even smaller ones) is that sometimes the kids do play together and it's not great for the younger kids because they become more mature quickly by learning from older siblings. I used to work in an elementary school and often the ringleaders of behaviors that seem too mature for the age (violence, bad language, sexual activity, drugs and alcohol) are younger children with siblings who are in MS or HS. That's where they are getting access to this stuff. Even in a house where parents are on top of not letting older sibs introduce sexual behavior or drugs/alcohol, younger kids might be privy to media or conversations that aren't really appropriate for them, whether it's playing with an older siblings video games or eavesdropping on an older sibling and friends talking about sex or drinking.

Just as older siblings in large families are often parentified, robbing them of the innocence of childhood, so too are younger kids often robbed of their innocence and youth by being expected to hang with much older children regularly, without parent supervision.[/quote]

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