Anonymous wrote:I don't know anyone that grew up in a large family as one of the older children that has their own large family. Generally, the older siblings who had to help parent their younger siblings are not happy that they had to do it.

Younger siblings on the other hand...I know a few of these, too, and a lot of them wanted and have large families. Probably because they were the younger siblings and got a lot of attention from a lot of people. They didn't have to do the work.

Oh, large families can screw it up in a myriad of ways, it's not always a joy for the younger kids either. In my family with 4 kids, my older sister went on to have 4 kids... but she is now pretty miserable and has a bad relationship with our parents, so I don't know what that says about her experience. She complains a lot about her childhood.

The two youngest (me and my brother) didn't enjoy the experience either. I wound up often being tasked with caring for him even though I'm just 3 years older (getting the "you're a girl so your more mature" bonus) while my parents did stuff with the the older kids, or even when my mom just slowly melted down over the course of several years and fell into a deep depression. I have almost no fond memories of my family having a great time together, and my sibling relationships are all quite strained. I can imagine parents who would do a good job with four, but my parents were totally overwhelmed and didn't parent any of us well, nor did they take great care of themselves. Like a lot of families with a lot of kids, they started very young (too young, they really had no idea what they were doing) and had absolutely no idea what they were getting into, despite coming from big families as well. I think they would have struggled with parenting no matter what, but the problems might have been mitigated had they stopped at one or two. I don't think they were ever in danger of becoming intense helicopter parents.

I've always thought that with 3 or fewer kids, the primary relationship paradigm is between parent and child, but once you have more than 3 kids the relationship focus shifts to the relationships between siblings, since the parents don't have enough band-width to do intensive one-on-one time with the kids. At least that is what I have observed in my adult friends from large families.

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.

Anonymous wrote:Mom of five here. It is 100 percent easier to have 5 kids than 3. I found 3 the absolute hardest. Now my older kids entertain and help with the younger kids. The year my third was born was the least happy year of my life. I am now the happiest I have ever been since becoming a mom with my fifth almost turning one. I am way more relaxed and it is 100 percent true that older kids help so much. For example on Saturday mornings I will wake up and my 12 year old has changed my toddler's diaper, turned on his cartoon, and gotten him a bowl of cheerios while I lounge in bed with DH.

What I am looking forward to is parents of 2-3 kids trying to explain why those of us with 4+ don't actually know what we are talking about when we say it's easier and we are happier than you all.

This plus your subsequent posts indicate you're purposefully trying to have people hate the large family model. You hit it all - the obnoxious smugness, the total indifference to your oldest kids' feelings on whether they want to help, the constant unprovoked attacks on those who have smaller families.

Go away, troll.

“ Teens from larger families tend to have poorer mental health than those with fewer siblings, according to a large-scale analysis of children in the United States and China.”

https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2024-01-15/bigger-families-could-mean-poorer-mental-health-for-kids

“ Families face a substantial quantity-quality trade-off: increases in family size decrease parental investment, decrease childhood performance on cognitive tests and measures of social behavior," they wrote.

"Importantly, we find that these negative effects are not merely temporary disruptions following a birth but in fact persist throughout childhood."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/01/160111135748.htm#google_vignette

“ Larger families are more frequent with early marriage and rapid birth of the first child. In larger families, child rearing becomes more rule ridden, less individualized, with corporal punishment and less investment of resources. Smaller families tend to result in higher IQ, academic achievement, and occupational performance. Large families produce more delinquents and alcoholics. Perinatal morbidity and mortality rates are higher in large families as birth weights decrease. Mothers of large families are at higher risk of several physical diseases. Common methodological errors are indicated and exemplary studies are described.”

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3900289/

“ Over the past few decades, scientific research has shown that children in larger families perform worse in school, score lower on cognitive tests, and attain fewer years of education than kids in smaller families”

https://bigthink.com/the-present/large-family-worsens-kids-cognitive-development/#

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mom of five here. It is 100 percent easier to have 5 kids than 3. I found 3 the absolute hardest. Now my older kids entertain and help with the younger kids. The year my third was born was the least happy year of my life. I am now the happiest I have ever been since becoming a mom with my fifth almost turning one. I am way more relaxed and it is 100 percent true that older kids help so much. For example on Saturday mornings I will wake up and my 12 year old has changed my toddler's diaper, turned on his cartoon, and gotten him a bowl of cheerios while I lounge in bed with DH.

What I am looking forward to is parents of 2-3 kids trying to explain why those of us with 4+ don't actually know what we are talking about when we say it's easier and we are happier than you all.

I'm one of six kids and my parents did this kind of thing. It sucks for the kids.

Sorry your childhood sucked. I’m one of five and we all pitched in and my childhood was amazing.

Anonymous wrote:Mom of five here. It is 100 percent easier to have 5 kids than 3. I found 3 the absolute hardest. Now my older kids entertain and help with the younger kids. The year my third was born was the least happy year of my life. I am now the happiest I have ever been since becoming a mom with my fifth almost turning one. I am way more relaxed and it is 100 percent true that older kids help so much. For example on Saturday mornings I will wake up and my 12 year old has changed my toddler's diaper, turned on his cartoon, and gotten him a bowl of cheerios while I lounge in bed with DH.

What I am looking forward to is parents of 2-3 kids trying to explain why those of us with 4+ don't actually know what we are talking about when we say it's easier and we are happier than you all.

I'm one of six kids and my parents did this kind of thing. It sucks for the kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mom of five here. It is 100 percent easier to have 5 kids than 3. I found 3 the absolute hardest. Now my older kids entertain and help with the younger kids. The year my third was born was the least happy year of my life. I am now the happiest I have ever been since becoming a mom with my fifth almost turning one. I am way more relaxed and it is 100 percent true that older kids help so much. For example on Saturday mornings I will wake up and my 12 year old has changed my toddler's diaper, turned on his cartoon, and gotten him a bowl of cheerios while I lounge in bed with DH.

What I am looking forward to is parents of 2-3 kids trying to explain why those of us with 4+ don't actually know what we are talking about when we say it's easier and we are happier than you all.

Of course parenting is easier if you check out and dgaf. Not really a flex, but at least 30% self-aware, and that's got to count for . . . something.

sorry you don't get to relax saturday mornings?

not if the kids are young, and the parent actually parents, no.

spoken like someone with a small family!

My kids are now teens, and they can take care of themselves for the most part.

"My kids are now teens, and they can take care of themselves for the most part."

Teens need attentive parents and parenting IME. If they are taking care of themselves "for the most part," you are doing it wrong.

Anonymous wrote:I think up to a point it's fine and good to have older kids help with younger ones, provided the older boys have to help, too. Those are good life skills to learn.

I suspect the reason moms with four or more are happier is that most American don't have four kids unless they are some weird religion OR they LOVE having kids. So if you're choosing to have four kids, you probably dig being a mom. I don't think it's that having four kids makes you happier.

I am the youngest of three and I think it's a bad number. Too much two on one triangulations happen. And my somewhat parentified older sister is still bossy and annoying even though we are all adults now. She still expects to be in charge.

Tim Carney sure as heck didn't carry four kids and give birth to them himself. Ugh.

My mom goes around telling people to have even numbers of kids. She had three girls.

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t agree with everything in the article but I think people of DCUM could benefit from a little cross examination of the intensive parenting model.

Nah. I have an only child because I wanted to chill and enjoy my kid, spoil him with attention, and give him all my resources.

Maybe parenting is easier for the parents, but what’s the impact on the older kids forced to parent younger siblings? What impact does that have on them?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mom of five here. It is 100 percent easier to have 5 kids than 3. I found 3 the absolute hardest. Now my older kids entertain and help with the younger kids. The year my third was born was the least happy year of my life. I am now the happiest I have ever been since becoming a mom with my fifth almost turning one. I am way more relaxed and it is 100 percent true that older kids help so much. For example on Saturday mornings I will wake up and my 12 year old has changed my toddler's diaper, turned on his cartoon, and gotten him a bowl of cheerios while I lounge in bed with DH.

What I am looking forward to is parents of 2-3 kids trying to explain why those of us with 4+ don't actually know what we are talking about when we say it's easier and we are happier than you all.

Of course parenting is easier if you check out and dgaf. Not really a flex, but at least 30% self-aware, and that's got to count for . . . something.

sorry you don't get to relax saturday mornings?

I wouldn't find not knowing if my kids had eaten or were sitting in their own filth relaxing, but it takes all kinds.

thankfully not something I have to worry about with older kids that help!

some of my worst memories of childhood were the times my mom leaned on me to care for the babies - like, at 9 I remember trying to set the table holding a crying baby. I even dropped the baby on his head once. good times!