In your child’s class, how many siblings do most children have?

[Allswellthatendswelll]

Based on something I read about how the birth rate crunch is actually a lot to do with smaller families not childfree people:

In your child's class what's the main number of siblings? I totted up for my reception child and it was about 22 kids were one of two, 3 only children and 5 as one of 3. Having two kids seems very much the norm. Obviously it's reception so there could be more siblings later. We are home counties, reasonably affluent.

There's very few only children in DSs class. The only other two I can think of are not only children by choice. The other two had lost siblings through miscarriage who were wanted but they never had a second.

I think the bigger difference is the switch from three kids to two. One of the reasons for this is three plus kids requires you to have a bigger car because of isofix and car seat laws. That effectively priced a lot of middle class parents out immediately.

Bigger families were much more typical when we weren't reliant on cars so much or the rules were much more lax and you had six in the back and boot. The families that have more than two are at either end of the scale - they either are much poorer (less likely to be careful owners) or are status children.

Four kids is now perceived as aspirational.

One of my grandmothers was one of 13. The other grandmother was one of 12. My grandfather was one of 5. The other grandfather was one of 3.

From my 4 grandparents there are just 3 great grandchildren.

I was thinking about the car thing. I mean if I really wanted a bigger family maybe that alone wouldn't put me off but it's a thing. I feel like it's loads of smaller things like that which have normalised the 2 child family.

The lesser discussed part of this phenomenon is how small people’s extended families will become.

My DH and I both from big families. We are the only ones with a child. I suspect there may be one cousin for our children, but that’s it.

All those big family christmases and networks of people just won’t exist in future at this rate.

When my eldest started reception I was 20 and she had no siblings now she’s in year 4 with two siblings. In her class most the other kids have two or three siblings and there’s a few onlys.
Also two kids that I know of with three siblings but there’s could be more I don’t know everyone

The expectation everyone will have a bedroom is probably one…!

The cost of moving to a bigger house (and not wanting to raise 3 kids in a 3 bed house) is probably the biggest factor in not having a third. If I could have easily afforded the next house ‘up’, i would have probably done it.

The birth rate in my area of London is down over 20% and our local primary has dropped an entire form at reception this year, having been oversubscribed for decades.

My son is in high school but out of my friends I have 5 friends with 3 children, a few have 2 and I am an outlier with 1

16 have 1 sibling
4 have no siblings
1 has 2 siblings (and ages are spread out between 5 and 16).

It depends alot on the year your child is in. If you asked when DS was in reception it would be alot different to now (year 3). Alot have had 2nd and 3rd children over those 4 years.
Of our friendship group now I would say 25% are only children, 50% have 2 and 25% have 3 (or more)

I never had this anyway.

My family is much smaller than it was a generation ago but we may way more effort than my parents ever did with their families. They lived too far away and it just wasn't affordable.

People forget that despite big families often people would only stay close to one or two. If someone more a long way away or abroad it wasn't uncommon to never see them again.

Certainly this is what I found researching my family.

I think the cost of housing in London is a big factor. I grew up in the north of Scotland, the only one of my friends who has only 2 had fertility issues, the others all had 3+. I live in the NE which is the cheapest part of the country for housing, at our very middle class school then there were as many families of 3 as there were 2s and more 4s than onlies. Although I do know of some who had an only so they could go private so it may be that they are all at the private schools. Not a choice I would make.

I think generations of people having no or only children is a shame, siblings and cousins are important and I can't imagine what it would be like to be the only child of two onlies. You must feel so ungrounded.

Not sure about dd’s class but I know ds’s quite well now. He has 30 in his class: 4 x one of 4, 6 x one of 3, 14 x one of 2, 6 x onlys.

I'm not sure about everyone in my son's reception class, but I have noticed that there are a lot of one child families, much more than when I was young. I do live in an expensive area where the birth rate is known to be dropping- so much so we got our dc into a popular oversubscribed school we are not in catchment for. Meanwhile less popular schools are having to reduce their intake.

My kids are teens now, but most children were one of 2.

Oddly enough, I’ve noticed that a lot of couples are now expecting or having their 3rd baby, contrary to what we hear.

I can’t think of any young families with 4+, it must be very unusual now

Yes absolutely to bedrooms.

Growing up you didn't think anything of kids sharing bedrooms. It was normal. Now there a huge amount of angst over it.

My grandmother of 13 lived in a two up two down. She shared a bed with two sisters. She was the middle child - her eldest sister was born in 1914 and the youngest in 1935. I think the eldest got married in 1940 so for a period there was 15 of them under the same roof with over half of them over fifteen years old.

It's absolutely insane to think about.

But there was no designer clothes to think about. There was no phones to buy. There was no car.

Even my father wasn't much of a step up from that. He remembers having to get up and light the fire in the hearth and there being ice on the inside of the windows.

He didn't get central heating until we moved to our first family house in 1984 (the house didn't have it - my parents had to install it). I was 5. Up til then they had portable heaters when I was little and we lived in a flat.

It really puts a lot into perspective to compare my grandparents and parents to my generation. Tbh the difference between my generation and DSs is much smaller.

In my eldests class only one child is an only child. Majority have at least 2 other siblings - 4 children is very common. Same in my youngest class. I don’t think there are any only children. I should point out this is a 99% white Catholic school so not a case of certain cultures tending to larger families

My dc are much older than Reception age now but I was thinking about something recently. When I was a kid in the 80s, I knew very few children who were an only child. It was quite unusual. Most were in families with 3 or 4 children.

But for my own dc, they have known many children over the years who are the only child. Lots of families in our neighbourhood are. Families we know through sports, school etc. I could go on and on.

Why so unfriendly? Sounds like the OP has a great social life!

You can do some research online about the average family size OP. I find these statistics quite interesting!
In my experience, it varies hugely from class to class. Eg most children in DC1's class only have one sibling. Whereas in DC2's class, there are 10 children with 2 siblings and one even has 4 siblings! There are only 3 only children (who might have a sibling one day, who knows!)

Interesting- I'd love a third but I'd say 80/20 we won't as won't most of my friends. Mainly due to being in late 30s (40 in DHs case). The people I know having 3 had their first before 30. 4 or more is a real lifestyle choice now.

“But there was no designer clothes to think about. There was no phones to buy. There was no car.” - what does this mean?

The situation of 15 living in a two up two down in that era was poverty and a lack of contraception.

a mix of only children, 2 or 3. I've got two one in y3 and one starting reception and I want another!

Thank you! I do have social activities outside 5th birthdays as well I promise.😂

I find demographic stuff fascinating and we struggled to concieve our second so I got a bit obsessed with family size that way.

Another thought on a third for me is nursery costs.

I’ll have spent over £200,000 on nursery fees for two from 0-school age.

Another child will be another £100,000 minimum over the short term.

My daughters old school…. 1-2 kids per family.
new school…. Many families with 5+ kids
social diagraphics VERY different in both schools. New school I don’t think many parents work.

It's interesting. Not based on classes but my family.
In dhs family, his parents had 4 kids, eldest when they were 26, youngest when they were 40.
Those 4 kids produced 11 grandkids ( spread over a 22 year period, but most born within a 10 years of each other).
From those 11 grandkids, only 3 great grandkids have been born in that generation, from 2 of the grandkids. The rest have no intention on having them, most of them are well into their 30s, and are either single, in male way relationships (and not minded to have kids), just don't want them etc. I think there is an outside chance that a further 2 will have a child, but I am not surprised at the declining birthrate.

Out of 29 kids in late primary, I don’t know for around 5 of them but the remaining 24:
3 siblings x 1
2 siblings x 5
no siblings x 2
1 sibling - the rest. Of those, 5 didn’t have a younger sibling born until they were 6+ old so would’ve been “only” children in reception (and 4 of them are full siblings, including mine)