Smaller families are better for kids?

[FlowersAndShit]

What does everyone think? What was your experience growing up in a small/large family?

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/small-families-are-better-for-children-research-finds-a6793936.html

Oops wrong thread

I'm one of three but now NC with both DBro and DSis.

Older DSis seems to have hated me from the day I was born. Worse, as we had a 3 bed house i had to share with her until she got married when I was 16. She regularly beat me up and dripped poisonous insults in my ear. Never told my parents most of what happened as was scared of reprisals when we were alone in bed . She subjected my parents to the same bullying as they got older and now only contacts them when she wants money.

Got on well with DBro until I left for university. He really resented me when I returned for holidays and told me everyone wanted me gone. Never got past that. He now ignores the rest of the family, haven't seen him for 15 years.

So now I am the only sibling willing to help with my Dad who is seriously incapacitated in a nursing home. I deal with all the practical arrangements as mum finds it all hard to cope with. Other siblings totally NC.

I so wish I had been an only child

I now have two DC. Wouldn't have more, one reason being I want them to have their own rooms. I think having their own space is important and helps defuse sibling conflict. They are now teens and so far, touch wood, they seem to get on pretty well most of the time. They have the usual spats but when it counts they show that they really care about each other. Fingers crossed for the future

This isn't new news. When I was a psychology undergraduate in the early 00s the research showed the more children you have the poorer cognitive scores as you go down the birth order. I distinctly remember piping up "So as the youngest of 4 I'm the runt of the litter then?" With further post graduate qualifications I think it's fair to say the research isn't true in every case.

I know a lot of only children who are spolit don't no who to share and are dicks having to learn these skills may have served them better tbh

My dear nice is a nightmare she is all of the above and I believe her bull shit would not have been tolatre day my sil as she would of been far to busy with other kids

OnGoldenPond three is not a large family. Any problems you had were not to the size of family; you need to look elsewhere.

Molio - no I never said 3 is a large family, I actually see it as pretty average size.

My point I suppose was that having siblings isn't always a good thing. It depends on the siblings and possibly on your parents relationship with the siblings. I knew my parents were scared of my DSis so didn't trust them to protect me if I told them what was going on.

I still stand by the importance of DCs having their own rooms. Not impossible with a large family, but pretty expensive.

I'm one of four and the average age gap between us all was 16.5 months. We are all close and I had a happy childhood.

I had an only child for 11 years before I had another. She was lonely and often bored. Now I'm having another baby so the one year old won't feel like my eldest did!

Personally I think 2-4 children is ideal. That's just based on my experiences. I'd say anymore than 6 would cause issues with giving them enough attention. Only children often struggle in many ways.

There are 24 hours in a day, 168 a week. 8 hours a day of sleep (56 hours) leaves 112 hours a week for you to spend with the children.

I work 40 hours a week and with my commute I'm looking at 4 1/2 hours a day, or just 18% of an entire day (28% of a waking day), available for ONE child. During that time I also need to cook, eat, spend time with my husband and unwind. That's really not a lot of time. Once the kids are at school that's depleted even more by sporting events, time with friends, homework, PTA meetings etc etc.

So out of 168 hours a week, or 112 waking hours of which 5 hours a week is commute, 40 hours is work... there are just 32 hours on the weekend and 35 hours during the week.. or 67 hours total to devote to one child.

8736 hours in a year is 3484 together (with child/spouse or whatever)... Looking at the numbers, I can't see how any parent with lots of children can honestly say their child gets "a lot of individual attention", especially when compared to smaller families.

There are so many factors in a family set-up that determine both birth order and the persons actual perception of their role in their own family. Like for example, step families, adopted families, age gaps, illness, death, parents ages and economic situation of the family. That can all change from one year to the next as well. The research stated that one major factor that lowered the cognitive and behaviour scores of the children was the amount of help, maternity care and division of labour in the family. So obviously mothers that have less time/resources to devote to their children will result in children having lower cognitive scores and more behaviour related problems. Having more children is the cause of those mothers being able to devote less time to their children. It's a leap to assume that this automatically means that smaller families are better for kids. What is better for kids is parents having the family size they can cope with. This will vary from family to family.

skyadelic - I'm a sahm and we home ed. Obviously our family setup is different from most, but we have plenty of time together.

Wow sykadelic I think all that maths is hurting my head! not all mums work 40 hours! Even so I still don't buy your theory (interesting though it is) in sure people can balance work and kids regardless

tomatodizzy on the basis of that research all my kids should have cognitive scores through the floor and have serious behavioural issues whereas nothing could be further from the truth.

There are some pretty rude mothers of two child families on this thread, suggesting that mothers of large families are selfish, that we know not what we do etc etc. It would be very easy to argue quite the opposite in fact, but I won't go down that line and argue that some parents of small families are absorbed by themselves rather than their kids, because no doubt that would cause offence. It's certainly open to debate however.

I was one of four in a time and place when most of my friends were from families of six or more, often 12 or more.

They didn't get huge amounts of individual attention from their parents, but they did have plenty of attention from siblings. IME, it was toughest on the older girls, who were expected to spend most of their "spare" time babysitting and doing housework, laundry, etc for the younger children. Sometimes even being kept out of school if their mother was sick to "mind the house". Younger siblings had it easier as older ones left school and their was more money to go around.

choli my three eldest are all girls and they never switched on a single wash in the washing machine before they left home for uni, nor ever missed a single day of school on my account. Your post is very whimsical.

As I said, Molio, that was my experience of the girls I knew from very large families. My best friend as a teen was the third oldest of 12, and I had lots of friends from large families as they were the norm in that time and place. Expectations were placed on the girls that were never placed on the boys, and educational opportunities were passed up by all the older children for financial reasons. That was the way of the times.

Yes but it's the experience of modern kids in large families which is being discussed and you're talking about a place and time which has little bearing. I don't think one can extrapolate about large families from several decades ago any more than one can extrapolate about a large number of other things - society has moved on. Household appliances too. And shopping. And meals. It's a whole lot easier to wing it now, with eight kids.

Molio are you saying you had more children than you could cope with and didn't give them attention? Even if that's true the research doesn't suggest that your children would have cognitive scores through the floor and have serious behavioural issues. What it suggests is that another family with all the same economic/social/environmental as yours but with the difference being less children then the children in that family would have higher cognitive scores than yours and less signs of behaviour issues (if relevant).
I have four children, I can hand on heart say that children in families in the same position as ours but with less children do have an advantage. That doesn't mean my children won't and don't do well and won't succeed, they will. They will actually all most likely to better than me and they will have other skills that I, as an only child, lacked. They just don't get my complete attention and that is going to have an affect, nothing I can do about it, but I wouldn't want my family any other way and I can make up for it in other ways. As I'm sure most people do. Those ways are not measured statistically.

they will have other skills

^^ this. Very much this.

Onlies are often good at entertaining themselves or at being confident.
Kids from large families are often good at negotiating and getting along.
They might be more optimistic.
Or more resourceful.
Or contented with less.
Or more able to fight their own corner.
Or stand their own ground.
Or to know when to compromise.

They might be funny or serious.
They might be driven or laid back.

The measure of 'doing less well' is based on what? If it is just earnings perhaps they choose, possibly having had less they come to want less and to focus on other things

That is the thing that they make parents feel so guilty. If you don't bf, or you do co sleep, or you do, or you have 1 or you have 8, or they do any number of other variables.

The thing is what it does is equip them all with different qualities, skills and characteristics.

All part of life's rich tapestry.

Pegs DH is the youngest of four and he is the only genuis among them.

I am one of 3, which was not a big family at the time and place where I was a child, but looking back there was just not enough to go around. My mum had a demanding job, my dad effectively ignored us, I was a middle child and had various difficulties that it was pretty clear I just wasn't allowed to talk to anyone about. I love having two siblings now, as an adult! I don't blame them for the difficulties of being a child, and to tell the truth my mum is a genius at avoiding stuff she doesn't want to think about though being "too busy", which I have only realised in later life - she genuinely was very over stretched then, but since retirement she is still "too busy" for many things that just don't suit her to think about.

Before I had children (late, I wasn't sure about having them at all) I looked around at my friends with two children and realised that something happens with two small children. Something happens to the mother. I thought about my dad (hands off to the point of being barely present) and my mum being away from her home town (no family or close friends) and remembered a few "funny" anecdotes that are told and my own very early memories and realised that something went wrong between me and my mum at a very early age. I don't have her in my life in the same way that my brother and sister do, I have never trusted her or felt that she supported or liked me. Now I am 43 and she says nothing but nice and supportive things to me, but my incredibly negative interior monologue is in her voice, and I think that I was a baby when she just had nothing to give and my adorable cute walking talking sister was there being charming and getting the love and I was just a thing in a shit filled nappy. (cloth nappies... to be washed and hung out to dry... no such thing as a tumble drier or a disposable)

I did have two children in under 2 years too, and I have had that experience of being nearly broken by constant 24 hour demands, but I picked a different sort of father for them and I had better help and was older and more emotionally literate. I will never do anything now that would take away from their security, including having any more children, or allowing myself to be as inaccessible and over stretched as my mother was.

I think people basically just had millions of children because they didn't have a choice and the mother sank or swam and nobody looked after her and nobody cared about the kids happiness or long term mental health or anything poncey like that. I think having few children, in this fabulous environment where so few catch TB or polio etc, is absolutely brilliant, it is a luxury to go into this venture with the magnificent aim not of keeping your children alive but of keeping them happy and allowing them to grow strong.

My mum was one of 4 with very driven parent, all grew up into quite successful adults, my dad on the other hand one of 7, hated it and felt he never had any one to one and applied himself to go to boarding school at 13 (on a scholarship).

I used to think we would have 3 children, DS is one of three and his childhood seems to have been very happy. But it's taken us over 4 years to fall pregnant with our second and with all the physical problems I'm having added to the scary thought of going through treatment again we'll be sticking with 2. I'm glad in a way, I don't think I'd be able to cope with more than 2 personally.

It all depends on dynamics surely? if the parents can cope - emotionally, financially and physically with many children then it can work.

Whether a couple wants just 1 child or 6 children, the reasons have to be right. I'm the youngest of 6 sisters. Knowing that my parents wanted a boy is very painful and that they were completely heartbroken on my birth (finding sex of baby in India is illegal). Don't know what they were thinking. Moving on, my parents are very loving, provided us everything they could, great education etc but we lived life on a budget. Felt restricted in what we could afford as it had to be shared equally. It affected our lifestyle and my parents' lifestyle more than us. They wanted to do so much more but couldn't because of financial burden.

Parents are very happy that we all grew up and are well settled and when we all meet and we are one big happy family. But none of us can shake the feeling why we were all conceived.

Smaller families better for kids? I'm the oldest of 2, I practically raised my brother from aged 9 to 16 whilst mum was God knows where. Dad walked out when I was 3. I spent many, many nights looking for my mum out of the window until my grandfather would carry me to bed, asleep. There was barely any food in the cupboards and never any in the fridge. We would get the slipper if we were naughty and although I tried my best, we were both a bit scruffy.

DH is one of 7 his upbringing was the polar opposite.

We have 9 children. They have my attention as and when they need it. I know what it's like to be ignored and made to feel unwanted and a burden and would never do it to my children. They watch each other when I use the bathroom or am over the oven unless DH is there. We dance around the kitchen, play Lego, help each other with homework, we all do laundry, we bake together and listen to each other, everything I never had. I would give my last breath to make my children happy. It doesn't matter how many children you have.. It's how you are as a family.

I'm the middle of 3 and my younger brother, older sister and I all agreed a long time ago that our upbringing was idyllic. And as adults we always had to check that we weren't viewing it through rose tinted glasses.
SAHMum, the eldest of 6 from a close family, we had each other and our cousins growing up. Dad was an only but was happy to have 3.
Our house was noisy and boisterous but it was full of love, and when we lost my brother 3 years ago our house was full of grief yes, but still full of love. We are all close despite the fact that I live 4000 miles away.

I would love 3 kids probably because I would love to replicate my own childhood. That being said, DH and I work full time, DS1 is 4, DS2 is 2 in March and I find that the further away I get from the baby stage, the less I want to go back.
Not to mention the expense here, education for 3 kids is eye wateringly expensive.
But the thing that stops me in my tracks the most is watching how the boys interact with each other. At the moment they seem to be bonding so well and really love each other. Of course I know that will change as they get older but I think that another child in the mix would disrupt that.

With modern family planning, closer movement towards gender equality, better domestic appliances and things like better maternity and early years care, having a larger family in 2016 is going to be a lot different than say 30/40 years ago.

what a lot of people are describing is the difference between a good parent and a neglectful one, irrespective of sibling numbers.

I suspect today in the US there must be immense pressure from religion and anti-abortion sentiments that mean there are a lot more unplanned children being born which may not be as enthusiastically wanted as older children.

I remember my GP telling my sister and I that they never wanted 5 only 2, but it was the 40s/50s and 3 accidents happened. 2 of the accidents never got over that fact.

If you can afford the time, housing and financial cost to raise the children you want then I think that's a very good start for any child you have.

My own viewpoint on my family is that we chose to have 2 DC close together because my DH has a son and we felt our child would grow up missing her sibling when they went back to mums.

It has worked out well as DS is now s teen and has no interest in playing preschool games when he is here. When he goes home the kids cry but they soon amuse each other after a kiss and cuddle.

As someone upthread said they often prefer to play together than want me. I do try to factor as much one on one time as possible.

We are due DC3, and I know it's not going to be easy. But we made our choice based on the fact I no longer work, which means I am more able to spend time playing with my kids (when they want it) than ever before.

I was also one of 2 and we never got on. I am hoping a 3rd child will mean that if one wants some alone time there is company for the other.