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

Sykadelic your maths appeals to the logical part of me.

Given that most of my friends are in senior management positions, working far, far in excess of 40 hours a week (as do I) that's a really interesting way of looking at the hours you have to spend with children. We only have one and won't be having another for many reasons (I'm an only and love it) your maths makes a lot of sense to me.

Countrymusic - there was a case in Australia a few years ago where a couple had 3 boys, and wanted a girl (they'd tragically lost their DD shortly after her birth). They had IVF to get a girl but got twin boys instead - and decided not to continue with the pg. I do wonder still how their other boys felt about that - knowing that their mother was so desperate for a girl. Slightly different of course, but still - I can't help wondering if it had any long-term impact on the other boys. :(

I think there is a difference between a large family of 4 and very large families of 7 or 8 plus. Generally those of us who have negative feelings about it have come from the very large families. I think it is true that those who have v large families now have very much made a choice to do so although I know it was also choice in my parents case.

True, not sure I'd class 4 as a large family.

Oh thumb. That's so sad!

It was, very :(

No tomatodizzy I'm not saying that I had more children than I could cope with, on the grounds that I seem to have coped (although sometimes with great difficulty, particularly when life's thrown something extra or difficult my way - death, illness etc). I'm simply saying that I had very little external support (first children were born thousands of miles from my mother who would have helped gladly, but couldn't and I never had other maternity support (not sure what that is) or help). So on the basis of the outline of the research you gave my kids should have really poor cognitive abilities and serious behavioural issues when in fact they not only have neither but they'd score very highly indeed and have no behaviour issues nor ever have had any behaviour issues.

I get on really well with my DH and we have been together for over 30 years. The only time we struggled was when our 4 DC were all little at the same time. We didn't argue but I felt that sometimes we didn't have enough 'energy' for each other. I can't imagine it would have be good for our relationship to have more kids.

It be different if you have the kids really spread out or in batches but you have to wonder how it works in very large families.

MOLIO i get what you're saying about it being easier these days to raise a large (6+) family. As I mentioned before I have 9. I also have an 11kg washer, 9kg dryer, dishwasher, double oven etc etc. MIL would have had it harder than me - no dryer or washer when the first lot were born, no dishwasher, that's just the start. Then there's my gran, she had 7 in 20 years between the 40s and 60s whilst my grandad worked horrendous hours down the pit. My great gran had 9. dhs gran had 7 and great gran had 12. Myself and DH have it so easy compared to them, I applaud them.

Yes Maria it's a completely different thing. The washing up when the dishwasher breaks down and everyone is at home has to be seen to be believed. A large family on a middle income these days is unimaginably easier to manage than a large family on a middle income in the old days. Everything about it is easier I think.

I'm not sure why a pp made a DC having its own room essential for healthy development. Sharing has made mine far more adaptable in later years and they also learned to study against a background of noise - that's been useful as well.

According to Sky's logic my dc have an extra 45 hours a week attention compared to Sky's. That's 2340 a year. That works out at over nine and a half years of waking hours until my children are 18 compared to her child. I think my dc are doing ok.

But when we were kids we didn't always have clean clothes (or that many). I only had the one tunic for school and wore a shirt for several days and clothes weren't worn once and washed. Only had a bath once a week i think when little. Very little in the way of activities, parents didn't ferry us around or take us to school - we walked on our own from a young age.

In some ways parents were expected to do less, provide less. Now whether for better or worse parents are expected to provide more financially, children do more hobbies and activities, no longer can you squeeze 7 kids in one bedroom from babies to teens like my neighbours had to do.

Most kids left school at 16ish and got a job, now it's common to expect them to go on to further education which has to be funded, they are in school till 18 and reliant on parents.

I'd imagine it must be hard for those with big familes to provide financially what many kids expect these days.

I do find it strange that people still choose to have 7 or 8 kids these days.

Plus Molio's (think it was Molio) children never even turned on a washing machine so no help from them whereas back in the 70's 80's children (usually the girls of course) were expected to do a lot of the housework. Mind younger siblings, cook, hoover, iron etc - so don't kniw if todays mums do have it that much easier - especially if thier many children aren't helpibg with younger siblings ir helping round the house as claimed here.

Can I ask the obvious (though necessarily impolite) question to those of you with more than 5 children?

Why-oh-why?

Bambi why is it strange that I have 7dc. I am a sahm my dh works hard to provide for us. Our house has four bedrooms, two reception rooms and a large garden so plenty of space.

Of course it's strange!!!

Large families are vanishingly small in the UK (outside immigrant muslim communities, where the trend is growing again).

SheGot it's unusual not strange, did you intend to be so so rude in both of your posts?
We have 7 dc because we can meet the needs of them all and family is more important to us than holidays abroad etc.

Like most of these things it depends on the family and particularly the income and stress levels.

AndNowItsSeven you sound like my DMIL. She has 7 children, large home and was a very happy SAHM.

They had enough money to privately educate all children and have a mothers help a couple of days so the upkeep of the home never became too much.

If you take out working outside the home, money worries and having all household responsibility fall on your shoulders then it is very possible for this big family dynamic to work very well. All my in laws felt their mother was loving and gave them plenty of time and all felt equally loved but I do think that affluence is the key.

I have 2 and thats enough for me

Because the vast majority of people actively avoid having such large families, it's unusual and definitely not the norm.

Glad it works for you though and you are all happy with it.

Thing you have to remember is that while parents might think they're raising all of their 5-10 kids, they're probably only raising the youngest few and the eldest siblings are picking up the slack in ways they can't even imagine - for eg: having sex talks, intervening with bullies, cooking/cleaning (most immigrant communities make elder children help out a lot here). So what's the point of having so many kids when you're making some of them raise the others for you?

I speak as the eldest of five so maybe I'm biased.

So on the basis of the outline of the research you gave my kids should have really poor cognitive abilities and serious behavioural issues I think you are misunderstanding the study. It doesn't say any of the children had really poor cognitive abilities and serious behavioural issues! It says the scores are lower compared with children from smaller families. My children do really well in school but I know children in smaller families that probably do better, that's not suggesting my children are dumb or failing, far from it. My MIL is one of 8, 7 of the 8 are all university graduates with highly paid jobs, one is the head of a medical school. The other is a millionaire cattle rancher, who climbed in other ways.

SheGotAllDaMoves I would love 5 children (I won't though as I'm over 35 now) but a large family is heaven and I can see why people have 5 or even more.

I'd like to know how common big families actually are in the UK and who they consist of. I wonder if a lot are from families where culture or religion have a big influence or if many are a result of blended families. I wonder what the divorce rate is? The only ones I ever here of are the highly successful MN ones or the ones that get on trashy 'benefit bashing' TV . I suspect there is a more typical middles ground.

The only people I've know with big families are from when I lived in a city with a lot of Hasidic Jews - now those were really big families.

I'm going to have a Google.

.
.

Bear with

I've just been catching up on this thread. Two thoughts spring to mind. First, for most of human history we have had large families by default. When you think about it, we have evolved in large families. It's perfectly normal. Second, when wondering why someone would choose a large family, I think it is the ultimate indulgence in a way. Satisfying the drive to procreate in spades. Of course this is only attractive if you have the resources to do it without it coming out of your own hide. (There is an old saying: a tooth for every child.)

andnow strange is simply another word for unusual. Look it up .

You make yourself sound just silly being so defensive. Of course everyone is curious as to why.

People had large families, but many of those children did not survive. Even a 100 years ago in Britain, many parents had a number of their children die, it was not unusual. Also children who were poor went out to work at a much much younger age. So their childhoods were very short.