AIBU to think very large families are rarer in middle incomes?

[Notonyournelly1]

Every family gathering, I get the usual “when are you having a baby?” question and I give the same answers on rotation. Off the back of my comment, the family member responded by saying that childcare costs are far more reasonable than people make out, and that having children isn’t “expensive”.

They don’t work, will never have to work and are very wealthy. They have 3 children already and assume (I have not asked) that they will have at least one more given the conversation. That will never be me and this has made me think about larger families in the UK. I do see having a large family as a luxury these days. Although, I do know of a few couples who do not work and have larger than average families.

Q: AIBU to think that very large families are more likely to be found at either end of the income spectrum, rather than among middle-income families?

YABU - large families exist across the income spectrum.

YANBU - it’s a recognisable pattern.

None of the young professionals I know want kids. None. People in their 40s have kids. Younger than that and they can’t be bothered with the expense and hassle. It’s really worrying.

Yup all my friends, family and colleagues have one or two children (a lot of the younger ones are planning none at all). The people who I come into contact with through work are almost exclusively on benefits and often have 4+. The most I’ve come across is 10! I don’t know any truly rich people to compare 🤣.

A middle income, middle class Mum I am friends with has six children. And they have to budget to the last penny.

They don’t go on an annual family holiday together. They have one car and it isn’t large enough to take them all, so no whole family days out. No takeaways. If we meet we share a flask of coffee out or meet in her home. The oldest had to pay their own way through higher education.

They are a lovely family so this is no criticism at all - their lifestyle is very pared back in a lot of respects and wouldn’t be for everyone. But it illustrates how challenging it is to keep going if you have a mortgage and professional level but modestly paying jobs that put you slightly above the level for more help.

Where I live having more than two (and definitely more than 3) children is usually a flex. That’s specific to a fairly affluent area where kids means: having a bedroom each, in an excellent catchment area or paying for private schooling, certainly lots of extra curriculars, foreign holidays and going to uni.

I would guess it’s also more common to families who don’t worry about any of those things.

There’s rarely anything luxurious about having a large family when you’re on a low income - those families have usually just made the choice to have more children but a reduced / different standard of living - children will be sharing bedrooms, there will be fewer “nice to haves”, less in the way of thinking about funding their children as adults.

All the middling families I know could afford a large family, if they were happy to change their standard of living - what they mean when they say they can’t afford a large family is they can’t afford a large family and the lifestyle they want to go with it.

Yes I have three siblings and though we had a good income compared to the average and we’re definitely very middle class, we: lived in a slightly rough area compared to most of our classmates, a more cramped house, used more public transport, our hobbies were very cheap or free, never had fancy clothes and rarely took holidays. I didn’t mind that much but I definitely realised I was different by the time I was in secondary school.

That's exactly my experience: rich people have 3 or 4 and it's a massive flex (they have the whole family in the WhatsApp profile picture).

If you're not using childcare because you're a SAHM and you're broke enough not to expect holidays and expensive hobbies then you've got less to lose by adding more kids to a family. If you're wealthy then you can afford to add more kids to a family. A middle income family has more to lose here.

Thinking about everyone I know who have different incomes there definitely isn’t a pattern . All have 1-4 children.

You are probably right, because middle income families have a higher threshold of what they think they 'should' provide a child as their standard. I have seen people saying they won't be having children because they won't be able to afford all the clubs, the driving lessons or the university fees which in my opinion is a bit silly. I never had any of those things growing up (didn't go on an abroad holiday until I was 14) but am glad to have been born and my parents absolutely did not need to provide those things to give me a good standard of living.

Agree - the poorest people I know have larger families (4-6 children, as do the richest (3-5 children). It’s a noticeable trend.

The poorer ones all have at least one child with SEN, I think that’s very noticeable. Not the case in the richer ones, which have mum at home. The poorer ones mums tend to work in care homes (night shifts).

What does it mean when you say it’s a “flex”?

All the middling families I know could afford a large family, if they were happy to change their standard of living - what they mean when they say they can’t afford a large family is they can’t afford a large family and the lifestyle they want to go with it
Or do you mean the lifestyle kids deserved?

We regularly have posts here from people coming from poor backgrounds and how it limited them all the way to adulthood and more. Having a large family when you can't provide the children with a decent upbringing is very selfish.

I agree here - virtually no one had more than two children when we lived in an affluent area in the south east. I think there were a couple of families with three in the whole school, and both had stay at home mums.
Where we live now is way more mixed and has more big families.

We’re middle income and have 5. I guess you’d call us middle anyway, we earn about 120k between us so both higher tax bracket and no benefits.

We’re unusual, I almost never see families with more than 2-3 DC when we’re out and about. We have been stared at lots over the years but I’m past caring. There was a time when I wanted a badge to make it clear I have a PhD, I’m an academic and I’m not on benefits, just to quieten the obvious judgement but I really don’t care now.

I have one colleague who has 3 DC but the rest have 0-2.

I think “decent upbringing” is subjective. Sure, there’s a level at which a standard of living would objectively fall beneath reasonable, but a whole chasm in the middle of private or state education / owning two family cars / having a bedroom for every child / hand-me-downs / number of holidays / extracurriculars / eating out regularly, and so on which are individual lifestyle aspirations.

My dc are now older teens and the vast majority of families we know have either 1 or 2 dc. Mostly middle income families. Both parents working, although one is often part time, working from home etc.

Families with 4 or more dc in my community involve twins/triplets, or devout Catholics and Muslims, or significant age gaps between the oldest 2 and the youngest 2.

Or wealthy families where Dad earns £250K+ and there is generational wealth. And these families tend to stick at 3.

It’s not really the wages though is it? dad did work his way up but he also got a 3k mortgage which he paid off in his 20s and then moved to a bigger house which was about 40k before moving to his house 30 years ago that he paid 80k for and then had extensions and improvements that he could afford because his mortgage was paid for so now he lives in a house worth 800k that he paid 80k for.
I needed more than his mortgage to get a deposit.

I don’t know what his job was because if I ever asked what he did he said as little as possible, usually played solitaire on the computer to look busy.

Wait till you have to add tutoring for multiple different lessons, when they get close to doing their GSCEs too, on top of any activities they still currently do. Tutoring currently costs us £580 a month, for two subjects for one child. Fortunately, our other child is in the top 1% of cleverness 😂

I think the expense stops at 22, post Uni. Soooo looking forward to that. We’re already discussing going travelling again. Two children on a middle income is actually not affordable, if we always want them to have the best, but we all muddle through.

Totally agree with this.

So you’re linking SEN to household income?

Yeah my decision to stop at two was definitely financial. Both DH and I need to work FT to afford our mortgage, childcare and living expenses, plus we don’t want to work just to live, we want to be able to get a little enjoyment out of this work. By the time we could theoretically replace private chaildcare costs with another, the age gaps don’t feel right. We were certainly more strategic about timings with the second born and that was to do with juggling responsibilities and money.

Haha yes, I can well imagine it keeps getting more expensive! I don't think I'll be paying for tutoring but it's the sports that worry me... my eldest is 9 and it's already getting crazy!

There was a bit of a status thing in DDs' primary school about being well off enough to have three children. Most people stopped at two. Two to three seemed a lifestyle change too far for us, particularly as I was the main earner.

You’d be surprised. My dd is in a grammar school and they emailed all year 11 to sort out tutors for weaker subjects 😬 fortunately we were already on the case.