Do you believe we suffer from "small family syndrome"?

Parent Cafe
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<p>SplashMom~</p>

<p>There is perhaps no more private and personal a subject than childbearing decisions. NO ONE should EVER be questioned or judged according to her choices (or lack thereof) regarding this matter. I have had several friends who have experienced secondary infertility or other problems which resulted in their being parents of onlies. I also know a good many people who are parents of onlies by choice. I am very, very sorry that you have ever been hurt by insinuations from others for anything related to childbearing.</p>

<p>Please realize that others of us on this thread have been accused of being selfish for having LARGE families. The quote below, from earlier in this thread, is but one example of this accusation:</p>

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<p>The truth is, you could find someone who will tell you that having NO CHILDREN is selfish and others who will tell you that having ANY children is selfish. Sometimes, you can’t win for losing! :)</p>

<p>{{{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}}}} to you.</p>

<p>~berurah</p>

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<p>jaluer95- I think the excesses you describe are more the result of “the times” than they are of small families although small families themselves are a result of “the times”. Children of the 30’s raising children in the 50’s thought they were indulged and coddled, because they didn’t have the struggles of the depression era to deal with. The children of the 50’s raising their children in the 60-70’s were frustrated with their spendthrift ways. I remember hearing “You made more this week mowing lawns than I did at my first job supporting a wife and baby, and you’re going to buy SPEAKERS??” My H made more at his first job than my father did when he retired. Now, WE have the kids with their own excesses, but you have to remember that those excesses are paid for by the parents who choose to make the limos and lavish parties a priority. And that’s OK. No one has to buy into it if they don’t want to.
Have you ever seen “My Super Sweet 16” on MTV? Or see how many young kids are enamored of Paris Hilton? Most adults don’t watch those shows with envy, they see the ridiculous nature of those excesses and indulgences. If kids see that and feel “deprived”, then it is up to the parents to set them straight. Whether they have 2 or 10 kids.
I didn’t feel like you were slamming anyone by asking the question. I don’t understand how your post led to such inflammatory and rude exchanges between people either. No winky face here.</p>

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<p>You made more this week mowing lawns than I did at my first job supporting a wife and baby, and you’re going to buy SPEAKERS??</p>

<p>I can hear the unsaid thought so loud it sounds like they are yelling ;)</p>

<p>* can I borrow them?*</p>

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<p>SplashMom,</p>

<p>I’ve considered that many times, mostly because my cousins cannot have more than one child. They had a child, then he went through chemo. They considered doing the IVF thing, but then decided that they had been so lucky and had so much, that there was no reason to go through that. </p>

<p>I also know of someone who had a lot of kids - not by choice. Turns out that no birth control would work for her. Finally had her tubes tied so she wouldn’t get pregnant anymore. Are we going to ask that women immediately have surgery after 2 kids so as to avoid excesses of kids?</p>

<p>I’m with Berurah - you can’t win for losing with kids. There are people who will say that it’s selfish to not have kids (trust me, heard that one a lot!) and that it’s selfish to have a lot of kids.</p>

<p>Finally - atamom’s post #97 inadvertently switched “educated” and “uneducated.” If you want to talk about stereotypes, try the ones that conservatives are uneducated, back-woods hicks. For the past 50 years, the majority of people with bachelor’s degrees have voted Republican. In 2004, the split was 52/46.<br>
<a href=“http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html[/url]”>http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I bring this up because it’s one of the few stereotypes that I could easily and quantifiably refute. </p>

<p>I don’t want to take this completely off-course, but the reason for the stereotype is that academics tend to be liberal. However, the equally educated physicians, engineers, and businessmen tend to be conservative. The Boston Globe ran a study back in 2004 that compared %age of college grads who voted each way. The conclusion was that, back when very few people went to college, they all voted Republican. Those people are still voting that way, but they are joined by people who have had more opportunities for a college education and vote liberal. It’s an interesting shift, which, IMO, says a lot of good things about the expansion of education and the availability of education. </p>

<p>I only have an issue when people assume that conservatives are all uneducated hicks. Simply isn’t so, statistically. Actually a very even split of those who have college diplomas.</p>

<p>Anyway… a final thought. I’ll make this point again because y’all keep ignoring it. You can have only one kid and bring him up in a big family. You can have 10 kids and bring them up in a small family. When I read the original post, I didn’t think that she meant strictly by the numbers. The nuclear family is a relatively recent American invention, one that has come around the same time as increased consumerism. I might be one of two kids that my mom had, but I’ve very close with my grandfather, aunt, uncle, cousins, and godparents. She’s an only child, but has managed to make a “big family” out of extended family. It’s great. OTOH, my dad is one of seven, but we aren’t close to that part of the family. His side of the family feels smaller, so the focus is more on the kids. Y’all just aren’t seeing that someone can have only a few kids but avoid the stereotypical only child problems. To me, it isn’t liberal/conservative or 1 kid v. 5 kids - it’s about HOW your family interacts. In some ways, size isn’t a bad proxy for that - but size includes extended family and the “chosen family” of lifelong friends. </p>

<p>JMHO.</p>

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<p>One more thought… my dad coaches sports and has for years. Although I’m one of a lot of kids, he’s been able to use resources on other people’s kids. Some of those sports aren’t cheap, and he’s paid for kids who can’t afford it but are loaded with talent. He’s spent a lot of time traveling, coaching, and organizing practices and games. That happened mostly during the gap, when my older sis & I were too old for him to coach and the little kids were too young. He stopped when the kids got older and needed more attention.</p>

<p>Obviously, not having the obligation to a lot of kids frees up some time and resources. Parents choose to use those resources differently - some on others, some on their own kids.</p>

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<p>Um…definitely seems like a completely different thread you are starting here (voting patterns, based on education…a topic on which I have an opinion or seven), Aries, or…you are just trying to “stir the pot”.</p>

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<p>No, just correcting a stereotype in post #97. We can start a different thread on it - don’t see why, because that’s one of the few things that is pretty cut-and-dry. (What degrees do you have & who did you vote for?) </p>

<p>It was simply that there was a very clear error in a post, based on some pretty weird stereotypes, that I wanted to correct. </p>

<p>Post #97 was wrong; I corrected it. That isn’t “stirring the pot.”</p>

<p>I don’t see why you can’t correct glaring inaccuracies without starting a new thread or having subtle accusations thrown at you. ;)</p>

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<p>I guess my feelings are that however many someone has, I hope that they WANT them and take CARE of them. I had so many friends growing up (all of them had $$) whose parents had them simply because that’s what people did. Alot of those mothers could have cared less. It was heartbreaking to watch, and as adults these former kids still feel the effects of being terribly neglected. I see some of it in our generation. Not maternal? Don’t HAVE KIDS!</p>

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<p>aries, sweetie, could you please clear some space in your pm box? Thanks! ~b.</p>

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<p>Done. It gets cluttered. :)</p>

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<p>I see some of it in our generation. Not maternal? Don’t HAVE KIDS!
I agree
my sister in law and her first husband divorced because she absolutely didn’t want kids- and while you might not be sure if you want kids or not when you are 23 and get married- it is sad to really want them when you are 43 and be married to someone who doesn’t want them
so they divorced a few years ago- and her ex now has a 2 & 1/2 yr old daughter and it sounds like he couldn’t be happier
a happier scenario IMO than say someone who never even babysat when younger because she wasn’t " good" with kids, then converted to a religion where procreating was a major part- especially for women. Somebody who isn’t “good” with kids- really shouldn’t have 5 of them</p>

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<p>aries, #144, I didn’t switch educated/less educated. I wonder if I have been misunderstood? Personally, I AM a backwoods hick who stays home with 7 kids. I also have a graduate degree and am one of the most conservative people here. So stereotyping or putting down conservatives is not what I’d want to do. </p>

<p>The stats I was quoting are about family size, not politics. Women with very small families tend to be more educated, liberal and career oriented than women with large families. Women with large families who stay home tend to be less educated and more conservative than women with small families. Just stats that do not describe everyone, including myself, and others with big families on this thread. What I found most interesting about these stats was that 39% of one generation (the small family liberal career women) produced only 7% of the babies of the next generation.</p>

<p>I didn’t mean for anyone to interpret that conservatives in general are less educated than liberals. (I certainly don’t think so!)</p>

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*<strong><em>HOLY @</em>$#</strong> Thanks a BUNCH!!!..now, I’ve gotta try and clean up my keyboard from all the tea I just sprayed all over it!!! My dear, I think you have just MADE MY DAY!!! :smiley: :slight_smile: :smiley: :slight_smile: :D</p>

<p>~berurah</p>

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<p>You’re welcome! (I think?) BTW, I’m a tea drinker, too.</p>

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<p>True, BUT “more educated, liberal” is, statistically, a contradiction - at least when you aggregate men and women. </p>

<p>I’m not saying that liberals are less intelligent, but, statistically, conservatives make up more than half of people with college degrees. That’s a pretty good proxy for “educated.” </p>

<p>I just don’t see how you can correlate more liberal with more educated, unless you take a really narrow view of the latter… it’s like saying that one group is more (1) dark skinned, light eyed than the other group of (2) light skinned, dark eyed people. While some people - in fact, many people - would fall into either group, the correlation goes the other way. Not true for everyone, but, on the balance, the first factor in group (1) correlates more strongly to the second factor in group (2) than the second factor in group (1). It just doesn’t make sense as a statistic. That was my point, which is why I say you reversed those. Either that, or whatever study you are quoting basically ignored a huge portion of the population. </p>

<p>I would LOVE to see a cite on the study you are quoting. There has to be something odd about the number-crunching methodology to aggregate those factors in a way that contradicts the general trend. What could be happening is that you are aggregating groups of people who are inherently disparate, so that very few people fall into one of the two models (ex. a black-haired, blue-eyed person does not describe many people, but black-haired people and blue-eyed people happen to act alike or share a common trait).</p>

<p>I would just like to say that I’m a statistics weenie - I really, really, really hate how people look at data and decide that they mean something that they don’t. There is a massive push to make assumptions and conclusions that go way beyond the scope of the data and rely on pretty bad interpretations of it. Aggregating dissimilar factors, to me, is one good example of this trend. Please also note that I’ve never really hestitated to take anyone to task about this. </p>

<p>By the way, I do not think that anecdotes dictate trends. I’m a tea drinker myself. :slight_smile: Have a huge milk crate of it that I have to move. ;)</p>

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<p>I think one of the WORST thing people did to us when we were first married was, “so, when are you going to start having kids?” and then after we had one, “So, when will you be having another?” Talk about invading someone’s privacy!! Did any of you have people bug you about starting your family? I don’t ask that question and am especially sensitive to people’s fertility issues.</p>

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<p>There was an interesting artlcle on Yahoo news:</p>

<p><a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20060519/ts_csm/obabies[/url]”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20060519/ts_csm/obabies&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>dke, I wholeheartedly agree with you, and even if I hadn’t had fertility issues myself, I would never say something like that to anyone. </p>

<p>Reading this thread I am reminded of my grandmother. She would always ask how many children someone had. If the answer was two or fewer, she’d say “That’s all?” An answer of four and up would elicit “What a big familiy!” She had three, and it was her own experience that apparently set the standard for her!</p>

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<p>Analogize that to weddings. Proms. Summer camp. Moving back in with Mom and Dad after college graduation. Cars. Sharing bedrooms in the house. <<<<</p>

<p>Thanks, Aries!</p>

<p>It’s funny… On an earlier thread, I made the comment that years ago, when families were larger, the only people I knew that sent their kids away to college were doctors kids (and the like). I commented that at that time (the 70’s), most kids I knew went to their local Cal State or UC - since few families could afford the dorm fees needed to 'go away". No one took offense at those comments. YET, when I mentioned in another thread that my brother had to tell his son (one of 5 kids) that he couldn’t afford to send him to Notre Dame (instead he had to go to UCI), some people posted some negative statements about the size of my brother’s family! Some people just have a “bee in their bonnet” against larger families – as if it is somehow a “statement” or an “insult” to the size of their own families!</p>

<p>I can certainly say the same about weddings. My parents have 3 daughters. They certainly had to take that into account when we were each told what the budgets would be for our weddings! (PLUS, my parents helped pay for my 4 brothers’ weddings, too!) If my parents had only one daughter (or 2 daughters and NO sons), then they could have blown the total of 3 weddings on ONE big expensive blowout (or two pretty nice blow outs)!</p>

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<p>Thank you for seeing the point of the thread. The point is about trends! And, yes, trends don’t affect EVERYONE! </p>

<p>I’ll address another “trend” that I think is also indicative of SFS in another post.</p>

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<p>Before some go nuts and remind me about “Father Knows Best”… that was a TV show…</p>

<p>When I was growing up, most families had a few d’s and a few s’s. NO d was referred to as “princess” yet that is a common nickname today for the only D of the family. the word Princess can even be found on T shirts. In my day, no girl would have been caught dead wearing a shirt that said “Princess” on it because no girl thought that she was more “special” than the others. In my day, no girl would be caught dead wearing a shirt that said “Hottie” because of basic humility. Am I the only one who has noticed this???</p>

<p>One of my brother’s recently was faced with this dilemma. He had 1 D and then had 2 sons. He and his wife thought that their family was “complete.” He had developed the habit of calling the D “princess”. Well, he and his wife fell in love with a foster child that they heard about (from my sister’s agency) and adopted her. Now they have 4 kids (2 Ds). They had to tell the older D, that they couldn’t call her princess anymore – because she now has to share the princess limelight! The two girls have loving nicknames – just not ones that might suggest a “better than you” status. </p>

<p>Now, I am not “chiding” anyone who calls a D “princess”. That is everyone’s right to do so. I’m just suggesting that maybe the “trend” exists today because families are smaller. it’s not good, it’s not bad… it’s just a trend.</p>

<p>Just an aside… when I used to teach the “little ones” (younger grades), I used to call all my “kids” Princess (their name) and Prince (their name) – which gave each a special (yet equal) status. I would greet each on the first day of school with a Burger King crown with their name written on it. They loved it!</p>

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<p>This reminds me of that OLD, OLD tv show “Father Knows Best.” He had 2 Ds and 1S and I am almost positive he called one of the girls Princess.</p>