<p>It’s a good thing that none of the children in this family had any physical or learning disabilities that could have prevented them from participating in a sport or taking an class that may not have been a good fit for them.</p>
<p>I also don’t see the benefit of getting up at 5 AM.</p>
<p>Well, good to know there does not seem to be a major break with FAFSA for choosing to have lots of kids. My kids were 4 grades apart and I have never understood the differences even with 2 kids.</p>
<p>Two of my roommates in college in the 70’s came from very large Catholic families (one with 10 kids , the other one with 11). They both seemed to be expected to pay for college and both worked during college.</p>
<p>I would be VERY sad if my family wasn’t together since 1998! I am one of 7 kids (6 of us married). We and all our kids have been together for Christmas every year except this one. That’s 14 grandkids, my folks, 1 great grandS, and the 13 of us. FWIW, all kids and grandkids have gone to college and whatever grad school they wanted & were admitted to. Only one GS didn’t make it back until 12/26 this year.</p>
<p>Yes, we didn’t want our kids to have crushing debt from Us or other important things that we and they value, and would never have been comfortable with them having huge loans while we live very comfortable lives. What is the point of earning a great salary and not sharing it with those nearest and dearest (and of course, worthy charities)?</p>
<p>I suspect that if we don’t help our kids some with buying a place in HI, they will NOT be able to afford the astronomical costs of real estate here, even if they have good or great jobs. I hope to be proven wrong, but things are pretty tough here for young people and families.</p>
<p>Doesn’t say how much debt the kids are toting around for those educations, too. Wouldn’t trade my family’s lifestyle for theirs for the world.</p>
<p>S got 60 AP credits from all the tests he took (which was the max allowed by his U). Not sure what he would have done or how he could have taken more APs and stayed sane. Taking the AP is NOT the same as taking the college course, even though he got credit for doing great on all the exams and taking a college course at age 15.</p>
<p>They might not offer a lot of AP courses at the high school his kids attended. So it might be easier than you think…</p>
<p>Heck, S didn’t even take any course related to two AP exams he took and got 5s in–Env Sci and US Gov, so if his kids really wanted to, they could have tried to get the school to offer them the tests without even taking the courses.</p>
<p>It doesn’t seem like the kids featured in the article have fond memories of their childhood–at least not fond enough to be together with their family of origin since 1998–16 years ago! It would be interesting to know how much contact each child continues to have with the author of the article (and the mother).</p>
<p>I took only 4 AP classes in high school but 10 tests. </p>
<p>The AP classes didn’t interest me.</p>
<p>The article does not discuss how the children paid for their education.</p>
<p>Certainly, it’s hard to deny that family, hard work in school and in life, money sense, and community service are all good things.</p>
<p>But I don’t feel a whole lot of love in that article.</p>
<p>I think DS took about 10 APs. It is kind of a “minimum credential” that his public high school can give the student if the student wants to apply to top OOS colleges – unless the student shines in other area (like state or national level ECs.)</p>
<p>I think our family is on the other extreme – we have only one child. We may have paid a little bit too much attention to our only child when he grew up. Luckily, he went far away from us in his college years. It is good for both him and us.</p>
<p>When you have all eggs in one basket, it is only natural you as parents may behave differently – unless you are very wise.</p>
<p>I once read an article in which the author wrote that, for some ethnic group, at least in the past, their infant mortality rate is not as good as that of many other ethnic groups. A consequence of this fact is that they tend to devote more of their energy to make sure their offspring is doing OK because they can not afford to “make a mistake.” This may not be healthy. Even though this may not be the case nowadays due to the advancement of public health and medical technology, this influence may still be there.</p>
<p>The author and dad is an engineer. He figured out systems, and applied them to family life, which most might need to do with a large number of offspring. Wild speculation- that he might be LDS, due to the mention of Utah. The LDS church supports a great deal of structure for family life. Tuition at BYU is heavily subsidized by the Mormon church. </p>
<p>I am a dedicated camper and outdoors person, yet camping alone, with a passel of preschoolers while dad takes the older ones backpacking, does not sound like much of a vacation.</p>
<p>No music, dance, or art for these kids? Forced to play sports? Ugh. Wow , I am really a failure…</p>
<p>While the three year olds were home cleaning the toilet, Dad was at work. But Mom, who was pregnant with two toddlers, plus the older kids but they were in school, was the one cleaning up after the three year old cleaning the toilet. Doesn’t that sound fun.</p>
<p>Why do I think that if Mom was writing this, the story might be different?</p>
<p>Echoing blueiguana, the fact that they were lucky, and all their kids ended up neurotypical and with no food allergies, doesn’t mean if YOU tried it your kids would be neurotypical and with no food allergies, despite the smug tone of the article.</p>
<p>If (this is a big “if”) a family produces many healthy, well-adjusted and productive offsprings and both parents are happy about that, I have no problem with them.</p>
<p>Nowadays, it appears to me that a bigger problem is that many young people even do not consider to establish their family and “produce”. Look at a country like Japan and many other industrial countries. Their aging population gives them a lot of long term problems.</p>
<p>One of the families we happened to know when DS grew up is slightly like this (but not as extreme.) Oh, boy. their children really behave very differently from the children from other families. A 3 yo child could sit still very quietly through an hourlong recital! Two of the girls from that family seems to get married about 20 years old. Their day-to-day dress is like what you can find in Jane Austen’s story. (They handmade all of their clothes.) All of their children were home schooled.</p>
<p>mcat, that problem is not solely because of lower birth rates. It is heavily because of longer lifespans and restrictive immigration policies. </p>
<p>Increasing birth rates would only put a dent in the problem (and cause many others).</p>
<p>Sounds perfectly dreadful to me. Four year olds using chemicals to clean toilets (if they didn’t use chemicals, then the thing wasn’t clean)? TWELVE cars? There’s a big “footprint” left for future generations! And an “older kid always assigned to each younger kid” - yep, have 'em and hand 'em over to the sibs to raise… NOT!</p>
<p>romani, It is a good point. I overlook that factor.</p>
<p>I really hope I will not live too long and put too much burden on the younger generation. (But I wish I could see my offspring to establish their own family before I go though. Otherwise, he would be all alone in this world after we are gone.)</p>
<p>A coworker and his wife are dual-income-no-kid family. He jokingly said he would not complain that he keeps paying to the public school system while he has no kid who benefits from it. He said these young kids will grow up and work to pay for his retirement in the future.</p>
<p>Mezzo’s hit the nail on the head on why I have a negative reaction to large bio families. Keep adding to that footprint. Remember, your kids don’t affect anyone but your family… obviously ;)</p>
<p>My grandmother who was born in the early 1900’s, was one of ten girls.
They lived in a farming community in the midwest, although she and her husband followed two of her older sisters to the northwest during wwll.</p>
<p>I always though it was interesting that those three women had only two children between them, at a time when birth control was unreliable.
They also stated often that it was their father who forced such a large family, ( to supply help on the farm), and that it made their mothers life much rougher than it should have been.
They made sure they wouldn’t share her fate.</p>
<p>I understand why mormons have large families, the same reason they do the genealogy, but for people without a religious dictum, I don’t really understand it.</p>
<p>Over 7 Billion people currently call Earth home with 225,000 being added every day.
How many more do we need?</p>
<p>
[Human</a> Population Reaches 7 Billion–How Did This Happen and Can It Go On?: Scientific American](<a href=“http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=human-population-reaches-seven-billion]Human”>http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=human-population-reaches-seven-billion)</p>
<p>I don’t even understand for religious reasons, but that’s neither here nor there. </p>
<p>Just an FYI, the birth rate in the early 1900s was ~3.2 children. Now it’s just over 2. Big families have not been the norm, even in farm communities, for well over 100 years in the US. (Even saying this, my grandfather was 1 of 8 or 9, can’t remember, Irish Catholic. All of my other grandparents were 1 of 2 or 3.)</p>