Reasons why it is GOOD to have many kids...

I know I mentioned it already, but the fact that the world is already OVERPOPULATED with human beings who are killing **** around them and themselves, ain't that enough of a reason to restrain oneself from having a plethora of kids from your body?

To me, it's not a matter of "can the parents do it" or "are big families better/worse than smaller".

Small and big families are good or bad. Parents can be good or bad. And of course everything in between.

There are enough people to care for and who need families. Let's work with what we got first, is my mentality.

People used to have big families, remember, because advanced birth control wasn't around!

It was engrained into a lot of people's brains that there was some moral and cultural "goodness" to having shitloads of kids, and "bad" to not spawn on and on.

Some people some believe that tripe, or fall for the fantasy, and that's where it bothers me.

All around the world, kids being born cause the grown ups think "this is good, this is great"....not thinking of the world they are leaving to all these kids.

You unleashed the monster, OP! Smile

Your head is in the clouds, buddy. If you wanted a big fam, you'd have one. But you don't. So - shh.

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Yeah, I TOTALLY agree with that - people are individuals- they're shaped by one thing as much as they're shaped by another for sure...

I wanted to post this about older children and adoption/foster care. My daughter was doing a report on it because it was the subject of a novel she was reading and had to do a book report on for school. She showed me the statistics- pretty sobering:

Quote:

Currently, there are approximately 518,000 children in foster care; of these, about 118,000 are available for adoption. Most are members of minority groups, with older African American boys waiting the longest for adoption.

Nearly half (49%) of waiting children are age nine or older. In general, older children and teens stay longer in foster care and are at higher risk for drug use, poor school performance, homelessness or incarceration. Each year, some 19,000 of these children "age out" of the system without ever being placed into permanent homes.

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I think most of yu are taking this way too seriously. I think redpickle was just trying to point out some of the positives, as a "reply" to those that whince when seeing that someone just had their 17th child.

I don't think she's trying to convince anyone they should have 17 kids, or indicating that she will herself.

There are positives to having a lot of siblings and I think they can be listed without saying many is better than one or none.

Positives:

One learns to deal with a variety of personalities, cooperate, work together to accomplish big tasks, and how to sleep in small spaces.

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squinney wrote:

I think redpickle was just trying to point out some of the positives, as a "reply" to those that whince when seeing that someone just had their 17th child.

mashypancakes wrote:

Small and big families are good or bad. Parents can be good or bad. And of course everything in between.

True. The bad response to a news of a big family prevails on this board, just trying to balance it out.

To ossobuco - I tried to humor you, but it is sad to see that you exhibit the traits of an only child. Ie, taking stuff on a personal level. Sorry, it's not all about you, and your word is not the last. Do you have many kids yourself? If not, then, as Mashypancakes said, shh.

Mushypancakes - brilliant! Your black humor shows just the spank that you most likely got developed in - surprise, surprise - your family!

To Chai - Aidan said the best : "Do you think all of these circumstances exist solely because the families were so large or do you think that even if these particular parents had had one or two children, there's a good possibility that those children would have the same issues- maybe there'd just have been more money around to disguise the fact or build a better facade around it? "

To sozobe - I am sorry that I did not come up with a real story, instead of talking about some idea. I didn't know that thinking ahead, instead of concentrating on the immediate few years, or even on the immediate 18 years, is forbidden.

"Bonding with others, non-relatives" is a great modern - mostly metropolitan - myth. You can cry on your friend's shoulder only for so long, until they will gently nudge you towards a paid professional, or just drop you cold. You can rely on people helping you - as long as you pay them, or returning a favor in another way. There are too many young people looking for jobs, dreading looking for jobs, exhausted that the world does not notice their talents and does not spread the red carpet. How many middle aged couples have their kids returning back or just never leaving them? If by "bonding" you meant creating a family with them - that's another thing.

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aidan wrote:

I know that's a tie I've always treasured with my brothers and especially with my sisters - to the point I feel a little guilty that I didn't provide my daughter with the chance to have a sister. No one knows and understands my history as intimately as they (my sisters) do - because they lived a similar one- and those are the familial relationships I treasure the most (along with my mother/daughter one).

Aidan, same here. A little guilty. A little worried. And the understanding you have between yourself and siblings, - I see them between my kids. No one in the world would have the same level of bond with them. It is unreal. Some siblings fight from the birth, some hate each other. I guess I wasn't talking about them in my "idealistic" "imagination".

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redpickle wrote:

To sozobe - I am sorry that I did not come up with a real story, instead of talking about some idea. I didn't know that thinking ahead, instead of concentrating on the immediate few years, or even on the immediate 18 years, is forbidden.

Hardly. I like thought experiments. I was saying that I was keeping my mouth shut because I understood that you weren't necessarily making a case, just musing.

Quote:

"Bonding with others, non-relatives" is a great modern - mostly metropolitan - myth. You can cry on your friend's shoulder only for so long, until they will gently nudge you towards a paid professional, or just drop you cold.

Not my experience.

Quote:

You can rely on people helping you - as long as you pay them, or returning a favor in another way.

I'm happy to return favors. It's part of the kind of close relationship I mean. Not based on favors, of course, but where favors are exchanged frequently and freely and nobody's keeping score. I've been lucky enough to have many of these kinds of relationships, some that started in childhood and continue until today.

It's like anything else, I think. Mushypancakes said it well. Some bad parents, some good parents, lots in between. Some good sibling relationships, some bad sibling relationships, lots in between. Some good non-blood-relative friendships, some bad non-blood-relative friendships, lots in between. No particular absolutes.

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"ossobuco - I tried to humor you, but it is sad to see that you exhibit the traits of an only child. Ie, taking stuff on a personal level. Sorry, it's not all about you, and your word is not the last. Do you have many kids yourself? If not, then, as Mashypancakes said, shh."

Of course (it, whatever it is) is not all about me, redpickle. It, the thread, is about your construct. My number of children is irrelevant. I've observed the world around me for quite a while and find your construct, while admittedly possible given certain parents and certain fortunate circumstances, generally rather fanciful.

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redpickle wrote:

To Chai - Aidan said the best : "Do you think all of these circumstances exist solely because the families were so large or do you think that even if these particular parents had had one or two children, there's a good possibility that those children would have the same issues- maybe there'd just have been more money around to disguise the fact or build a better facade around it? "

To which I replied in full. Here, I'll copy it here to you can ignore it again...

I don't think, in my husbands family, that the number of children has anything to do with their individual lives.

I was using that example to show pickle how naive his/her comments of togetherness, fun, cooperation and lifelong devotion is.

My husband is 61, and so, being the 10th of 11, I never had the opportunity to meet all of them.....I've met, let's see....5.
3 died before I ever met Mr. Tea....that leaves 2 I've never met, one whom the family shuns completely, and the other...well, just never have.

The 5 I've met are all fine people, and enjoyed spending time with each one of them. Some I've spent quite a bit of time with, some I've met only once or twice.

There's no hidden darkness and animosity...everyone just lives their own lives, has their own problems and joys, except for the one they all get along fine....just not living the life pickle believes would be.

His parents? From stories I've heard from the siblings I've met and Mr. Tea...

Never hit them, neither one drank, father had steady job, same one for 30 years plus, small community, neither parent cheated, both cared for and loved their children....normal problems....regular people.

I just believe it's too much to ask that just because a person comes from a large family, or single child home, it's predetermined whether that person will be caring, honest, depressed, angry, sharing....etc.

If you take 11 people off the street, you would more than like find.....

*1 or 2 alkies
*a person with some sort of sexual thing outside the norm
*1 or more people who are depressed

I'm not portraying this family as better or worse than anyone else...that is my point.

On the whole, they love each other...laugh, fight, talk, don't talk, the whole gamit, soup to nuts.

What I'm finding annoying is #1, your quickness to paraphase someone else, and not moving your eyes down half an inch to read the response.

Point is, you've presented no evidence that large families get along better than small ones...all you have to go by is your fantasy.

In fact, here is a link to the US Dept of Health and Human Services, which on this page is discussing Conduct Disorder there's indicators of children who are at risk...one of them being "large family size"....I don't see "single child or small family size" listed.

I'm being facetious here, since of course there are many indicators that cause any behavioral issues.

If I wanted to totally ignore everything and be unrealistic, I could just keep quoting "large family size is an indicator of conduct disorder".

I'm sure either of us could find numerous links advocating of criticizing large families....so what?

The thing is, I have NOT said large families are bad, not once. I have said that you're just posting opinions on what should be, and deluded yourself to believing they are facts.

Personally, and this is simply my personal observation through life, I don't think I have noticed a significant difference in the behavior, outlook, success or failure of any person I've known, based simply on family size.

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Calm down, Chai, I got the jest of your postings - not all many-kids family are idyllic.

But let's look at it this way - why do I like seeing postings here of people who had many siblings growing up? All of them (Mushy, squinney, aidan) have spank, humility, resilience, empathy, etc etc etc... Why were you attracted to your hubby in the first place? Could it be that his attractive features were the product of him growing up in a crowd? Will he wade through life depressingly when things don't get his way? Will he run back to his parents (if they are alive)?

Whether people who grew up in big families like the idea of a big family or not (and some could hate it) they can't escape having the tools that those big families gave them.

As opposite of the soft mushy youth that we are raising, the helicopter parents that we are destined to be.

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Quote:

Personally, and this is simply my personal observation through life, I don't think I have noticed a significant difference in the behavior, outlook, success or failure of any person I've known, based simply on family size.

I never thought about it before, honestly, but I just did a quick run through in my head of my best friends throughout my life - who I really, really enjoyed spending time with and lo and behold:

my best friend from the age of six - 1 of 5 kids
my other best friend from the age of 8-1 of 5 kids
my best friend from college- 1 of 4 kids
my best girl friend I met at work as an adult- 1 of 5 kids
my two best male friends I met at work as an adult- 1 of 4 kids, and 1 of 5 kids respectively

All of my other friends that I can think of had at least three children in their family. My romantic involvements seem to always come from families of two children- and each has been the younger sibling....hmmm...I wonder what that means? (if anything Laughing

)
I can't think of any friends (except the Shawn that I mentioned) I have who were only children....Strange....I don't think I have anything against onlies-or at least not consciously - but I haven't ever seemed to connect with them to the point of friendship very often.

Again, not that this means anything at all - except that I do get what redpickle is saying ...and I find it really interesting.

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redpickle wrote:

Calm down, Chai, I got the jest of your postings - not all many-kids family are idyllic.

But let's look at it this way - why do I like seeing postings here of people who had many siblings growing up? All of them (Mushy, squinney, aidan) have spank, humility, resilience, empathy, etc etc etc... Why were you attracted to your hubby in the first place? Could it be that his attractive features were the product of him growing up in a crowd? Will he wade through life depressingly when things don't get his way? Will he run back to his parents (if they are alive)?

Whether people who grew up in big families like the idea of a big family or not (and some could hate it) they can't escape having the tools that those big families gave them.

As opposite of the soft mushy youth that we are raising, the helicopter parents that we are destined to be.

So you assume I'm not being calm? The same as you assume your unsubtantiated ideas are true?

Again, where is your data showing anything of the sort?

Don't you see what I'm objecting to is the idea that all people from large families have these traits?

That's as silly as saying "all white people like potato chips"

What you say would be better received if it was phrased with the acknowledgement that this is something you feel is a trend of people from large families, not an blanket statement.

Aidan...are you saying 4 children is a large family? Many would dispute that, including me, unless the children were all close in age.

As far as my memories, and my friends today, most were either only children, or 2 siblings, maybe 3.....thinking about it....mostly 2 children. The families that had quite a few more were rare, and I don't remember thinking they were any different, except that they always needed an extra bathroom.

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I don't like potato chips.....(maybe pringles if I'm not quite sober)

there is no always

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In my experience, during the time and place I was growing up- yes, I'd say four children in a family would make that family larger than average.

During the time and place that I grew up (suburban New Jersey during the seventies) most families had two children, some had three (most of my friends were Jewish and were members of Jewish families), so families consisting of four or more children were the exception rather than the rule- except among my Catholic friends. And most of those families had four or five children. I knew of one family in my neighborhood that had seven children - but they didn't live in the neighborhood very long - most of the houses had three or four bedrooms - so they weren't really built for super-large families. I have to say, our Southern Baptist family of six children and three dogs was quite the anomoly...given that I didn't grow up on a farm out in the country down south.

And TODAY - YES- most definitely - I'd consider a family of four children or more to be larger than average.

PS- I'm white and I LOVE potato chips.... except for pringles - drunk or sober (they taste like crispy McDonald french fries to me) Laughing

Just a little joke....

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Reasons why it is GOOD to have many kids...

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