You see a harried mom with 4 to 5 or more kids leaving the supermarket, and getting into a beat up minivan. The kids are all well fed and clean, but every scrap of clothing is a hand me down, or basic Walmart, and mom’s look is strictly basic low maintenance.
Obviously they’ve made a choice (for whatever reason) to have lots of kids. When you see a scenario like this a where low to middle income family chooses to have significant number of kids, and then struggles to make ends meet, do you feel that they are heroic for their sacrifices, or simply somewhat self indulgent?
I definitely don’t see them as heroic. I don’t understand why someone would deliberately put themselves into some sort of finanacial struggle. I don’t see them as necessarily self-indulgent. I just plain don’t get it.
I don’t think they are either of those extremes. Do I admire them? As much as I admire anyone mucking through life. I want 3 or 4 children and I will never be above middle class but I wouldn’t expect accolades for making it a success (well except from my partner ).
I am a devoted parent and I don’t think that any parent should be admired for something that is completely forseeable and expected as part of the job. I admire parents that work hard to take care of a disabled child for example because that is not the expected result but I am less than moved to hear stories of parents struggling to put food on the table for 8 kids. Birth control is a lot cheaper and they volunteered for that fate. Doing what it takes is just part of the minimum job qualifications and nobody ever claimed otherwise.
You never know. Maybe they drive an older minivan and the kids wear hand me downs because they’re saving for college or maybe a family member has a serious illness. Maybe they drive an older minivan and wear hand me downs because kids tend to destroy clothes, toys and minivans at an alarming rate, so why bother with new stuff during that phase?
Great post! Friend A of mine has four kids, is struggling and often comes to me for loans, which I hate. Friend B tells me I should be sympatheic cause she has many kids. This isn’t the dark ages, sez I, where people didn’t understand sex = pregnancy. Don’t come to me for help cause you had a litter of kids you can’t afford!! One or two I can see, cause most people want a family, but four? Uh, No.
I don’t assume that any but the most unusual people live the lives they are living after having seriously considered alternatives. My impression is that most people have been on autopilot since some time between the ages of 12 and 18 when they gave up trying to make sense of the world and just started doing what everyone else is doing, which is to do what everyone else they know who seems to be surviving is doing. People opt for monogamy, marriage, and children without having asked themselves if they’d be happier with polygamy, celibacy, collective parenting, living out their lives as single childless people having various sexual affairs over the years, or whatever. Because “everyone gets married and has children”.
The multiplicity of children then becomes a class issue. The “everyone” that an individual of low to middle income is exposed to is an “everyone” that keeps on having kids. It isn’t because they don’t know where they come from, they’re just ever so much less likely to seriously and consciously consider having only one or two and then doing things to prevent further reproduction.
The upper midclass (and other classes and points within the income stratification pyramid) are no less likely to just emulate what everyone else they know is doing, it’s just that the “everyone” that they are surrounded by exhibits slightly different behavioral patterns.
Neither. People make choices about how they want to live. Some people value money and comfort over all else, some people solitude, or travel, or careers, or religion. It’s all just prioritizing and if people want to have lots of kids and live with second hand stuff, they are just making their choice. They are neither to be pitied nor called heroicl any more than a top CEO who is too busy for a wife and / or kids is to be pitied or called heroic. People make choices about how to live their lives all the time that I personally would never make, but that’s them not me.
I’m more likely to admire the dynamics of a happy family, regardless of material wealth or other factors. There are happy families - rich and poor - and miserable ones too so there’s no point in calling anyone heroic just for having kids and going without.
Actually IIRC upper middle to upper class families tend to have larger families than the norm up to about 4-5 kids at which point the effect peters out and income diminshes again.
It takes a village, bub. I have no kids of my own, but I’ve been know to help out relatives and friends with groceries and clothes for the kids 'cuz that’s basically what you do when you’re a decent human being. Four kids is not an unreasonably large family even for people with modest incomes. The rest of us should help 'em out from time to time, and we should do it without complaint.
Economic status is fluid, and changes can and do happen whether or not you have children. If you’ve got kids and hit a financial bump (or a financial K2), you have to find a way through it, and that can mean hand-me-downs and a beat-up car. The car being driven and the clothes being worn may not be ideal, but may very well reflect the best that can be done at the time.
My parents were doing great when I was born, and I have an older sister. My younger brother was born 4 years later, when things were still pretty good. Then the family went through a slump and it took a loooong time to get out of that slump. My parents drove a '70 VW Beetle and a hideous blue station wagon with a rusty hood for the majority of those years, but kept us kids clean and well-fed and directed what money they could to our extracurricular stuff. My sister went to boarding school. My brother and I went to summer camp. We were all active in sports and Scouts, we did lots of camping and hiking, etc. So we wore hand-me-downs and drove shitty cars but had a good life.
I admire people who, upon finding themselves in a tough situation, work hard and do a good job. This goes double if they end up taking care of other people who would be worse off without their hard work and sacrifices. The fact that the tough situation could have been avoided by making different choices in the past doesn’t change that for me. Lots of people make choices without fully appreciating the consequences – this doesn’t make their present situation any easier.
How one shoulders a heavy burden is one of the truest tests of one’s character. Most of us will be hit with the shit stick at some point in our lives. Making choices that avoid shitty situations is commendable, but failing to do so should not earn a life sentence of unsympathetic “you should have known better, so tough luck” responses.
Ok, mom with 5 checking in. Ages 11-2. Drives a big ole’ 1993 15 passenger van with rust. Garage sales for clothes, misc. Has a pretty damn good net worth, lives in a very nice 3 year old house on an in demand lake, worth about 750,000, with a minimal mortgage. Clothes and miscellaneous sundry items have no value once you buy them. You cannot always tell someone’s financial status from appearances. (Read "The Millionaire Next Door.) We have very consciously and deliberately chosen where and how to spend our money, and when and how many children to have. They van I drive I paid 2500 bucks for, about how much taxes would’ve been on a new one. We trash everything, we use everything to it’s utmost limits, and it would be folly to spend a ton of money on things that have no long term value. To me, it seemed more important to give my children siblings, and financial stability, than a new bike, or a fancy vehicle. Am I pitiful, or heroic? No, just perhaps more visible with everyone in tow.
I have no admiration for them unless I know something additionally about there circumstances that would be admirable.
As an example, I have friends of a friend that both grew up dirt poor in large families and they both made themselves better and actually consider four kids to be a small family. I do admire them to some degree and they are saving for college, which is what I admire the most. Clothes and cars do not matter. Giving yours kids a chance for a better life than what you grew up in is very important.
My wife and I decided to have only two kids and we went back and forth on having only one. We knew we would have a great chance to offer them a chance to go to college and a good economic start in life. This is a decision we made. The friends of friends I mention went against church teachings to stop at four kids. (A Vasectomy). I think it was a sound decision though I would have stopped sooner.
They are doing at least as good a job raising their kids as my wife and I are doing and the only difference is that get any or all of them through college will be a much bigger struggle.
BTW: I was raised in a lower middle Class household with four kids and am now upper middle class thanks to some sound decisions that worked out before we had kids.
If they are maintaining themselves to this extent, I don’t necessarily admire them, but I don’t hold anything against them. What, it would have been better for mom to get her nails and hair done and they could get a new SUV every couple of years?
I confess to holding the decisions against people somewhat when they start looking to me/society for support, or if they can’t/won’t keep the kids well fed and clean. If the dad of this hypothetical family up and leaves tomorrow, this family unit may not be self-supporting anymore. Then it becomes a question of whether the mom should have foreseen that possible consequence, and what could/ should she have done? No easy answers, really.
As far as admiration, I tend to admire people for what they do to help others beyond themselves and their own family. There’s nothing wrong with charity beginning at home, but my admiration tends to kick in when it extends beyond that point.
I’m the youngest of five kids. My parents never had a new car. We never had the spiffy tennis shoes or jeans we wanted. I got the riding lessons I wanted after I earned the money to pay for them. However, my parents sent us to private school - they felt it was important. We had a strong family with parents that loved us. We never felt we lacked anything.
I see nothing in the OP that suggests the family is living on welfare, that the parents are spending all their income on booze or drugs, or that their lifestyle is beyond their means.
Is the real question here, “why would couples prefer to have children than more disposable income”?
Couldn’t agree more. Not that people are doing that here, but I’ve never understood the overwhelming desire to judge people about this and pretty much everything else. The pregnant woman on a train thread was a good example.
Maybe it’s me but I could give two figs how many kids a person has as long as they don’t ask me to babysit.
Now, what about people who don’t have what they need? The scenario in the OP is one thing, but what about folks who don’t have a car big enough to have seatbelts enough for each of their kids. I knew a woman online in this situation and she totally thought she was a hero for having all these kids. I thought she was a villain for not keeping them safe in the car. I also knew a woman with a mess of kids who would celebrate Christmas after Christmas because of the sales. That’s not so much a need-based thing, but still, if you’re going to do that, the kids are going to wonder why they can’t have Santa on the same day as their friends and stuff. In both cases, they were poor going in to the big family thing.
I’m sure they thought I was just awful for working and having only one kid too.
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