My previous supervisor is 38 years old. His wife is pregnant. This will be their sixth child. :eek:
I got to thinking… having this many children is rather rare nowadays, isn’t it?
Oh and they’re not Mormon. 
They’re Catholic.
Given the number of people having only one child or even none, think of it as averaging out.
Catholics have long been held to this stereotype. See Eight is Enough, also * Monty Python’s Meaning of Life*.
I’m not sure why. It’s an old stereotype, much older than the modern contraceptive techniques that the Vatican frowns upon.
Coming from one of seven children, (The last the seven was born in 1995), I’ve never really blinked at such large families.
It’s rare but the way birth rates are falling it’s probably not a bad thing.
Good on them if it makes them happy, but just the idea of it makes me want a tall drink and a long nap. I’ve only got one, and she consistently tests the limits of my financial, intellectual, and emotional resources.
Have you seen the movie Idiocracy? It’s not just having kids, it’s who’s having the kids.
levdrakon-that’s one of my husband’s favourite movies and an argument he brings up a lot when he tries to convince me why we should be having a baby now.
Actually, six isn’t terrible. I had a couple of recent obstetric patients who were into double figures, several who were on baby 5 or 6 and a few on baby 7 or 8. This is Ireland though, so big families, while not necessary, are still wanted by a lot of people.
I did treat a 50 year old lady who was a middle child of 19…those sort of families you don’t see so much.
I recently read a paper from Saudi Arabia about the risks of doing high-multiple C-sections. While we usually tell women to stop after 3 or 4 sections, and some women are told to stop after 2, in Saudi Arabia they don’t give this advice. The paper was about the risks of women having 6 or more c-sections (needless to say, it is high risk!) and one of their patients was having her 9th C-section!
Is there any part of the ute that isn’t surgical scar tissue by that point? :eek:
sings
Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great
If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate…
Yeah, my sister had at least one miscarraige, then she carried the next one to term but by the time they realized she had to have a C-section it was too late and delivered stillborn. Then she went on to have five more kids via C-section. After the last one the doctor told her he was just barely able to put her insides back together and if she attempted to have another child there was pretty much nothing he could do and she almost certainly would die. They had to put some sort of mesh in her to hold her together while she healed and then it got infected and… well the whole thing just makes me thankful I’m a guy, and we really need to perfect those artificial wombs.
That’s evolution baby!
I do know several people with large families. Five children isn’t too uncommon IME. And yeah, I know people with six. My husband’s old work buddy has seven, and he had to convince his wife to take a break. I know some other homeschoolers online with eight and nine. A woman I know from church had ten–now grown–and now runs a daycare; she just plain loves children. She’s amazing with small kids; I’ve never seen anyone like her.
Granted, I’m Mormon *and *I’m a homeschooler, so I know both LDS large families and evangelical “quiver-full” ones. But I do have friends around town who aren’t either one and who have four children.
Some people really like children. The ones I know are all happy, good parents producing wonderful children, so I’m not complaining. Most of them are better at it than I am.
Yep. Someone I know is pregnant with her 6th child. She is someone whose genes should NOT be in the gene pool, yet she keeps reproducing. And she and her husband definitely don’t have the means to support 6 kids sufficiently. It’s really sad, actually. All but one of the kids were “accidents” although I think it’s pretty clear that she planned to have each and every one (the poor husband). She has no education or workforce skills (never worked a day in her life) so I think all these kids are her way of ensuring that she never has to work, and that someone will take care of her financially (i.e. her kids’ fathers) - at least for the next 18 years or so.
After her last kid, she told everyone she was going to get her tubes tied. I never believed that and was just counting the days until she was pregnant again. Each of the kids are only about 18 months apart - she’s only 30 so she’s been pregnant or with an infant since she was 18. I’ll bet anything she eventually has 7 or 8.
It’s really sickening. I feel sorry for the older kids because they don’t get the time and attention they deserve.
By the way, she’s not Mormon or Catholic or anything like that. She just likes collecting kids. They make her feel Important.
In the Netherlands, after decades of the four-person family, bigger families are kind of making a comeback. On the lowest rung of society, there’s the irresponsible trailer trash with four or five kids from different fathers, half of which have been taken away by social services. On the other end of the spectrum, there’s the truly wealthy trensetters who again have five kids. It’s a bit of a new daring status symbol. Five kids and a stay-at-home soccer mom is the 2010’ version of flaunting a un-PC mink coat, or something.
I know a woman with 11. Two of her kids have taken classes with my son. She seems like a really good mom, although she’s probably the most bouncing-off-the-walls hyper person I’ve ever met. I don’t know, they seem like they do very well for themselves and the kids all do really well in school (with the oldest on some pretty impressive academic scholarships for college). They’re Catholic, BTW.
A high school friend of mine is one of 9 total siblings. Only the first child was born in a hospital. After that, mom and dad figured the whole process was simple enough, and delivered the remaining 8 themselves at home.
Dad left mom with all the kids one day shortly after kid #9 was born. But he didn’t leave town either. So he’s like, 20 minutes away from his offspring at any given time, but refuses to see them and has started up a new collection with a different woman.
Some folks is strange.
I have 5. I’m Catholic. We do pretty well for ourselves. I know quite a few women with 4-5, and only 2 women with 6. One woman with 9, but she’s one of those quiverful kooks. Nice enough, but poor, overwhelmed, and a little goofy.
I’m not a raving Catholic, but I respect the Church for the most part.
I think it’s because I’m an only child, we can afford them, I’m pretty good at it, and it’s a pretty good start for world domination.
I’ve had good pregnancies, good labors, and trouble free kids. (sorta…) I have a really good husband that’s very helpful, and a business that’s flexible enough that we’ve never had to put them in day care.
If any of those would have been different, I probably wouldn’t have had so many.
I’m one of seven children.
Mom is Catholic, and dad was nothing but an alcoholic.
My husband is one of four children.
His parents aren’t religious.
Husband and I have only one child.
I was Catholic, but now am Agnostic, I suppose.
My husband is atheist.
This sounds kind of like my mom…we are Catholic, but I don’t think that was the reason she wanted a lot of kids. I think some folks just, you know, like babies and kids, and want to have a bunch of them. My mom was an only child, too, and I think it was lonely for her. She ended up with 4 kids, but I think she would have liked to have a couple more if she could have.
levdrakon- your poor sister. That’s just not nice.
Annie- after about 4 c-sections you’re probably looking at a longitudinal incision and a a classsical section because of adhesions, i.e. not a nice bikini scar, and you’ll have two scar lines in your womb…not pretty, not safe, damn scary.
My own mother had 4 sections and 3 living children. She was told after the 3rd section (my sister died when she was 12 hours old) that she could have one more section and that was it.
On average a first section takes about 30 minutes, a second section about 45, and a third about 60 minutes, but I’ve assisted at a second section where the adhesions were so bad and the scar tissue so thin that it took 2 hours and the woman was advised never to get pregnant again.