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Yes, 4 is the new 2. Anyone can have 1 or 2 kids. But to afford 4 private school tuitions, a house large enough for 4 and a team of nannies in San Francisco or NYC, you have to be mega-rich.

BTW: These women are not necessarily former career women. Nor do they necessarily spend much time with their children. They have an army of helpers to do the actual work. Once the children are "birthed", their job is about staff management, shopping and event planning.

(Am I being too catty?)

Ah, but the real supermom would be able to do it all on her own, without housekeepers and nannies and private schools. ;] Am I right?

I just want to know, when did 4 become a "big brood"? I'm from a family of 7 so does that mean we're ginormous?

I'm with you rayvon_avon.

Me and the Mr. both have 3 siblings and we were never considered a large family, that was reserved for families with 6 children or more.

Did it ever occur to anyone that maybe the affluent have more children because they WANT to as well can afford to? And exactly who are we calling affluent? What's the income level? Because not all families considered affluent have nannies and the like doing all their work for them.

And while we're talking anecdotal evidence, I know many people who came from 2 or less children households who grew up wishing they had more siblings--which is the reason why they plan on having more than 2 themselves.

People who can afford $80,000/year on school tuition alone are pretty affluent ;-)

And yes, the ones I know in SF all have at least one full-time person to help with childcare and a part-timer to help with everything else. At *least*.

MamaChilanga,

As much as I want to buy in, I *do* think you're being a bit too catty. For a minute, think about how much you love your own children -- Don't forget that with very few exceptions, every parent shares that same love for his or her own kids, too, regardless of household income or socioeconomic status.

They may have help, they may do things differently than you (and I) do, but to say that their big job is "birthing" and the rest is just details is, to me, unfair.

That said, I personally definitely see the trend here in NYC. Who else could afford to live here, go private and still own an apartment, especially in Manhattan?

Perhaps it is because I hail from the Southwest but I never think a large family is a "rich signifier." I have always thought it to be a "Mormon signifier."

I also do not understand why all the catty comments. If they want to hire help with the kids, I don't care and don't think them less of a parent/mom than me. Everyone has different lifestyles.

Hi~
personally, I would LOVE to have a large family, say 4 or 5 children. But of course, money is a factor. If I had unlimited budget, I could hire help to do the laundry, the cleaning, the cooking, and devote my time to play, talk to and raise my 4 or 5 children. But HELL if I will have to clean, cook and look after a home with 5 or 6 predators in it, how on earth am I supposed to ENJOY them? I would be tired at the end of the day and they would grow having a grumpy mother (I don't mean any mother of more than 2 without help would turn grumpy, I just know myself, can't handle stress well), but I refuse to believe that the rich are having lots of offspring just to show off!!!
(2 will be the count for us, maybe a third as soon as the oldest one hits college, in 18 years time) o_0

This is going to sound really judgmental, but I really do think there are two kinds of parents: Those who wish they could spend more time with their kids and those who are glad they don't have to.

There is a lot of pressure to have children in this society. How different would the world be if only those who felt a true "calling" to parent had kids and the rest of us just pitched in from time to time to get our kid "fix"?

I agree with most of what MamaChilanga is saying. Especially the last post.

It is judgmental.
However I'm not American, and I don't know what "society" you are referring to...

MamaC: I think you're simplifying things quite a bit.

Just chiming in to say that, here in suburban Atlanta, it TOTALLY seems like having 4 kids is a hot thing for statusy families. One thing driving that around here is that you can have a much bigger house than in SF or NY, so there's room to keep adding a kid. The fams I know who are doing this do indeed have very super-mom type SAHM's; one of them is homeschooling her six kids--I am all admiration, but wow!

interesting...I just got done writing a book about raising larger families (we focused on parents of four or more, but there are communities where three is quite large, and some where four or even five is just average, so it's very subjective). I, personally, heard over and over again from the parents I interviewed that they have big families because they love children and enjoy having a lot of them around. That was true whether they lived in the city and had a nanny (though very few of the parents I interviewed had that kind of lifestyle) or lived in the rural or suburban midwest and stayed home or worked and did their best to patch together child care they could afford (much more common). Anyway, I guess my point is that it's just silly to attribute the number of kids somebody has to something like competitiveness--there could be a lot of reasons wealthier families are more likely to have big families, and maybe some of them really DO see their kids as "fashion accessories"--hey, there are rotten apples in every bunch, big and small families, rich and poor alike. But I simply don't believe that most sane women would actually create new lives simply to keep up with the Joneses.

Does every decision have to be about status?

Maybe some of us raised in homes with one or two children felt alone compared to our friends from large families.

Maybe the sound and energy of a full house appeal after years of large(r) families being televised (Brady Bunch, Full House, Family Ties, Eight is Enough, the Waltons, Little House on the Prairie, etc.).

Families are the product of emotional decisions as well as social and economic ones. This type of research seems to minimize the human desire for joy, community, and a sense of place.

Also, they may be missing some obvious elements of the changing American family: How many of these families have children from multiple marriages? It's not uncommon to have yours, mine, and ours to get the higher numbers.
In these cases, it could be a desire to share the whole childbirth/rearing experience with this life partner that motivates the higher numbers.

It's understandable that researchers will, at times, operate with blinders on, but we don't have to share their myopia when their research is presented. I think people have better reasons for having kids than to buy the biggest SUV available on the market or impress the neighbors.

Meagan: Did you interview families in SF and Manhattan? In both those cities, having children is an expensive only the rich can indulge. (Decent-sized 2 bedroom apartments cost close to a million dollars.)

The families I know with multiple kids spend very little time with them. (One family has them all in full-time care until 6 p.m. even though the Mother does not work outside the home because it is cheaper than a nanny.) If they *love* children so much, why don't they even try to spend more time? There is more to parenting than bedtime and weekends (though this family has a driver on weekends to help shuttle kids to activities). Many of the working parents I know would *love* to be able to spend more time with their kids.

I think there is a difference between wanting to *have* kids and wanting to *raise* them. Some of these families love the idea of having a large family, not the reality of actually being the one doing the child rearing.

Can't speak about what is happening in Manhattan or SF, but I *have* noticed in my British design magazines that the cool rich people all seem to have 4 kids (e.g., Suzanne Sharp & her husband of Rug Company fame, etc.). And the realities of those who live the beautiful life in the UK, especially in London, are the same (or even MORE expensive) than those who live it in NY. Haven't the foggiest what their childcare/homecare arrangements are, and so can't judge in the slighest. Although personally, I am with Sol on this one -- if we could afford help around the house, and I were a few years younger, we'd have 4 kids and not 2. Last week, I had lunch at the Ambassador's residence, and let me tell you, the personal Australian chef, the housekeeper and 2 maids as well as the gardeners made life lovely... coming home to dust and dirty dishes was very hard.

Again, a few anecodotal interviews isn't really proof of anything but many of the women interviewed in the radio piece seemed to agree that large families had become a status symbol in their wealthy communities. One young woman reported how jealous she felt when her friend announced she was pregnant with her fourth - within a month she, too, was pregnant with her fourth.

I think the piece was very specifically talking about the very wealthy and privileged not large families in general.

Carrie

I just read an article (although I had already heard of the trend) that conservatives, especially religious conservatives, are having FAR more children than non-religious liberals. I'm not sure wealth is as much a factor as is your belief system, in many cases.

Hey now, no Mormon jokes ;)