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MaryT777
Guest
Certainly an interesting read. Thanks for posting it.
Mary.
Mary.
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bitterhope
Guest
Honestly it just makes sense to me. When you have a large amount of siblings you learn to deal with things most people don’t experience. You learn you don’t have to always like someone to continue to love and respect them. You find out that if you keep on loving and treating others with respect, with time you find yourself enjoying their company again. You learn to laugh and joke around instead of be miserable and serious all the time. There are so many things you can’t learn about the inner workings in family/home life from parents or peers, especially same age/sex peers, that having lots of siblings helps develop. It’s been my experience that large families also produce better employees as well. Most likely for the same reasons. They don’t tend to get caught up in work place drama to the same degree as other employees.
Another factor is probably that even when your parents become the dumbest people on earth to you, usually your siblings remain smart. They normally help guide you through trying times better than your parents. Large families tend to remain close knit well into adulthood and I think part of that is room sharing. Sharing bedrooms not only helps cement bonds between siblings, but it also helps you learn to share your “private space” like you do in marriage with your spouse. If you are already accustomed to having someone in your room it’s not as likely that you feel like your privacy is invaded or that you just need some time alone each day. There are so many things that having a lot of siblings around teaches you that those with fewer siblings can learn about dealing with relationships.
Another factor is probably that even when your parents become the dumbest people on earth to you, usually your siblings remain smart. They normally help guide you through trying times better than your parents. Large families tend to remain close knit well into adulthood and I think part of that is room sharing. Sharing bedrooms not only helps cement bonds between siblings, but it also helps you learn to share your “private space” like you do in marriage with your spouse. If you are already accustomed to having someone in your room it’s not as likely that you feel like your privacy is invaded or that you just need some time alone each day. There are so many things that having a lot of siblings around teaches you that those with fewer siblings can learn about dealing with relationships.
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adamhovey1988
Guest
More reason to stay together. My mother has never been divorced (though married twice, she was widowed). She and my stepdad have been together since 1999
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1Lord1Faith
Guest
“The authors suggest that siblings further the development of social skills useful in navigating marriage.”
This statement from the article makes no sense to me. I have heard that having more children helps a person grow in the self-sacrifice department, which is essential to marriage. I can back that up.
I would also think that having more children(more than 2) is a sign of the couple being more open to sacrifice and family in the first place.
This statement from the article makes no sense to me. I have heard that having more children helps a person grow in the self-sacrifice department, which is essential to marriage. I can back that up.
I would also think that having more children(more than 2) is a sign of the couple being more open to sacrifice and family in the first place.
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puzzledtoo
Guest
There are 3 kids in my family. 2 have only been married once and 1 has been married twice-divorced one time. My wife comes from a family of 9 kids. 4 of them got divorced-of the 4 one got remarried the other 3 have had their share of live-ins and have not remarried. Of the ones that have only been married once 2 lost their spouses due to death. So that leaves 2 that are stilled married to their first spouse and still alive.
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Athanasiy
Guest
I have a friend who has got married with a young girl.
he is comforted that soon will be a second child, 15 years age difference between them is not a big difference, but still he worries that his wife would not run away from him.
so he says - “the more children in the family- the safer for our marriage.”
but the fact is that -to have a lot of children is our duty and the gift from God, rather than some saving marriage circumstances.
he is comforted that soon will be a second child, 15 years age difference between them is not a big difference, but still he worries that his wife would not run away from him.
so he says - “the more children in the family- the safer for our marriage.”
but the fact is that -to have a lot of children is our duty and the gift from God, rather than some saving marriage circumstances.
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Javan
Guest
I disagree. Couples who suffer from infertility might not be able to have even one child, let alone more than two. That doesn’t mean they aren’t open to self-sacrifice. We should not judge couples based on the number of children they have.
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pensmama87
Guest
Siblings have to sacrifice for each other, too - they have to share spaces and negotiate turn-taking. I had three siblings and had to share a room for much of that time (and when I had my own room, it was the guest room whenever we had company, so I regularly had to temporarily move back in with a younger sibling.)
My husband was an only, and even though he played a lot with younger cousins growing up and has what many people would regard as a sibling-like relationship with them, there were adjustments we made as a couple that I think wouldn’t have happened, at least not the same degree, if he had siblings (and as another poster points out, there are reasons families may not have more than 1-2 children - my in-laws tried for 10 years before my husband was born, and then five years after that my MIL had to have a hysterectomy. They would have loved to have had more, but it wasn’t possible.
I think siblings can help, but obviously it’s not at all the only factor, and parents of onlies shouldn’t feel like they’re dooming their child to be bad at marriage.
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EasterJoy
Guest
A reduction of 2% per sibling is not exactly a huge effect. For instance, having a bachelor’s degree or more, when compared to having less than a high school diploma, makes more like a 25-30% difference.
“We’re not in the 1950s, where (an only child) might live in a household and mom might stay home and you’d interact all day with an adult. No kids do that anymore,” he says. “There are lots of opportunities to gain interpersonal skills.” --from the article
Whoa. Did this guy really say that children who interact primarily with adults do not gain interpersonal skills? That is not my experience. There are adults who handicap the children in their care by not allowing a child to learn the rules of socializing with them. I mean adults who deal one-on-one with a child in an entirely dictatorial top-down way, rather than having any true I-thou conversations. If a parent isn’t controlling to a rather toxic extent, however, that doesn’t often happen with the opportunity to spend one-on-one time with a child, which an only child is more likely to get.
More to his point, though: a sibling is more than an “opportunity to gain social skills.” How to put this nicely? A sibling is a person you are stuck with for life, like them or not. Your sibling is not your mother or father, you are in a reciprocal relationship, yet you are bound as family. A sibling is a peer who, solely because of their seemingly accidental station in life, you are expected to love even if you do not at all like them. They are people whose hobbies, schedule, and even dietary needs have this way of dictating yours–at every meal, all of the time. They are the people who, like them or not, will help you care for your parents in old age, who you have to learn to share resources with at home, who you learn to give and take with in a way that is very different from the give and take of school or day-care friendships.
I don’t know how anyone who actually **has **any siblings could fail to see that difference!
“We’re not in the 1950s, where (an only child) might live in a household and mom might stay home and you’d interact all day with an adult. No kids do that anymore,” he says. “There are lots of opportunities to gain interpersonal skills.” --from the article
Whoa. Did this guy really say that children who interact primarily with adults do not gain interpersonal skills? That is not my experience. There are adults who handicap the children in their care by not allowing a child to learn the rules of socializing with them. I mean adults who deal one-on-one with a child in an entirely dictatorial top-down way, rather than having any true I-thou conversations. If a parent isn’t controlling to a rather toxic extent, however, that doesn’t often happen with the opportunity to spend one-on-one time with a child, which an only child is more likely to get.
More to his point, though: a sibling is more than an “opportunity to gain social skills.” How to put this nicely? A sibling is a person you are stuck with for life, like them or not. Your sibling is not your mother or father, you are in a reciprocal relationship, yet you are bound as family. A sibling is a peer who, solely because of their seemingly accidental station in life, you are expected to love even if you do not at all like them. They are people whose hobbies, schedule, and even dietary needs have this way of dictating yours–at every meal, all of the time. They are the people who, like them or not, will help you care for your parents in old age, who you have to learn to share resources with at home, who you learn to give and take with in a way that is very different from the give and take of school or day-care friendships.
I don’t know how anyone who actually **has **any siblings could fail to see that difference!
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claymcdermott
Guest
Strongly suspect that what may be seriously skewing their results is that people who have lots of kids tend to be people who are fairly skeptical of divorce, and that they raise their kids consciously or unconsciously with that same skepticism.
Also everyone they interview seems skeptical of the study.
Also everyone they interview seems skeptical of the study.
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Xantippe
Guest
Yeah.
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