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Cider
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He’s a cradle Catholic from Boston
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ishii
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I believe the amount spent to educate a child for one year in Washington state is about $9000. Give me that money Washington state, and I will use it to educate my own children as I see fit
Ishii
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irishpatrick
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Sure, but large families are rare. Today, most adults are quite “me” centered.
It is alll very simple, imo. Catholics have three major choices:
- Do nothing, remain secular-pagans, and watched the western culture drift away.
- Turn back to God, marry properly, have large families, and try to place their kids in faithful Catholic schools, while also forming them at home and encouraging vocations.
- Financially contribute to the Catholic formation of other Catholic children so we can still see more faithful Catholics being raised in the world.
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Tomdstone
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Actually, they are not rare among the Muslim families that are our neighbors. They all have large families.
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Skadi
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Yep, they are going to breed the rest of the western world out if they don’t pick up the social liberalism that now holds sway in Europe an the America’s. but give it time, after 3 generations living in Europe or America and most of thier kids will be as socially liberal as the Christians kids are.
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irishpatrick
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Yes, and Catholics used to have 5-10 kids per family. Now they have 1-2, maybe three tops.
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Bubba_Switzler
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Why?! That is the important question.
There are those of a Malthusian bent who claim it is selfish to have (more) children but I don’t think that is the reason, just an excuse.
I don’t really buy the argument that it is selfish to have fewer children either. It goes deeper than that.
Mostly I’ve heard variations on the quality vs. quantiy argument: more children means spreading scarce resources between them and they would suffer and/or the parents would look bad for failing to properly provide for them.
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Tomdstone
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This may be true of Catholics but not of the Muslim families that I am familiar with. These Muslim families love their children and they love having large families. Also, the women and girls dress quite modestly, which contrasts rather sharply with how I see some Christian women dressing.
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MJJean
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It’s very much about economics and the mental/emotional ability of parents. People who are barely making ends meet and exhausted from working and taking care of a couple kids along with their houses and yards aren’t able to physically and emotionally care for large families. They’re barely able to keep going day to day.
I live by a very large Muslim population and near a largish Hispanic population. Yes, those people tend to have large families. Not uncommon to see a married couple have 4-6 kids. And, yes, they seem to be doing ok. The difference is that those people come from cultures where there are large support networks of friends and family to help. That support system is lacking outside of those ethnic immigrant communities.
For example, most of the convenience stores, gas stations, and an increasing number of mechanic shops are owned by the Muslim folks who live nearby. A few close friends or family members will pool their resources and open a business. Those businesses are staffed by the owners and their relatives. Most of those families own large homes where there will be a father and mother, numerous children, grandparents, maybe a couple uncles or cousins etc. living in the same house, working at the same family business, sharing living expenses and helping to care for young children while the parents work and/or go to college.
The local non-Muslim and non-Hispanic population, by contrast, seem to be a lot more “every man for himself”.
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irishpatrick
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IMO, it is because Catholics (80%+) are no longer Catholic–they are secular-paganists and live their lives as such.
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irishpatrick
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Catholics have NOT held onto their faith.
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Bubba_Switzler
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While I tend to agree with you on many points this strike me as over the top for two reasons: 1) it implies a golden age of Catholcism that probably never existed, and 2) it devalues our secular world.
But then maybe I’m just another secular pagan.
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Bubba_Switzler
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The first paragraph is largely contradicted by the rest of your post and by history. The people having large families are not better off financially than those having smaller families. If anything the correlation goes the other way (which leads some to think that large families cause poverty or that small families cause prosperity).
While economics and finance do play a role in decisions about the size of families it is not as simple as a higher standard of living leads to bigger families or that people are avoiding having larger families because they cannot afford to.
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MJJean
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No, it’s not that simple. But economics and finances are a big part of the decision to limit family size. I also added that mental/emotional abilities of the parents also play a role.
Historically, a large family meant more people to work the land and provide for all. Kids went to school until about 6th or 8th grade level and then worked. People had a nice set of clothes for special events and a few working sets of clothing. Most stayed at home until marriage, some after, continuing to contribute to the household. We do not live in that kind of society anymore and aren’t likely to return to it.
In modern America, most people want to live in a home with only a husband, a wife, and a couple of children. The parents are expected to support the children until they are at least 18 and usually expected to contribute to the children going to college. Parents are also expected to buy their kids a new wardrobe every school year at the very least. In families where both parents work they are paying out the nose for daycare and after school care until their kids are old enough to be left home alone. In families where one parent stays home they are living on only one income which is difficult for the disappearing middle class and very difficult for those that are “low income”.
The modern American family does not tend to include extended family living in the same house, helping rear children and helping cover living expenses. We aren’t pooling our resources. We don’t have family businesses to employ us and our children when they are old enough to work.
Most of us are mentally and physically exhausted from working jobs and then coming home to work around the house and yard while caring for our kids. Most of us are living paycheck to paycheck. Another child or two and we’d be knocked over the edge either financially, mentally, or both.
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Bubba_Switzler
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I’m much more in agreement with your post here but I’ll disagree on how you interpret some of this. (Though, again, you seem to be ignoring the fact that those with higher incomes have smaller families than those with lower incomes.)
Clearly in ancient times up until perhaps a century ago children were, from a very early age, put to work. Hence they were not the financial burden that they are today. (Extended families only help if they are past child bearing age, otherwise they have their own kids to care for though some sharing of resources could help.)
In modern society children almost never contribute to family finances. At best they might take a summer job for spending money.
Your point about “expectations” is partially correct, the expectations are there, but then who is attempting to fulfill those expectations? The parents themselves, of course. I think it is entirely plausible that some choose to have smaller families either because that is “expected” or because that allows them to have the standard of care and attention that is “expected”.
One question to consider is whether these expectations are realistic or good. Are children better off in smaller families? Are parents better off? You seem to be agreeing, implicity, thaty they are. I’m not convinced of this.
Let’s think about it in terms of the “marginal child”. Suppose you have two children and you can afford (in terms of money and time) to care for those children. Now the question is whether or not to have a third child that you cannot afford in terms of time and money. Should you? The prevelant answer is “no”. I beleive the answer is “yes”.
At the worst, this “marginal child” will receive little attention from the parents or money for college. Is he better off never to have existed? I don’t buy that.
But of course the marginal child does not cost the same as the first child and older children can help with younger children and a big family means more relatsionships and, thus, a richer home life overall: you may not have any more time to spend with the “marginal child” but the older siblings do.
Some expenses vary with the number of children, e.g. food and education, but others do not, e.g. housing and entertainment. You’d be surprised how many people you can fit in a house if you have to and a tv works as well for a dozen viewers as one. Parents are less burdened by children when they play with each other.
I think the scariest expense is college. But while college costs are absurd most colleges offer genenerous financial aid.
I agree that our modern society is very different from agricultural societies but I think that matters a lot less than most people believe.
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livnlern
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I know of a family with 5 children in a small, three bedroom house. The kids are home-schooled, so the family only has one income. Things are kind of cramped and they also have three dogs(!). The parents are very dedicated to their family and the kids are involved in sports and church related activities and seem to be pretty well adjusted. Needless to say, they don’t have a lot of extras but the mom has garage sales from time to time and gives swimming lessons to neighborhood children to make some extra money (none of the kids are old enough to have jobs). Don’t know if I agree with the homeschooling situation as I think the oldest boy (15 year old) would like to be in high school, but I have observed that because the parents (and so the kids) are willing to do without some extra TVs and I phones and computers and other things most people view as necessities, they’re able to live somewhat comfortably with a larger sized family and one income. So, it can be done! I have to mention that they aren’t Catholic, but go to a Protestant church.
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CradleJourney
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As a parent “in the trenches” so to speak, I’d ask that you expand your idea a smidge - it’s not just the parents themselves but society as a whole that pushes people to conform to those expectations.
Ex. - Cell phones. They became common when my oldest was in high school. We certainly didn’t feel the need to get her one to keep up with the cool kids. She was fine, and when she needed to reach us, she went in the office and used the school phone - no problems. 2nd oldest (8yrs later) - by now cell phones were common and expected. But over that four year span it became more and more difficult. Instead of giving us a time for when the team bus would arrive back at the school, coaches would just have the kids call their parents when the bus was 15 minutes from the bldg - and expect parents to be there within 10 minutes of that to pick them up. Instead of sending emails to notify parents of schedule changes and team meetings, text messages would be sent to the kids cell phone numbers. Over and over she had to borrow other people’s phones to use and beg people to call us if they got a text. Coaches and teammates got annoyed and kept asking when she was going to get her own phone. I understand the pressure from her peers, but it was the pressure from coaches and teachers that got me.
Now our 3rd oldest is starting high school and as soon as we can figure a way to get it in the budget, he’s getting a phone. That’s not because of “our” expectations - heck, I just got my first cell phone (a prepaid one), last year because of my elderly mother needing to reach me. It’s not so he can be “cool” or “fancy” - it’s so he won’t be the social pariah always having to borrow other people’s phones and never knowing when/if a practice, meeting or homework has been changed. Teachers, coaches, and the school office staff all expect these kids to have a phone - and aren’t necessarily willing to go out of their way to help the 1% to 2% who don’t.
Ditto for high speed internet access - several advanced classes now require watching numerous you tube videos, doing CAD activities, and other research that require more than the dial up connection we had before. Could they go to the library and do it? Yes - however that doesn’t work when one of the younger ones is ill and can’t be taken out of the home, or the library closes early that night, or the car isn’t working. Every year there seems to be more and more that society expects us to have - and it seems unavoidable unless you take the home school option. So I can understand why parents, seeing how their “basic” costs have increased over the past years, may be hesitant to add another child to their load.
So my point (sorry if I was ranting a bit) is that if Catholics want to promote big families - they need to do so in every way, including lowering their expectations of what others “should” have and reducing the pressure on parents. Trust me, in a myriad of ways this is set up to be a maximum of 2 or 3 kids per family world. (Not contradicting your point - merely seeking to elaborate on it a bit.)
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Bubba_Switzler
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Bingo! That conforms to my own experience.
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Bubba_Switzler
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Fine. But remember that you are not alone in those trenches.
The idea that society “pushes people to conform to those expectations” is a very passive one, exactly why I reject it. Of course, society pushes it’s expectations on us. But we can reject those expectations. When I was younger I used to cringe at the thought of doing that. Now I have learned to enjoy it. Yes, I take great joy in confounding societies expectations of me.
Cell phones are a great invention, to be sure. But I’m having a hard time visualizing cell phone costs as a reason not to have a child. Let’s go back to my “marginal child” analysis: are you really going to choose not to have a child because you cannot afford provide him a cell phone?
I realize of course, that you are only using cell phones as an example but a more significant example would be a car. But the same question applies.
I guess my experience has been different. What I’ve noticed is how much more you get nowadays for your dollar than in the olden days. We didn’t have the interwebs when I was a kid and I still remember getting dialup and having to stick the phone receiver in a box. Nowadays most people have access to high speed internet with their phone or cable service at a negligable cost. And, again, this is a perfect example of a cost that is invariant to the number of children. It doesn’t cost anything extra for internet access for the “marginal child” and you probably had it before you had your first.
You should really run the numbers and look for the big marginal costs. My claims are that:
- the “marginal child” costs are much lower than you think, and
- you are the parent, not society, their pressure can only work if you give into it.
Now what I will agree is that it would certainly be easier if Catholic culture helped individual families to reject pagan cultural expectations. If you are feeling pressured by social expectations to curtail your fertility you should at least be able to find a refuge among other Catholics.
But, more importantly, I think what’s needed is a better articulation about the advantages of bigger families. At a minimum, they ought to be held in higher esteem among Catholics. But more generally Catholics need to have a better understanding of how much richer their lives are by having that “marginal child”.
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irishpatrick
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I intended to devalue the secular world.
I do not think there was/is or ever will be a golden age for the Church/faith. However, I do believe we have seen many down ages for the Church, and I believe we might be living in the very worst ever.
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