Thing of the past. How do you cope and how do you spend quality time with them all? I am 34 this year and i only have 1 daughter but i wish i'd started sooner so i could've had a really big family. My grandmother was part of 9 of a family and her mother really struggled with it for some reason as she was poor and her husband didn't treat her right.This was in the early 40's mind you!
2007-04-02 09:25:45 · 8 answers · asked by minx_knitting_minnie 2 in Family & Relationships ➔ Other - Family & Relationships
A friend of mine's sister is going on number 13 right now. Every single one of hers was planned, they're almost all 18 months apart exactly! She says this will be her last. She has to have the patience of a Saint! I think she's crazy personally, or if she's not yet just give it a few more years!
2007-04-10 07:39:45 · answer #1 · answered by CrystalDawn 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Why would anyone purposely have 15 or 16 kids in this day and age unless they were unplanned multiple births. Do you know the cost of raising one child in this day, hey I had my oldest in the 70s and a can of baby formula was a dollar something for a large ready to feed, how much is that now and the cost of diapers, not the cloth ones because there are very few diaper services left in the US. No I don't know anyone with this many kids and if I did I wouldn't be a very close friend, I love children, but not that many in a condensed area at one time. Yes I did know a lot of large families from the 40s, 50s and 60s, but I think that is when that trend ended, and they were loving families that stuck together and had morals.
2007-04-07 05:39:04 · answer #2 · answered by Bethy4 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
This modern age has brought a breadth of opportunity to women of this age. You have more opportunities for careers, education, lifestyle and ownership of businesses and property.
Such was not the case as little as 50 years ago.
Prior to the 1940s a woman was exptected to become a wife (no single women ... those were "Spinsters" or "Biddys") and to raise children (it was acceptable to divorce your wife for failing to provide children). You could not have love on your terms...procreation was the male perogative, and if your husband was a "lustful" man he might not allow you sufficient time between births to recover and a series of 8 children in the first 10 years of marraige (from the age of 16-17 to the age of 27) wasn't uncommon.
Of course disease, malnutrition, or poor medical care would weed out any weak children with asthma or allergies and leave you with a healthy brood of 5 or 6 by the time you were in your 30s.
War might account for another 2 or 3 as these things seemed to come along every 20 years or so. Leaving you with 3 or 4 by the time you were in your mid 40s.
By the time you were 50 you might have a few grandchildren as well.
This was why you had lots of children...you had to. Medical and societal advances (planned parenthood, free abortions, and a better adoption network) have allowed us to breed both more selectively ... having the same number of children we might expect to see grow to adulthood ... and more poorly (allowing children with serious defects to reach adulthood).
Right now, the only families that are breeding like rabbits are those families that live in conditions that mimic the US prior to the 40's. Poor, rural, or poor urban areas. And they do it for the same reasons.
If you were a poor black mother in a urban area and you could expect to lose a child to medical reasons, have a grandchild before you were 30 and expect to lose 2-3 of your male children to inner-city violence wouldn't you seek to increase the odds of at least a few of them making it to adulthood?
2007-04-02 16:40:08 · answer #3 · answered by MrDave2176 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
These days most women work and back in the days women stayed home so they had time to take care of all those kids. I don't think people in US have more tham 5 or 6 kids (rarely you hear about someone having 12 or so, but like I said, it is RARELY.) While having a big family can be rewarding, I don't think it's worth putting your body thru all this stress.
2007-04-02 16:29:48 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
My cousin has four kids. She is a stay at home mom and her husband goes to work. I dont know how she manages to do it, but she does.
You dont see too many people having that many kids these days. Alot has changed since then. Everything is more costly.
2007-04-09 22:38:27 · answer #5 · answered by garingercompany 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
i'm the oldest of 4 kids... and i have the biggest family in the area but 4 is nowhere close to 15
2007-04-08 23:16:21 · answer #6 · answered by yebbabbey 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
OMG... What would you do with 15 kids>>> My uncles were from a family of 15 kids, but that was because they worked on a farm... Would seem to me that mom's female parts would just fall out by then,,,,]]]]]]//////
2007-04-02 16:29:39 · answer #7 · answered by Its me!!! :) 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It's too expensive to raise this many kids now. What if they want to go to college? There's clothes, food, doctors etc.,etc.
2007-04-02 16:30:38 · answer #8 · answered by luckford2004 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋