Am I sexist for believing that having a big family helps a marriage?

Question

When our family was together for 4th of July weekend, we discussed the relationship between divorce and family size. Everyone agreed that all the marriages we know of that resulted in five or more children are still going strong; whereas, half of our friends and family who opted for no kids, or intentionally limited themselves to having 2 or 3 children, have gone through at least one divorce. I said, “one of the best ways to safeguard a marriage seems to be having as many children as possible.” My wife and daughters chastised me for being ‘sexist’ as soon as the words passed my lips. Am I sexist for believing that having a big family helps a marriage?

Answer 1

Well that's silly. How does it make you sexist? It's not even a sexist remark, and I'm a feminist.
And i think you are right! Bigger families have more fun, period.

Answer 2

I wouldn't call that being sexist. But I feel that you are wrong for saying the amount of kids two people have results in how long their marriage will stay alive. A good lengthy marriage is based on a loving, trusting relationship between the two people. Kids can not fix a marriage. Just keeping a couple together may be a fix by appearence but who knows what is happening on the inside of the marriage.

Answer 3

No, you are not sexist (I dont think they know the meaning of this word). But your conclusion was awfully simplistic. It is not necessarily that having lots of kids causes a good marriage. Rather, it is probably much more complex such as having a good marriage tends to make more people have children. When a marriage is unstable, people tend to have less children. There could be several factors linking those together such as financial stability, faith in the marriage long-term, etc.
And I would also add that the consequence of divorce is much higher the more children there are. So I think there are lot of other factors that you havent considered.

Answer 4

I don't think you're sexist. You were making an observation that seems accurate.

Actually, my prents are divorced. I have just one sibling. Potentially, I am proof of your theory. However, a friend of mine has a total of six other siblings. Their parents are getting divorced this year. I realize that it's just one case out of thousands. But do you think that marriages with five or more kids could still be going strong because the spouses don't actually ever have time to focus on each other? If they had that time, without the disraction of five children, would they still be married?

Answer 5

Mmm, "Sexist" is not the correct term... at least I don't think so. I understand what you are saying, more kids make parents think "Oh I can't leave. I have the kids to think about!" or "I can't leave, I could never handle this alone."

But to say that having a big family is the best way to keep a marriage together does put an unfair burden on the wife, baring the kids and raising them.

Sorry, you aren't sexist, just unfair! LOL

Answer 6

That doesn't sound sexist to me.That sounds more like an observation. I think women have become too sensitive to simple statements anymore. I'm not going to agree or disagree with it.
I've known people with only 1 child that were successful and I've known people with many (one had 7 and the other had 6) that divorced. It can go either way. i think it has more to do with the adults in the marriage than it does the kids.

If you want a lesson on sexism and/or ignorance, just listen to DonkeyDong L. He seems to have those 2 things down solid..............

Answer 7

I don't see how having a bunch of kids can save or even help a marriage. I would think if your marriage was having problems, having a house full of children would put a strain on it. Plus, having more children than is needed to replace yourselves is not a good idea with the strain our population is putting on the Earth. The U.S. doesn't have a big population problem, but we hog resources and pollute like crazy. The more children you have the more severe the environmental plight will be in the future. We're already seeing startling changes to our weather now - locally, we've hardly seen snow here at all the past few winters, which is very odd. Don't fool yourself into believing that humans don't play a role in this. If you really care about family, and the future generations of your family, you will limit your family to 2 children.

Also, I don't know many families today with more 4 or more children, but a woman who was married to a doctor and shared 4 kids with him came into our jewelry store to get some jewelry appraised. She had just divorced her husband for cheating on her with his nurse. She had two of the kids with her and seemed pretty worn out. The kids sure didn't save their marriage, and the divorce affects the kids' lives, esp. since he was a well-know doctor in town and everybody was talking about it. Some people with a lot of kids who go through marriage problems may stay together just to make it easier, but if there are big problems in a marriage like infidelity, what kind of marriage will it be? Many people nowadays who have several kids, like the couple I spoke of, have that many because they have the means to support it. So, it makes it easier than couples with less finances to get a divorce. My ex was one of four kids, and his parents weren't rich (though fairly well off) - they didn't hesitate to divorce when they were going through problems. My ex said it was actually a blessing because it was worse living in a house with more fighting than love.

Answer 8

I think you have your correlation going the wrong way. I don't think the number of kids cement a marriage. I think that the more solid and committed the marriage, the more kids they tend to have.

That doesn't mean that a family with only two kids is less committed. But I do think that a husband and wife who can joyfully commit to four, five or more kids are pretty committed and stable in their marriage.

I have no clue why such a remark would be considered sexist, as I see no reasoning or comment that indicates that you think one sex is superior to the other.

Answer 9

I don't know if sexist is the correct term. People that have a bunch of kids probably try harder to make the marriage work because who wants to be single with all those kids? The men would get eaten up in child support payments and the women would most likely live in poverty. To me, it seems more of an entrapment. If the marriage is strong to begin with, it will remain so, no matter how many kids there are or aren't.

Answer 10

No your not sexist. Your stupid. Or more specifically your thought is stupid. The number of kids in a marriage will not stop marriages from failing. It may however stop people from getting a divorce...but that doesn't mean the marriage is happy or successful. Divorce is expensive and child support for MANY children is a huge hardship.

I know PLENTY of people who have many children who are not divorced but have separate bedrooms and live separate lives except for the children.

It is a WELL known fact that whatever problems you have prior to marriage will only become worse after marriage then if a child/children are added then the problems explode.

Answer 11

No, not sexist. I'd be interested to see actual numbers on this, though. It seems like it would be the opposite, but perhaps a lot of kids suggest a committment to and value of family, which in turn usually coincides with commitment in a marriage as well as to the children.

Interesting.