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Bates 32: More Weddings, More Babies


Coconut Flan

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I don’t have children but many of my friends do. A few have 3 kids but many have 2 kids. The ones that have 2 kids mostly come from 2 kid families. Someone I know who has 3 kids had 1 sibling but her husband was 1 of 5 kids so I think he pushed to have a 3rd. My friends that have 2 kids a lot of their kids are 1 of each but I know a few who have 2 of the same gender. One of my dog clients is one of 4 kids. She & her older sister both have 3 kids (boy girl girl) in that older. Their brother has 4 kids & their younger sister has 2 kids. 

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I have probably 10-15 friends/acquaintances around my age (mid 30s) with 4-6 kids, and a ton with 3 kids, but I went to Catholic school from kindergarten through college, so I grew up with a higher than average number of kids who came from large families. Sisters who are 2 of 7 each have 4+. I also have 3 friends who ended up with twins on the third pregnancy, although at least two of those have said they're done after 4. But I don't think I know anyone my age-ish with more than 6.

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9 hours ago, GreenBeans said:

 

1-2 children is average here, 3 seems to be getting more common, 4 children would be considered an unusually big family here, 5 and more would be REALLY uncommon.

 I feel like 3-6 kids is more common in the US? Or maybe that’s just because I mostly read about fundies and influencers popping up on my Instagram tend to use their many children as props.

 

I know more people with 4-5 children than with 2. Most people I know seem to have 3. 

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I’ve noticed that richer people tend to have more kids than just 1 or 2. My friends are all solidly middle class or lower. And I think that’s a big reason why they mostly have 2. Kids are crazy expensive. 
 

Here is an article talking about the super rich having a ton of kids. Elon Musk is an example as he has 10. But this features a couple of weirdos that I would refuse to even talk to if I was in mixed company:

https://www.businessinsider.com/pronatalism-elon-musk-simone-malcolm-collins-underpopulation-breeding-tech-2022-11

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I'm 45. The majority of my friends (and myself) have 2-3 kids. None of my close friends have more than three kids. A few have one or none by choice. Most of us are from families where 3-5 was the norm. My sister has 4 kids and is somewhat of an anomaly. I would say we are solidly middle class. 

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My mom and my dad both came from families with 4 kids. On my paternal side, I can give a rundown of the amounts of kids  my dad and his siblings had:

Child 1: 3

Child 2: 3

Child 3: 4

Child 4: 4

Now I’ll list the amount of kids each grandchild has: 

GC1: 2, GC2: 2, GC3: 2, GC4: 2, GC5: 2, GC6: 1, GC7: 3, GC8: 3, GC9: 4, GC10: 2, GC11: 2, GC12: 0, GC13: 0, GC14: 0.

As you can see, the three youngest are the only ones who have no kids. That’s because they are all still young adults and unmarried. I wouldn’t be surprised if they eventually had kids. But not a lot. You can see how each generation had less kids than the prior. I’m guessing that in 30 years, the average amount of kids in the next generation will be even lower because some will choose to have zero kids. It’s much more acceptable to be child free these days. 

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Another factor is all of the current abortion restrictions. There might be a significant number of unwanted children born that will increase family size in the U.S.

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My mom is one of 8. Only the girls had children. One has four, two had 3 and two had one (but fertility/miscarriage  was a factor in both cases). 

From the 12 cousins, one died young and 3 are young and still don't have kids.  4 of us have 3, 2 have 2 and 2 have only 1 (one is fertility issues and one's first child is still young). 

On my dad's side there were 3 kids. One had 3, the other two had only one. One cousin died without children, one cousin has two kids and the rest of us all have 3. 

I am almost 40 and pretty solidly middle class Canadian and as I said 3 kids is pretty much the norm with people I know. 

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I have 3 kids and badly want a 4th. I know of only 2 families in my town who have more than 3 (one with 4 and one with 5), but in both cases they also had multiples, so I don’t think it was necessarily intentional, and it seems like everyone in town knows who they are. I live in a suburb in the northeast that’s upper middle class with a mostly highly educated liberal population.

It bothers me that I feel pressured to conform to the norm, like my options are only to have either 2 or 3 kids max (even 3 is atypical here). I love being a parent and the idea of a big family and I want more! But my husband is resistant and I think the reaction from our friends would be as though I wanted 10 kids instead of 4 because that’s how rare it is. I think he’s caving to the peer pressure a little bit.

Meanwhile I have several cousins in the south who have 4 kids and no one bats an eye. 

Also, my kids have never been to a funeral and don’t have “funeral clothes,” but they all have black or navy dresses and sweaters and pants they could wear, even the toddler. 

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Theirs a family in my town who has 8 kids. The first 4 were born in quick succession they are 3 boys & 1 girl. Then theirs like a 5/6 age gap & the next 4 are 3 girls & 1 boy including a set a twins who are the youngest. People in my town do look at them strangely because not many families in my area have more then 3 kids.  I know someone who knows the family. The parents are both lawyers & they have a lot of help when it comes to their kids they have a nanny & they use a cleaning service to clean their house. 

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The "start date" is a factor too. I had my first in my mid-late thirties, and I'll admit that, barring fertility issues, had I started a decade earlier, perhaps I would have considered having more. Plenty of people have kids in their forties, but I think I would have been more amenable to jump back on the 2-hour feed cycle, diapers, potty training, etc. bandwagon had I had the energy I had back then. I was unstoppable in my 20s, but busy roaming around the world. I would NOT have been a responsible parent in my 20s. 

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On 4/4/2023 at 2:15 PM, CanadianMamam said:

There are 59 people in that photo.

2 grandparents. 

2 parents.

19 kids.

12 spouses. 

24 grandkids (and at least 2 in utero). 

Erin posted a picture with Jenny and Jenny is wearing blue, so I wonder if it was requested of the close family? Erin and her aunt are particularly close, so I could see her being involved in the service. She and Tori may have done the music. 

I actually counter 57 in that photo. Charlotte and Kolter appear to be missing? (Hazel is hard to spot as she is behind Josie's head). 

Michaela posted a reel and some pics in her story and no sign of Charlotte or Kolter, so maybe Tori and Bobby left them with a sitter? 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Did anyone else find it really odd the way they posed at the funeral with all the smiles? I get its a big deal they were altogether but it was odd to me. Time and Place. 

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6 minutes ago, BeccaGrim said:

Did anyone else find it really odd the way they posed at the funeral with all the smiles? I get its a big deal they were altogether but it was odd to me. Time and Place. 

The only photo we have of my dad's siblings, their spouses, and kids all together is from my grandmother's funeral. It didn't seem odd to us at the time to take the opportunity while we were all together. 

As more kids get married and have kids of their own, I think it will be more common for a sibling to skip a wedding like Alyssa did for Lawson's, so the number of chances to get a photo of all the kids at once are probably getting fewer. And it sounds like Papa Bill isn't in great health, so they may have wanted to get a photo with all the kids and the grandparents while they can. 

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2 hours ago, BeccaGrim said:

Did anyone else find it really odd the way they posed at the funeral with all the smiles? I get its a big deal they were altogether but it was odd to me. Time and Place. 

I do but I also realize that is going to be one of the last times they can get that entire crowd together with Papa Bill/Janie. The family as a whole doesn't do holidays together. I'm not sure that is one that I would blow up and frame, but it captures a moment in time when they were together for their family.

 

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3 hours ago, BeccaGrim said:

Did anyone else find it really odd the way they posed at the funeral with all the smiles? I get its a big deal they were altogether but it was odd to me. Time and Place. 

Who died?

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On 4/6/2023 at 1:24 PM, CanadianMamam said:

My mom is one of 8. Only the girls had children. One has four, two had 3 and two had one (but fertility/miscarriage  was a factor in both cases). 

From the 12 cousins, one died young and 3 are young and still don't have kids.  4 of us have 3, 2 have 2 and 2 have only 1 (one is fertility issues and one's first child is still young). 

On my dad's side there were 3 kids. One had 3, the other two had only one. One cousin died without children, one cousin has two kids and the rest of us all have 3. 

I am almost 40 and pretty solidly middle class Canadian and as I said 3 kids is pretty much the norm with people I know. 

I'm also a middle class Canadian pushing 40 and the vast majority of adults I know have 2. A few have 1 or 3 or are childfree. (I think there's one family in our neighborhood with 4 due to surprise twins.) I'm also an environmental scientist so my work friends may skew lower. We were poor grad students/postdocs till our mid30s and we think a lot about climate change impacts of more kids.

Also, contemporary North American parenting is exhausting. Pretty much everything the doctors tell you to do makes a newborn sleep less and the community support sucks. I have no idea how ppl have the stamina for 3!

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2 minutes ago, PlentyOfJesusFishInTheSea said:

I'm also a middle class Canadian pushing 40 and the vast majority of adults I know have 2. A few have 1 or 3 or are childfree. (I think there's one family in our neighborhood with 4 due to surprise twins.) I'm also an environmental scientist so my work friends may skew lower. We were poor grad students/postdocs till our mid30s and we think a lot about climate change impacts of more kids.

Also, contemporary North American parenting is exhausting. Pretty much everything the doctors tell you to do makes a newborn sleep less and the community support sucks. I have no idea how ppl have the stamina for 3!

Most of my friends who did grad programs  have no kids, so that could very well be a factor (since I don't think we are geographically that far away from each other, based on other posts, definitely same Province). 

I grew up in a small community too and I think that also skews it because there is a lot mor family/community support. 

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Yesterday was Ellie's bday and KJ posted the usual paragraph about how selfless and giving Ellie is and how much she loves children and cleaning/organizing. Oh, and she's super popular with lots of friends. She did mention the sports too so that was a bit more individualistic. 

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This made me cringe so hard. I could easily see multiple Bates boys loving Andrew Tate and everything he stands for. 

F992ACDB-8BF3-4A44-A716-4B2A7CDDEDF8.jpeg

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3 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

This made me cringe so hard. I could easily see multiple Bates boys loving Andrew Tate and everything he stands for. 

F992ACDB-8BF3-4A44-A716-4B2A7CDDEDF8.jpeg

what a wank! Sorry mate, some people just like to watch car crashes....

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I'm Dutch, early 30s, no children myself. No one I know around my age has more than 2 children. I come from a 3 kid family myself, and back then we were already an exception. 
However, I think the age that people start having children is higher in my country than it is in de US, so that might be a contributing factor.

What I have noticed here: if a couple is under 25 and they are married and have children, they are usually always very religious. If a couple/mom is under 25 and has kids but not married the pregnancy was usually an accident. If a family of whatever age has more than 4 children, they are very likely very religious. 
There's also an extreme housing crisis at the moment* (Even in the countryside), which also deters people from starting a family.
(*Dutch Universities currently have to discourage foreign students from coming here because there isn't enough housing available. In Groningen, students had to sleep in shared tents. It looks very similar to the situation that asylum seekers are in in this country. One of our ministers also tried to put a stop to family reunification for migrants because there isn't enough housing available.)

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  • 2 weeks later...

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