Rabbit Families

[Seshat]

Addendum to the thread The adventures of Digitalpotato and the rabbit family

There's another category of large (even very large) families: foster and adoptive parents.

I knew one family which was already a three-kid family (second 'child' was twins).

A family of five, all under seven, some special-needs, lost their parents and the call went out for adoptive parents.

The three-child family volunteered, on the proviso that they get the necessary financial assistance. With some government aid and pledges from church and community groups, the parents left work (necessary, given the special-needs), and devoted their lives to raising this flock. So yes, count 'em: eight children.

Their eldest was a good friend of mine, and is now a doctor. I haven't kept in touch to know what's up with the rest of them, but given the parents, I'm sure they're doing as well as possible, as adults.

[Greenday]

The thing that bothers me most is people who have no money to even really take care of themselves and then have multiple kids anyway. So now more human beings are brought into the world, deep into poverty, and the cycle just continues.

[anakhouri]

I know some people just want lots of kids and if they can care for them I guess that's OK, but I can't help feeling deep inside that it's selfish (in the first world, anyway) to have more than 2 (a replacement for each parent). Our planet is staggering under the burden of the human population. People everywhere need to curb their reproduction rates, because the human race isn't expanding into space anytime soon.

[wolfie]

The thing that bothers me most is people who have no money to even really take care of themselves and then have multiple kids anyway. So now more human beings are brought into the world, deep into poverty, and the cycle just continues.

You mean the Octomom (who already had 6 kids before her 15 minutes of fame)?

[s_stabeler]

The thing that bothers me most is people who have no money to even really take care of themselves and then have multiple kids anyway. So now more human beings are brought into the world, deep into poverty, and the cycle just continues.

I don't disagree, to be honest, on one condition. Hardline Republicans generally want to both ban/restrict contraception and abortion. In which case, you are going to get kids brought up in poverty. ( because otherwise, it's functionally a ban on sex. Yeah, not going to work.)

but yeah, I always look at large families somewhat skeptically. that family that had 19 kids ( it included only one grandkid, IIRC) has the older kids more or less look after the younger kids. Yeah, no. That's too big. But where the parents can 1) afford that number of kids and 2) look after them? I'm not particularly bothered.

[Gravekeeper]

My main problem with it is that a single human being can only split their mental and emotional attention in so many directions at once. Eventually the relationships between parents and children will reach critical mass, and the children will not get enough time and attention from each parent because there's simply more children than parental capacity. Then shit goes downhill fast.

The parents change from parents to full time field trip chaperons. All their energy is spend just managing everyone instead of building relationships. The same goes for the children themselves. At a certain point your siblings stop being siblings and turn into some people you know. Like classmates. So their relationships are strained as well.

If you add religion to the mix like the quiverfull types who breed their own soccer team, it gets even worse. Look at the Duggars. The parents are not involved whatsoever with all of the children. Instead mom cares for the larva briefly before its passed off to the worker ants. The older children become the parents of the younger children all the way down the line. And there's no way in heck everyone is walking away from that situation well adjusted.

My dad's family was similar, Irish Roman Catholic, 10 kids total. So on that side of the family I have 10 aunts and uncles. I have no real relationship with any of them and frankly don't always even remember their names. Then they all had at *least* 2-3 children giving me some odd 30 cousins of whom I do not know at all. Its not a family at that point. Its more like randomly running into people who say they went to the same elementary school as you.

As for the 10 aunts and uncles, 8 have been divorced at least once ( and one is up to 3 ) several of them have drinking problems and/or anger management, gambling, etc type issues. But despite all the divorces, they still had 2-4 children each. Continuing the spiral of misery into new generations. The only 2 of the 10 that are well adjusted are the 2 that immediately fled the province when they hit 18 and got as far away from the rest of the family as possible. >.>

[s_stabeler]

Gravekeeper? I agree. (and it was the duggars I was thinking of) If you can actually look after 8 kids? fine. But if you need to rope the older kids into helping with the actual parenting, then you have too many kids.

[bex1218]

My roommate watches the show. There is another family like them that they are friends with. Imagine when they all get together.

This is also a family that the kids are always around one another. There is no other social interaction.

[AccountingDrone]

The three-child family volunteered, on the proviso that they get the necessary financial assistance. With some government aid and pledges from church and community groups, the parents left work (necessary, given the special-needs), and devoted their lives to raising this flock. So yes, count 'em: eight children.

Which is entirely different from treating your cootchie like a freaking clown car simply to pump up the number of fundie christians to outbreed us heretics and pagans.

[Gravekeeper]

Gravekeeper? I agree. (and it was the duggars I was thinking of) If you can actually look after 8 kids? fine.

But John & Kate Plus 8 turned out so well!

[Seshat]

Gravekeeper,

I completely agree. And that's the other reason the parents of the suddenly-eight-child family I mentioned at the start of this thread sought community support before agreeing to adopt the family of five.

Their community support included honourary aunts and uncles: additional adults to help with the parenting. They planned things, so that Jean (my friend, the oldest child) and the twins (the other natural children of the pair) would not become de-facto 'parents' for the five adoptive children.

After I left high school I mostly lost touch with Jean, so I don't actually know how well it went after that point; but up till then it was working.