The Washington Post today ran a column asking if having three children was “showing off.”
My husband and I are getting ready to do what many couples in these brink-of-recessionary times would consider unthinkable. No, we’re not buying a Martha’s Vineyard retreat or planning a month in St. Bart’s or eco-decorating our house.
We’re planning to have a third child.
What shocks people, when we tell them, isn’t the thought of hauling three kids onto a place for a vacation, or even the idea of coming home every night to a houseful of runny noses and homework assignments. What gets them is the sheer financial audacity. Raising kids today costs a fortune. Last month, the Department of Agriculture estimated that each American child costs an average of $204,060 to house, clothe, educate and entertain until the age of 18….
And yet nowadays, people seem aghast if a couple wants more than two children. When Elana Sigall, a 43-year-old attorney in Brooklyn, was pregnant with her third, people came up to her constantly, she said, to admonish her: “You’ve got a boy and a girl already. Why don’t you just leave it alone?”
What’s worse, the desire to have another child opens one up to charges of elitism and status consciousness. In many major U.S. cities and their suburbs — especially New York, where I live — having three or more children has now come to seem like an ostentatious display of good fortune, akin to owning a pied-Ã -terre in Paris. The family of five has become “deluxe.” Last year, novelist Molly Jong-Fast mused in the New York Observer, “Are people having four or five children just because they can? Because they feel that it shows their wealth and status? In a world where the young rich use their $13,000 Birkin bags as diaper bags, one has to wonder.”
Well then I hate to admit it. I am a showoff. Big time. I have five.
I show off all the time when I’m buying pasta by the crate. Instead of store-bought birthday gifts for my wife and I, my children fill out “Birthday promises” on little cards they’ve written out for free hugs, kisses, cleaning the play room, or taking care of the baby.
I show off by instead of going to Chuck E. Cheese I take the kids to the cornfield near our home and we fly a kite and climb trees.
I show off big time when my daughter wears the hand me downs of her sisters. (I’m pretty sure we don’t have many or any name brands)
I applaud the woman who wrote the column for opening herself to the possibility of a third child but would say all those other material issues don’t matter. Children don’t know and don’t care how much the diaper bag costs. They’re not concerned with wealth or status. They want and need love.
The odd thing is that we live in the materially richest nation to ever exist on the planet and we constantly bring up material shortage reasons for not having children. But perhaps it’s not a shortage of money. America might just suffer from a shortage of love.
April 8, 2008 at 10:49 am
Of course, I’m terribly jealous of your big family and your fantastic wealth. Especially when you show off so well. B)
April 8, 2008 at 11:21 am
I think having three kids is a bit of a show-off in the UK, too. Well, I mean, it can be perceived that way and it may be that for some people. The only house we could afford is a small two-bedroom. We’re so blessed to have two boys, as they can share a bedroom indefinitely. We are not sure if we should have another child, or not. There are various reasons, but the car seat, bedroom, and financial situations absolutely do come into it. It’s something we’re strugging with, for sure.
April 8, 2008 at 12:07 pm
“show off”??? I had to laugh hystericallly…we have 4, so I guess I’m almost up there with you and your 5! Fortunately we were not thinking of finances, or we might not even have had one. It was our conversion experience that left us open to children, not our money – or lack thereof. Even my fellow Catholics seem amazed by our “wealth.”
April 8, 2008 at 1:08 pm
I show off when I take out a 2nd mortgage to pay for milk.
April 8, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Well if having more than two kids is showing off, then let we as Catholics bring it on! One day our kids will be showing off their Catholicism and converting the whole world.
We’re expecting our third right now, and people keep asking me, “Was it planned or…?” (I guess I understand what they’re saying, but the word “planned” in regard to having children always makes me cringe.) Whatever happened to trusting God with everything? They ask, too, I guess because who in their right mind would have more than two, especially when those two are already a boy and a girl. Oh when will people see children as blessings and not burdens!?!?
April 8, 2008 at 2:49 pm
I agree. Children are a burden.
The economists show us how expensive they are. The psychologists tell us about ADD and other “problems” they will surely have. The environmentalists tell us its better to abort them so we don’t hurt our “mother earth” with more carbon footprints. Our neighbors tell us how much those extra i-pods, cell phones, gaming stations, and hockey equipment is gonna cost us. The favorite daycare worker tells us, “Junior said ‘mommy’ today. That’s the first time he’s said mommy. Isn’t that great?” You yawn because you’ve been working all day and it’s nearly 6:00 p.m.
Children are a burden.
Unless…
There must be a better way. Keep them at home. Don’t buy them all that stuff. Discipline them and keep them from x-box and tv. I bet the ADD rapidly diminishes. The earth really isn’t your mother.
April 8, 2008 at 2:53 pm
These are some pretty radical anti-Earth quotes from you. I’m contacting the U.N. and you may be investigated and brought up on some international charges. Good luck;)
April 8, 2008 at 3:27 pm
No doubt people can be very hostile. We have four (and would have many more if we had been blessed with them). One day when the we were all walking into a bookstore one man actually stopped his car, rolled down the window and yelled “Haven’t you ever heard of abortion”. Classy.
April 8, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Personally, I don’t buy the $200K number. Sure, if you insist on throw-away designer clothes and if you have nannies, organized sports, eat out all the time and have to redecorate, it can get expensive. However, my parents raised 11 kids in the 1950s and 1960s – They didn’t spend nearly that much (in contemporary dollars, not in 2008 dollars).
I just think that people put “things” above kids so much that now, in a twisted sense of the material, kids have become things.
April 8, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Renee,
I can’t get over your comment. What is going on with people? Think of the anger necessary to do something like that. I shudder.
April 8, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Personally, I don’t buy the $200K number
Don’t. A number of years ago some “study” along these lines was adding in things like a car when they are 16, designer clothes, expensive summer camps and vacations, TVs and computers in their rooms, etc. Completely unrealistic.
April 8, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Matthew,
I know, I couldn’t believe it at first. I even asked my husband if I had heard him correctly. It was incredible.
April 8, 2008 at 5:50 pm
I agree w/bnwied – that’s why my new Earth Day t-shirt will say:
I “heart” the pitter-patter of my little carbon footprints.
April 8, 2008 at 6:06 pm
WOW. Some very funny and unbelievable comments.
When we were expecting #3, 4 and 5, we got the “was it planned?” question alot. I always responded, “Yes. By God.” Most people don’t know how to respond when you invoke the Almighty.
We also got “you do know how they’re made, right?” To which I responded, “Yes. Do you need a refresher course?”
And the oldy, but goody, “you need a television in your bedroom.”
Renee, the comment you received about abortion is incredible. I can’t imagine it. But after our first child was born and we later discovered he was autistic, we got some very pointed comments about our subsequent children. Usually to the effect of “don’t come looking for sympathy when you have another disabled child. It’s your own fault for having more.” When our fifth child showed signs of Down’s on ultrasound, people implied we had no right to be having more children and the responsible thing would be to have an abortion. Our fifth is now 16 months old and perfectly fine (he did have a congenital kidney defect, but thanks to modern medicine, all is well).
Finally, I want one the t-shirts about the carbon footprints. Too funny.
April 8, 2008 at 6:09 pm
nerina, powerful comment.
Meg, Hilarious! Sign me up for one of those t-shirts as well.
April 8, 2008 at 7:06 pm
LOL! I had my hubby design the shirt just a few minutes ago. You can catch a peek here if you like: http://www.promopresto.com/event.html
April 8, 2008 at 8:06 pm
meg,
do you have a blog? That’s seriously funny.
April 8, 2008 at 8:54 pm
It’s amazing how people analyze the financial repercussions of having a child…18 years out. When else do we make ANY decisions like that? When buying a car? A plasma TV? A house (we MAY need a new fridge and dishwasher and landscaping within 10 years, we should really add $25,000 to the price…)? Gimme a break!
Granted we should take having children seriously…but there are limits…
This weekend, a total stranger walked up to me and said, “Three boys! You have my sympathies…Just wait ‘till they’re teenagers.” And walked away. I should have told her we were expecting again. She just may have fainted.
April 8, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Meg,
I LOVE IT! Are you seriously selling these? I can imagine the reaction at our church picnic, where sadly, most people give us funny looks for our big family yet think Al Gore is a genius.
April 8, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Congrats, Jen. Wonderful news.