Do you think people are now having smaller families?

Question

Also what age would it be too late to start a large family of 4 or 5 children?

Answer 1

The Modern Age.  The need for large families in order to guarantee at least one would survive to the parents dotage has long since passed.  The world population is increasing at a far faster rate than the resources can support.  Each child in the west consumes many times the resources that a child in the third world would, and any more than two is unnecessary.

Answer 2

Yes I think they are.  I have 3 friends that come from very large families ranging from 10 to 12 kids. one of them has a aunt the same age as her so her mom and grandmother were pregnant at the same time. ( weird )  But my age group seems to have no more than 3 kids i think due to more women using birth control, I know my mother never did she always said in her time birth control was considered wrong.  

Answer 3

Compared to 100 years ago, yes, much smaller! Now birth control etc isn't frowned upon as much

Answer 4

I think most people have about two children.  But there are some families that have 3 children or more.  It just depends on what you want.  I wouldn't start past the age of 30 if you want to have that many children because you don't want to have them too close together and you don't want to be having kids past 40 or 45.  Really, it would be best to start by about 25, but 30 would still be acceptable.  

Answer 5

Yeah ther having smaller family's why not?

Answer 6

much samaller

Answer 7

I feel people should have smaller families considering the enviromental impact of every human being in the planet. However it is personal choice after all (if your religion doesn't frown upon contraception that is). I would think if you are going to have 5 children you should allow at least ten years to achieve this, so you probably wouldn't want to leave it any later than say 28.

Answer 8

um i dont think they are really getting much smaller, just more expensive. 28 would be too late.

Answer 9

Yes they are - economics and careers are the main reason.

How late to start a family is a tricky one - you dont want to be having very young children when you are in your fifties and should be starting your own life again.  Its too tiring.  I had a friend who had a baby at 47 - she looked frazzled by the time she was 57.  And no matter what anyone says - children are embarrassed if their parents are considerably older than the other parents standing at the school gates - a thought worth bearing in mind as a lot of the early social life revolves around parents and toddlers.  You dont want them teasing the kiddies that you look like their grandparents now do you!

Answer 10

My husband is 6'8, my son is 6'9, I am 6'1, my 12 year old daughter is 5'7 and my 5 year old son is 4'2, so no, I think families are growing larger.

Answer 11

way smaller, back in the 50's it was common to have families of 4 or 5 children, it was the average.  Now the average children per household is 1.5, hahahah that's kinda funny but that is the last stats I read.  Anyways, I would want to start that family early because you still want to have energy and you dont want to be sending your kids off to college when you are retireing.  i come from a family of 4 and my dad was 32 when I (the oldest) was born and my mom was 25.  Also remmeber that the older your woman is the harder pregnancy will be on her!

Answer 12

People are definitely having smaller families.  In fact, France and China's population is declining so much that France has inacted some measures to encourage people to have more children and Chinese men have to look to other countries (Korea in particular I know) for wives because of the gender imbalance. Population control measures have aged the average age of the person in these countries, with the concern that there are not enough young people to support the aging population and that there will be a population implosion. This has become a serious problem.

Well, if you want a family of 4 or 5 children your mid-thirties would probably be pushing it.  By the time you reach kid number 4 or 5 you would be in your forties.

Answer 13

I think that the answer is yes.  I hear all the time, "we'd like to have more but we just can't afford it".  We fall into this category.  We have two girls, and we would like to have three or four kids, but we just can't afford it - things are waaaaaay too expensive for the average family to afford it.  

When my mom was a kid, it wasn't uncommon at all for people to have 4 to 14 kids.  Now a days, we hear someone has four or five kids and we're like "holy cow, how do they do it?!?"

As far as the age thing goes, just keep this in mind:  the older you get, the more complicated your pregnancy could become.  There's a higher chance that your child could have Downs Syndrome if you are over the age of 35, and that chance increases every year older you get.  There's other things that can happen too, and not just to the baby - it's rougher on mommies the older you are too.  When you are young, your body bounces back into shape a lot faster.