There have been a few articles recently about the advantages of the one-child family and growing up sibling-free.
Colin Brazier, Sky News presenter and father of six, puts the other side. The title of his piece is ‘Why having big families is good for you (and cheaper)‘. Here are some highlights.
Some of the most startling literature comes from medical research. It has long been known that siblings – by sharing germs at a young age and mutually priming immune systems – provide some protection against atopic conditions such as hay fever and eczema. But the latest breakthroughs suggest growing up with a brother or sister can also guard against food allergies, multiple sclerosis and some cancers. For reasons that have yet to be fully fathomed, these benefits do not apply to children simply by dint of spending time sharing bugs with other youngsters – as they would, for instance, in day care.
The other “epidemics” of modern childhood, obesity and depression, are also potentially reduced by exposure to siblings. A clutch of major studies from all over the world shows that the more siblings a child has, the thinner they will be. Put simply, siblings help children burn off fat. One American study honed its analysis down to an amazingly precise deduction: with each extra brother or sister, a child will be, on average, 14 per cent less obese. Reductio ad absurdum? We can scoff at such a definitive conclusion, until we realise that no one in medical academia has suggested that having a sibling ever made anyone fatter.
None of this is rocket science. When we compare like with like, regardless of family background, children with siblings tend to enjoy better mental health. Obviously, again, this is to generalise massively. The world is full of jolly singletons. But dig into some of the big data sets out there and unignorable patterns emerge. On experiences on which nation states hold a big corpus of statistics, events such as divorce and death, for example, strong correlations exist.
Cause is not always correlation, but it stands to reason that when parents split up or die, a child will benefit from having a sibling to turn to. That solidarity runs throughout the lifespan. After all, a sibling is for life, not just for childhood.
Indeed, policymakers with an eye to areas beyond elderly care may need to wake up to the shifting sands of family composition. In the late 20th century, the received wisdom among sociologists was that it mattered not a jot to society at large whether more people were sticking to one child. Now that assumption is being questioned. Is the valuable role played by siblings in elderly care factored into the welfare debate? Will an economy with fewer creative middle children be as competitive? How easy will the state find waging war when more parents are reluctant to see their only child march to the front?
More broadly, the last decade has seen a major evolution in academic thinking about siblings. They have ousted parents as being the key driver behind personality development. And where, 30 years ago, academics such as Toni Falbo argued that to be born an only child was to have won the lottery of life, now research is running in the opposite direction.
A slew of reports by serious scholars, such as Prof Judy Dunn of King’s College London, have chipped away at the idea that family size is the product of a consequence-free decision. Researchers have shown that “siblinged” children will have stronger soft skills and keener emotional intelligence than single children. They will be better at gratification deferment (because they have learnt to wait their turn) and hit motor milestones such as walking and talking more rapidly than those without sibling stimulation.
Some of the most recent evidence even suggests that a child with a brother and/or sister will have more evolved language skills and do better at exams. This information is truly revolutionary. For decades, the assumption of academic ideas such as the Dilution Theory has been that less is more.
Have too many children and, as a parent, you will not be able to leverage your resources on to a solitary stellar-achieving child. Indeed, for parents who cannot stop themselves hovering above and over-scheduling their hurried offspring, a sibling for their one-and-only can be the antidote to pushy parenting.
I don’t think this is about a binary ‘right or wrong’, with the consequent stigmatising of one size of family over another. There are many different reasons why some families are larger and some smaller. But it’s good to be aware that some of the alarmist articles about the costs of raising children are extremely one-sided.
Large families teach children how to love,to share, to NOT be the center of attention. Large families ask children to do chores, be independent and help each other. Although because of God’s plan not my own, I could only have one child, I provided opportunities for him to share, to do chores, and be with other children. However, coming from a larger family myself, I could see t
the difference.
The biggest advantage of a large family is the natural support group. Sadly, I have lost some of my siblings and no longer have that support.
As to cost, the argument is false and based on a false view of what is necessary for a quality lifestyle. I taught at risk students in college who were on welfare. They all had cell phones and many had cars. All had money for junk food. What is considered important in society may not be necessary.
Of course, the tragedy for the Church are the thousands, if not millions of vocations which were ended either by contraception or abortion. The Church is weakened by small or no families. The future has been determined by the selfishness of parents who denied life to the Church.
May I add that I did not grow up rich, but consider myself rich having siblings, and many.
I come from a family of five children. My neighbours (extremely happy) had seven boys and one girl. I remember railing at an early age; and my father, ever a source of wise one-liners said:
King David had lots of brothers. It’s good to be in a large family; but Jesus was an only child, so I wouldn’t knock it too much…
BTW five was not considered big in my growing up days. 8-20 was big. Most of my Catholic friends came from families of six or more. One girl in my class was from a family of 20, same mom and same dad-no adoptions. We have lost the beauty of organized, peaceful, mom-at-home family life.
Having a child teaches a couple how great is their capacity to love another; a vulnerable product of their own love. (“I never realized I could love anyone SO MUCH!”) Having more than one child teaches a couple how love is not divided, like a pie, but multiplied exponentially in ways that cannot be measured. Not only do they love both (all) of their children “with all of their heart”, but the children themselves love each other, too! Yes, it can be messy in a world where everyone thinks they control their own lives, but one is never lonely. In a large family, there is an overabundance of love, even for those not in the family. A large, happy family is a magnet for others (I’m thinking of my teenagers at the moment). Everyone is always welcome, especially the next baby.