Monday, April 07, 2008

The New Status Symbol...

Apparently, having kids is the new way to show off. In spite of the financial odds against her, Pamela Paul at the Washington Post has defiantly declared that she and her husband are going to upgrade their family from REGULAR to DELUXE by having a 3rd child.

Does that make a family of six "super-sized"? How about my family growing up: "Jumbo?"

At any rate, click HERE for an interesting take on the 21st century upper-middle-class family in America. Really interesting perspective from outside my social bubble. Love her thoughts on the "you're not a good parent unless you buy lots of stuff and put your kids in every activity on the planet" culture that makes having a family look like a bad investment.

3 comments:

Shayne said...

What an interesting article! It's funny that some people view children in a monetary way! I bet there's a lot of "nurturing" going on in those homes... poor kids! Or should I sat that there's a lot of "nurturing" going on at home with the nanny, at private school, dance lessons, French lessons, play dates, and any other environment or activity that takes the child away from the responsibility of the mom. I've observed that too many people want to have a baby just so they can "have" a baby. But they don't understand what that really entails.

Jaime said...

OK really- I mean seriously?!! This sounds like an article written for some sort of "elitist" paper. I had heard that people of higher wealth were having more kids, but have they polled Utah?!! That would probably discount all their data.
It is crazy the amount of money it can take to raise a child, but it's not always about money.

Wally.Paxton said...

Thanks, OLED, you're the reason that everyone has those annoying "enter the letters you see in the box" features on their blog. Tell me your favorite part of this blog, and I'll visit your spam headquarters link you left.

Jaime: Yeah, seriously. This is living in a different world. A Utah survey would be interesting. Also interesting is that the birth rate among LDS has gone down significantly over the 1970s-1980's (the Church quit reporting this statistic in general conference in the early 80's, but I imagine that trend is still going on). My sister has a theory that the average Mormon family size shrank when minivans were introduced. You can only fit a family of 7 in a Toyota Sienna, instead of the 12-15 in a full size van. Who knows?