Is Three the New Two?
Since it took so long for us to become parents the first time, we had to realize it may never happen for us. Then shortly after our first son was born we found out that Rachel was pregnant with our second son. This lead us down the path of determining what the size of our family should be. We decided that three children would be the correct size for our family. Which we’ve recently achieved with the birth of our third son. We have recently noticed the trend with our friends was to have more than two children also.
That made me curious if this was an overall trend or just localized to our immediate group of friends and family. The most recent data I was able to find on the subject came from a 2007 Gallup Poll. Different articles I’ve read that reference this poll and others state that two is still what people believe is the ideal number. However, there are some interesting trends.
Professional moms have twice as many kids at home, on average, than their high-powered counterparts did back in 1977, according to a 2002 report from the Families and Work Institute. And in a 2000 study, sociologist Martin found that college-educated women who put off motherhood until their 30s are suddenly having families almost as big as everyone else’s. “That’s historically unprecedented,” he says. babycenter
Americans also had different opinions depending on what generation they belonged to. A larger part of Americans (61%) between 35 and 54 years of age responded that having 2 or less children was optimal. Interestingly, less than half (48%) of 18 to 34 year olds agreed with this idea. associated content
Since Rachel and I fit into the 18 to 34 year old group it may explain why we are seeing larger families.
The graph below from the article Trends in ideal family size really illustrates these trends.
So what do you think. Is three the new two? Are large families making a comeback? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.