OK, so it's a project that will probably keep me busy for more than a year.
I've actually been surprised by how uncommon it is here to have more than one or two kids. I'm not sure why that is. Maybe just because kids are expensive.
Whenever people find out we have three, the typical response is, coragem! You're brave.
I noticed the same thing when we lived in Philadelphia. I didn't know anyone in the city who had more than two kids. In the suburbs, though, three was the norm. I guess that's where everyone moves if they have a third.
Are the Brazilians with more than two kids living in a different part of the country? More rural?
I'm sure it's partly socioeconomic as well. My small sampling includes mostly middle and upper middle class friends and acquaintances, although it's also been true of poorer people that I've met.
Is it a generational thing? Are people having fewer children nowadays?
Have you noticed this phenomenon (in Brazil or elsewhere)? What do you think?
3 comments:
I think the 1-2 kids is a major generational turnaround- my wife is one of 10 kids, and all of her siblings have one, or none, except for one brother who has three (but two of them are twins). And they are from the far other end of the economic spectrum. I have met one older guy from the interior (in his 70's) who claimed to be one of 60 siblings. I heard a story on NPR just a week or two ago stating that one of the major catalysts for this has been the Novelas, and how all the families on them have only one or two kids. Love em or hate em (I mostly hate them) I've seen how the Novelas are a social force in this country so I tend to believe it. And the Catholic church sheds bitter tears...
Interesting. So I'm not the only one to have made this observation...
Hey - I have 3 kids in the city!!! And we live in the city now as well (you guys moved!). I do agree this is changing though - I think it is just too expensive to have extra kids - and people want to give thier kids more attention and time -the more kids you have the harder that is.
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