Serial Motherhood - Baby Addiction

populationmatters.org/documents/family_sizes.pdf   

Hopefully if you copy this link into your top address bar you will be able to open this very interesting document. The reason I am interested is because of recent news stories about very large families. It made me wonder if families of 10 or more children are a good or bad thing. 

Then I wondered if there was more behind the story. Why do women chose to have so many children? Is there some deep psychological need to have something dependant to love? Do they in fact make a choice?

There can be cultural & religious reasons, (see previous blog). In certain cases it can become a compulsion, an obsession or even a "baby addiction". These women can be driven to have more children in an effort to make up for some sort of void or loss, usually from their own unhappy childhood. Babies, all new and cherubic and completely enthralled with their mothers, can bring profound joy. But when they enter toddlerhood and start developing independence and a mind of their own, some mothers miss the intensity of the newborn period and want another baby even though that may not be in the best interests of the family.

I am sure there are plenty of big, happy families that are not the result of baby addiction. Equally, children in small families can suffer emotional scars, from absentee or otherwise poor parents. Not all large families are financially deprived.

However having large numbers of children can strain a family’s finances and emotional reserves and that can negatively impact the children.  It must be possible that neglect, abuse & emotional disturbances are more likely in a situation like this. Children in large families — particularly those involving a lot of youngsters close in age — who don’t get enough attention, because their mother is depressed or overwhelmed, for instance, may become anxious or depressed themselves. It seems really important, when you have children to also have enough resources. Not just financial resources but also emotional resources. It’s one thing to love babies and quite another to keep having babies. (paraphrased from a Jaqueline Stenson article).

In the case of religious reasons to have large families I wonder, perhaps cynically, if it is a deliberate method of keeping women subservient in the home & also increasing the overall numbers belonging to the particular faith. I doubt if it is in the interests of the womens health to have so many pregnancies & an eternal struggle with the amount of work children generate. If the older children become surrogate mothers to help out that seems to me to be depriving them of their childhood.

The bottom line is that it isn't simply a right to have as many children as you want. The rights of the child to a loving home that meets all their needs has to be a prime consideration.