family planning Tag | Page 4 of 5

Mature Parents Having Babies

This year, when my sister had her first baby at the age of 41, we had a discussion about the oldest age that is still reasonable for mature parents to have kids.

I had Eden at the age of 24 and I was convinced Gal and I were the first parents in our class, but last year, when we met our high school friends after many years, I was surprised to discover that some of them had kids older or closer to Eden’s age.

Since I had my first child 20 years ago, society has changed and 24 is now considered an early age to have kids in many places. Statistically, people now have fewer kids and start having them when they are older.

There are many advantages to having kids early, and as many disadvantages. Similarly, there are many advantages to having kids late, and just as many disadvantages.

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How to Choose the Perfect Baby Name

There are many reasons to choose a name for a baby. My dad used to say the kids make their name special and it does not really matter what name it is. If Mom and Dad love the kid, their love will be expressed every time they call his or her name.

For a name to be perfect, it needs to fulfill the parents’ needs. When the name fulfills their needs, the parents feel they have made a perfect decision.

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My Psychic Mom (3)

This is a true story, every word of it.

My auntie was about 40 years old when she got married. Everyone was very happy for her and my mom was the happiest of all, because her youngest sister and her only sister will finally have a chance to be a mother (at that time, my mom did not even consider having kids out of marriage).

This post is part 3 of 6 in the series My Psychic Mom

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Marriage of Singles

The current vibe around marriage and likely divorce has caused many people to stay single for a lot longer than they ever would have in the past. The upside of this is more personal development, more independence and an improved financial situation. The downside is getting used to making decisions alone, looking for potential partners and keeping a clear personal space.

Is this a problem? It can be.

You see, having kids is something that cannot wait and should not wait. The quality and quantity of eggs in women goes down over time, which makes having a baby more and more complicated. Women’s physical fitness and flexibility also goes down with age, making matters worse.

From a family planning point of view, having kids over 5 years provides fewer options than having them over 10 years. The age difference between kids is a very important factor in healthy emotional development, but if there is not time, you can only have them close together, which can be challenging.

Being single for a long time causes many people to continue living as two singles sharing a home, instead of a married couple. This gets messy very quickly. In extreme circumstances, the two singles keep things ready for separation, which only makes separation more likely.

After “hunting” for a partner for a long time, the habit of collecting and evaluating potential mates is harder to shake and having affairs does not seem like such a big deal. Why invest in making your marriage interesting if you can just “refresh” your life with someone else from time to time? Alas, the way back is hard and most couples cannot make it.

And there are other economical and social reasons, which is why marriage was invented in the first place.

This post is part 17 of 33 in the series Save Your Marriage

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Dumb Parents?

If you have ever wondered how dumb parents can be, wonder no more. I believe the parents in the story “Parents Fight over Which Gang Toddler Should Join” take the lead for more than one reason. If there is ever a parenting qualification exam, they would fail miserably. This may be how it seems, but is it the whole story?

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Decision Horizon

It is amazing to discover that more and more often, decisions we make are no longer long-term or life-long decision but very short-term ones.

My parents come from a generation in which they thought that when a decision was made, it was made for life. If we misbehaved, they thought we would misbehave our entire lives. When we did not want to learn (OK, when I did not want to learn), they thought we would hate learning forever. When we hung around certain friends, they were afraid we would be with those friends forever.

Not so for my kids.

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Littlies with Attention Deficit

Even though most people think that being the eldest in the family is stressful, being the middle kid is tough and being the youngest is pleasurable, in actual fact, to be the youngest kid in a family is not all fun and games. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that out of my three kids, the youngest one gets less of me than the others do.

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How Do You Feel About Abortions?

Only 1% of abortions occur because of rape, only 6% occur because there is a health risk to the mother or the baby. 93% of abortions take place for social reasons.

How do you feel about abortions?

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Kids are Disappearing – Ideal Family Size (poll)

I have been asked many times about the ideal family size. It is funny, but the answers to this question change every couple of years. World statistics show that population growth is slowing down and that the desirable family size at the moment stands at 2.1 kids (2 kids and an arm…). In Iceland, Guatemala and Taiwan, people prefer to have bigger families, with an average of 3 kids per family.

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Research Says: Friends Improve Sibling Relationships

Family Matters says: your attitude can improve them even more.

In psychological studies, the age gap between siblings is very important and is used to explain many behaviours and relationships (can you imagine yourself lying on the shrink’s sofa and complaining about your brother who came into your life too early and took all the attention away from you?).

In a research published by the Journal of Family Psychology, Dr. Laurie Kramer, professor of applied family studies at the University of Illinois, followed 28 sibling pairs from the age of 4 to adolescence and found that “a child’s socialization with friends before the arrival of a sibling can predict a more positive relationship between the siblings”.

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