British parents struggling to afford more than 1 child

Sophie Law
Daily Mail
Sat, 01 Sep 2018 19:08 UTC

Middle children are becoming rarer as more parents are deciding to have fewer than three children.

From costs of bringing up more children, buying bigger houses, to expensive childcare- parents are now more likely to stick with one or two children.

British families with three children have fallen by 56,000 over the past two decades, The Times revealed.

Having a family with one child appeared to be the most popular trend in the UK with 3.6 million families with a single dependent.

Large families are even more rare with just 893,00 families with four children and 70,00 with five or more.

Middle children have been a hot topic in society. Many of the biggest celebrities, are 'middles' with famous faces including Princess Diana, Martin Luther King, President John F Kennedy, Bill Gates and Madonna.

They often characterised as being neglected, underestimated and misunderstood.

Or they are known for being highly creative ,sociable, free-spirited and good negotiators.

There is even a term known as 'Middle child syndrome' to describe the behaviour associated with being born between siblings- where parents exclude and overlook their middle child by giving responsibilities to the oldest and indulgences to the youngest.

However In The Secret Power Of Middle Children Catherine Salman and Katrin Schmann believe these siblings are far from being doomed to failure and loneliness.

They found that middle children are more likely than their siblings to be successful and enjoy strong social lives and flourishing careers.

The apparent disadvantages they endure in childhood turn out to be beneficial, in many cases giving them the attributes of empathy, independence, articulacy and creativity.

And there is even a middle child day on August 12, which was first celebrated by an American mother in the 1980s.

Comment: Regardless of the psycho-babble about middle children, many more UK parents would probably love to have larger families children but the UK economy has been tanking for over a decade and so the costs of supporting them has become prohibitively expensive. Although it is also true that a general trend throughout the West has been for smaller families. Meanwhile, in Russia the government is subsidizing larger families in the knowledge that it is actually investing in its economy by doing so:

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