Traditional Child spacing? - Page 4

[MCsMom]

My kids are 2.25 years apart - I wish they were 2.5 or even better 3 years apart. And who ever posted that they would be devastated if their kids were closer, I totally agree.

[jessicaSAR]

Originally Posted by Taedareth

Genetics are influenced by nutrition. We have an interesting thread about that on this forum somewhere, but I didn't have any luck finding it. Maybe someone else will post a link.

I think you are remembering the epigenetics thread ("you are what your grandmother ate"). Just type epigenetics into the search feature and it will come up.

Fascinating discussion, btw. My first two dc are three years apart and there will be 4+ years between the second two. I did have AF return at 6 months with my second child. That was a complete shock. I did not have a cycle until at least 14 months after dd#1 was born. And, both of them nursed on demand, co-slept etc. In fact, dd#2 did not have teeth or eat solid food until 8 months. Yet, back came my cycle when I was clearly not physically ready for another pregnancy. I agree there must be a host of other intervening factors.

I have no experience with closely spaced children, so it is hard to compare, but I find 3+ years to be an ideal spacing. I cannot imagine trying to care for two babies at one time. I will often hear parents say they want them closer so they can play together, but my girls play together all day (we are homeschoolers so I really mean all day), so three years is clearly not too far apart for them as playmates.

[Jeanne D'Arc]

I remember reading something that under the influence of
nutrition genes can be suppressed or turned off altogether.

I feed my daughter really nutrient dense foods so hopefully
that is the case.

[NatrlCatholicMama]

My understanding of how genes work is very similar - that genes determine which people with a given environmental issue will develop problems. I.e., genes determine which smokers will get lung cancer, but it is smoking, not genes, which causes lung cancer. Same w/ decades of cycling / breast cancer, or not ecobf'ing and return of fertility, or near work/sunshine exposure and myopia. And diet plays a role in nearly everything.

If the environmental factor (smoking, poor diet, whatever) isn't there, the genes aren't relevant. Another reason why preimplantation IVF genetic diagnosis really scares me (esp. for things like breast cancer tendency or obesity, obviously there are different issues at play with things that already exist, like Down's Syndrome or CF).

I will often hear parents say they want them closer so they can play together, but my girls play together all day (we are homeschoolers so I really mean all day), so three years is clearly not too far apart for them as playmates.

Very, very true. I think the "close enough to play" issue is more relevant when there are only two children, but even then, my oldest two played well before the third was old enough to join them. All day. The different ages teach them so much about how to be with and love someone w/ different abilities from you.

[newcastlemama]

About genes--I also think people are placing way too much emphasis on them. I have read about women getting mastectomies based on that they carry the breast cancer gene. I am hoping that does not become a trend because it would seem that if you keep a lifestyle that promotes cancer that it would just manifest itself in another part of your body (and you would walk around with a false sense of security.)

About child spacing and playmates--I was raised in a large brady-bunch type family and we all had fun together. I was 14 when my youngest sister was born and we all gave her so much attention and loved to be with her.(her closest aged sibling was 7 years older)

I think our society is very segregated by age and that influences the idea that we can only have fun with others our same age--classrooms, activities, church classes, even neighbrhoods (retirement communities ect) are often divided by age alone. I think it is benefical to everyone to be more integrated. I know I have always enjoyed the company of people younger and older than myself.



I personally feel like if I space my children about 3 years apart that I could have many children without getting burnt out. Especially as the older children are able to help out more with chores and such.

Jen

[Shazer]

Originally Posted by newcastlemama

I personally feel like if I space my children about 3 years apart that I could have many children without getting burnt out. Especially as the older children are able to help out more with chores and such.

Jen

That's the conclusion I've come to now - about three years seems good. I have a sister who is 12 years younger than me and my older brother and I played with her, took care of her, and helped out significantly. She never felt alone until I went off to college.

[snowcrocus]

Originally Posted by newcastlemama

I think our society is very segregated by age and that influences the idea that we can only have fun with others our same age--classrooms, activities, church classes, even neighbrhoods (retirement communities ect) are often divided by age alone. I think it is benefical to everyone to be more integrated. I know I have always enjoyed the company of people younger and older than myself.

yes! yes! exactly! everything is segregated and it drives me nuts! my son goes to swimming classes and ballet classes and what am i supposed to do? sit around and watch -- as if it's ok for kids to do stuff like this, but if you're over 18 you keep out. i even got kicked out of the pool for hanging out actually in the water during the swimming lesson. and if i have another kid -- well, they have to be in separate classes, by age group. what do we learn from this? you can't be friends with your siblings unless you're less than 2 years' separation, and life ends when you go to college.

and that's just my personal frustration of the last month. where does the generation gap come from? why do teens rebel? and so on and so forth. this is the idea behind the continuum concept and john holt's ideas on homeschooling. adults engaged in meaningful activity are the nucleus of society. they are the perfect backdrop for children's learning and activity, the perfect role models. yet we are all so segregated that even if we want to do such a thing, it can be very difficult.

i began a research project some time ago (interrupted by a complicated pregnancy, but i will go back to it at some point) on age segregation, because there really has been some sociological research in this area. but the literature is very mixed on this subject -- and most of it focuses on the elderly. doing a search and finding relevant results is difficult because the "segregation" being talked about is usually nursing homes, retirement communities, and so on. to a certain extent this is because retired people can advocate for themselves; children cannot. but there is some limited literature on full-spectrum age integration, from infancy to old age. and one day i will write a beautiful essay on the subject.

[AJP]

Originally Posted by snowcrocus

yes! yes! exactly! everything is segregated and it drives me nuts!... and one day i will write a beautiful essay on the subject.

And I would like to read it when you do. The rigid segregation of children according to age bothers me, too. It's natural for kids to want to play with others who are at their same developmental stage and therefore have many interests in common, but the way it's handled in our society currently encourages an attitude that there is no social value in anyone who is not of your same chronological age. How narrow-minded and limiting.

[kbchavez]

Even though parks are artificial in the sense that parents aren't engaged in meaningful activities other than watching the kids (hardly a tribal village situation ala continuum concept), the main thing I love about them is the mixed ages of kids. My 3 yo ds actually had 2 boys who looked to be 9-11 play with him. They were throwing him the nerf football and including him in their play. He LOVED it. He gravitates to older boys, and since we have no extended family or network of friends where we live, the park is the only place he gets to play with older kids. I think it's important for kids to be exposed to what is ahead... it's much harder for them to imagine being adults, but they can look up to an older child and know what to expect in the near future.

[spughy]

Originally Posted by AJP

And I would like to read it when you do. The rigid segregation of children according to age bothers me, too. It's natural for kids to want to play with others who are at their same developmental stage and therefore have many interests in common, but the way it's handled in our society currently encourages an attitude that there is no social value in anyone who is not of your same chronological age. How narrow-minded and limiting.

ITA. I watch my 2-year-old play with my neighbour's 7-year-old and I marvel at how each of them adapts so well to the other. Both of them find patience we never knew existed, and humour each other's foibles so well. You almost never see this in play with two kids the *same* age.

This is also one of the primary reasons I want to homeschool. I hate the age segregation in schools, not least because I think it takes away a natural, easy hierarchy among kids through age and experience, and forces the children to develop their own hierarchies, which usually come about by means of violence, both overt and covert. With age-based hierarchies, there is a sense of "looking out" for the littler, weaker kids, but that's sadly not the case in strength-based hierarchies.

[mikelanza]

My 3-1/2 year-old ds's favorite kids in the world are his cousins, ages 9, 11, and 13.

They're crazy about him, too. In fact, their favorite vacation is to come to our house in Palo Alto, California (from Pittsburgh, PA suburbs) and play with ds. They were just here for Christmas.

Sometimes they do things at a three-year-old level like chasing and wrestling, and other times they do things at a ten-year-old level like play baseball or hockey. Somehow, they're all engaged, all the time.

I just posted an article on Playborhood.com about how we have to "Import" my nieces and nephews as playmates because our neighbors' kids are so lame. See:

http://playborhood.com/site/article/...orker_program/

[NatrlCatholicMama]

Oh my gosh w/ all of it.

snowcrocus, ITA w/ all of it, esp. this: "you can't be friends with your siblings unless you're less than 2 years' separation, and life ends when you go to college." That, I think, is why so many folks feel their children must be 2yrs or less apart, even though it can be exhausting. Every one I knew growing up had one sibling, 2 grades younger or older. My 9, 6, and 3yos play together beautifully all the day, every day, and when I leave the baby with them for a few minutes, they include him, too! (He's Mr. Beaver when they play Narnia.) I think you've hit on a big aspect of the reason traditional child spacing is rarely used anymore.

ITA w/ everybody, and especially loved what AJP had to say. Well, just everything everybody said!

[Shazer]

Not only is this age segregation abhorrent, but I find it equally ridiculous that children are not treated as people. Rather, it is like they are little mirrors to reflect their parents' vanity in that they participate in so many activities to prove that they are multi-talented and worthy. Kids are not allowed to be kids and to play and learn at their own levels and needs. It warms my heart to read what you mothers have written about allowing your children to be free to explore, to play with children of all ages, and to be, well, kids. Oh, and the treatment of teenagers is the worst in my opinion (but that is another digression). To bring my ramble full circle, in your natural child spacing beliefs, you all seem to support letting each child receive the natural amount of individual nurturing that he or she needs.

[NatrlCatholicMama]

One thing I meant to mention - that the age-segregation means that children are compared with their age group for "progress" and are "ahead" or "behind" based on their age alone, and academics alone. My extremely insightful 6yo who is also very physical and a great problem-solver would be failing" b/c he doesn't read or play soccer the same as other 6yos. By 12, I'm sure he'll be "on par" with his age, unless I had him in school in a same-age environment, where he was given a paper every 6wks that told him he wasn't as good as the other kids "his age" and he gave up by time he was 12.

[stilllearning85]

I really LOVE the three year spacing... I don't have any kids yet, but when I do, I want to do 3 years apart. Growing up my brother and I were three years apart and were the best of friends! Actually almost ALL of my friends as well as my husband has a brother who is 3 years younger... we all think that is kind of strange... but it seems to work REALLY well!
With my brother and I we were far enough apart not to compete for things, but close enough together that we loved being together!

[snowcrocus]

Originally Posted by stilllearning85

Growing up my brother and I were three years apart and were the best of friends!

i have an acquaintance who is some 17 years younger than his nearest sibling. his closest relationship is not to the youngest, but to the eldest sibling, 20-some years older than he. i really believe that, when preconceptions about how age is related to emotional connectedness are removed, it's personality and not necessarily age that will draw people together.

Originally Posted by kbchavez

Even though parks are artificial in the sense that parents aren't engaged in meaningful activities other than watching the kids (hardly a tribal village situation ala continuum concept), the main thing I love about them is the mixed ages of kids.

i do observe a certain amount of this; but i also find that you have to go on weekends to get that kind of diversity. weekdays, especially during the day, most kids that age are in school (more segregation), hence not at the park. kids any older than 11 or 12 tend never to be at the park at all -- once they get to junior high school, the playgrounds get taken away from the schools, and the kids get too "old" for that kind of play. i remember how devastating that was to me when i went to junior high school. and i can see in the play structures at parks nowadays that there are few things that would interest a 14-year-old -- they're mostly for smaller kids.

by the way -- you can also bring some activity to the park. every time i go and don't bring some spinning or knitting or a notebook or something with me (which, unfortunately, is much oftener than not), i feel like a dork. this is the superiority of hand-spinning over wheel-spinning, and knitting over weaving -- they are much slower, but they are actually portable and allow for multitasking. i have seen the wheel and loom described among a particular variety of feminist as a kind of historical tying-down of the woman, of restricting her freedom and keeping her in the home. i don't know if that's true -- either in intent or de facto -- though in a practical sense it carries some validity -- but if you have any fluency in something practical and portable, there is definitely the possibility of being productive at the park.

Originally Posted by Shazer

Not only is this age segregation abhorrent, but I find it equally ridiculous that children are not treated as people.

you're so right. this is something that i observed particularly when my son was preverbal, the extent to which nobody around me seemed to understand that he's still a person. no one would admit to believing he wasn't a person, of course, but they also couldn't understand why i was so responsive when he cried, and in general the way i interacted with him. particularly elimination communication (ec) was difficult for others around me to understand -- and i think the interesting thing about ec is that, even more than breastfeeding or babywearing, you have to believe in the fundamental personhood of an infant to do it, or grok it, or even think of it as the kind of thing that someone might rationally do.

i got a good dose of my own medicine recently, too. i had always thought of a fetus as a valuable life. i don't think i realized how much, even at a primitive stage of life, she may really be a person until i lost my daughter at 26 weeks' gestation, and i thought of all the experiences she might have had even in utero, and how she had responded when i played the guitar or sang or did shoulder-stands.

(i just realized -- i don't mean this as any kind of political statement on abortion or anything -- and however it looks it's really not -- so don't jump me, ok? but i still want to say it because i feel like it's meaningful, either way.)

Originally Posted by AJP

I would like to read it when you do.

you got it, honey. now that means i have to work on it, and finish it in a reasonable span of time, don't i? well, if it gets me motivated, that will be good.

[kbchavez]

Originally Posted by snowcrocus

by the way -- you can also bring some activity to the park. every time i go and don't bring some spinning or knitting or a notebook or something with me (which, unfortunately, is much oftener than not), i feel like a dork. this is the superiority of hand-spinning over wheel-spinning, and knitting over weaving -- they are much slower, but they are actually portable and allow for multitasking. i have seen the wheel and loom described among a particular variety of feminist as a kind of historical tying-down of the woman, of restricting her freedom and keeping her in the home. i don't know if that's true -- either in intent or de facto -- though in a practical sense it carries some validity -- but if you have any fluency in something practical and portable, there is definitely the possibility of being productive at the park.

I've thought of this, but I have difficulty focusing on more than one thing. I have to hyperfocus to read/write/paint (and I don't knit though I'd like to learn) and in doing so, would completely tune out my son. I'm not a hover mother, but most of the parks we go to are fairly open, and my son is only three. Even when talking to other mothers, I've lost track of ds and panicked. (When is was almost 2 he fell off a tall play structure through a bunch of metal bars and narrowly missed whacking his head on them). I'm sure that activities that engage your hands while freeing your mind, like knitting or weaving, would work better. Also, having a community of moms there, so there would be other eyes and minds when yours was otherwise engaged.

[cmom80]

Great thread. I am definitely on board with the three-to-five saves lives approach. I won't even start trying until C is at least 3. I also do not want to nurse during pregnancy for this reason. I am nowhere near physically or emotionally ready for another pregnancy (although I wouldn't mind adopting sooner)... DH, however, wants to have another bio as soon as possible. He is respectfully waiting with me, but I know he's dying for one. Oh well for him....

[RAF]

I am glad that I spaced my kids 3-4 years apart. I think it has worked out well for all of us.