This Mom Says That Having Two Kids In The '90s Is Having Four Kids Today

"The average number of children per family has decreased significantly in the United States over the past couple of decades, and globally since the mid-20th century. In the U.S., the number of children per family was around 1.94 in 2023, a decline from 2.33 in 1960. The overall average family size in the U.S. has also shrunk, falling from nearly four people in 1960 to about three people by 2021. There are a million reasons for this decrease (mainly the rising cost of everything), and when we see a family with four or five kids, it's truly baffling."

""Having one kid today is having two kids in the 90s. It's not that much. We're good here. We're good. We can handle this," Jasmin begins. "Having two kids is like having the new three kids. Having three kids is the new five kids. Because today when you have three kids, people are like, 'Wow, you have a lot of kids ... you have a big family.' Whereas if you only would have had three in the 90s, people would have been like, 'When's the next one coming? You having more?'""

""The numbers only get larger the more kids you end up having, according to Jasmin. "Okay, four kids. You're like, 'That's the new six kids.' Four kids, people are like, 'Whoa.' It's like, Five kids? Like seven. Six kids...That's the new eight for sure. Whereas for some reason when I was a kid, I remember people having four to six kids. No problem today. It's like, everyone's like one to three max.""

The average number of children per family in the United States has declined from 2.33 in 1960 to about 1.94 in 2023, and average household size dropped from nearly four to about three. Economic pressures, including rising costs, contribute to smaller family sizes. Social expectations have shifted so that one or two children are now commonly viewed as a complete family, whereas similar counts in the 1990s were considered small and people expected more children. A viral social-media comparison maps current family sizes onto 1990s equivalents, producing surprise and critical public reactions toward larger families.

Read at Scary Mommy