Rich Litter: Is a Big Family the New Luxury Item?
It seems the rich are pumping out children (almost) like it’s 1899. Yes, the latest conspicuous consumption is conspicuous reproduction – uber-rich women giving birth to the beginnings of a softball team: three, four, five, even six, children.
Hey, what’s the biggie if they can afford it? Well, the question is, can the rest of us?
There’s something in this that stinks of what I call “show brats”: children as the latest fashion accessory. Less well-to-do people have them, too — they just have fewer of them, and are less apt, simply by virtue of income, to pass their children’s rearing off on “the staff.”
Molly Jong-Fast writes of the latest baby boom in the New York Observer:
Yes, the hot accessory of 2007 is children-but not just one or two. It seems that fashionable women in Manhattan just can’t stop popping them out. Jessica Seinfeld, Jennifer Creel and Nancy Jerecki have three. Brook De Campo just had her fourth. Marie Chantal and her sister, Pia Getty, have four. Tory Burch has six (from different marriages-even better). Ron Perelman has six (also from different marriages). Even Donald Trump, hardly on the cutting edge of fashion, has five.
Why are rich, fabulous people having so many children? The answer is complicated. One of the reasons is because, quite frankly, children are fun (I say this as the mother of one).
Sorry, I don’t think the rich are having children because they are “fun.” And come on, are they? For the most part? Jong-Fast continues:
And children are even more fun when you have a huge $20 million townhouse filled with staff who get up with the kids in the middle of the night. Increased prosperity equals more children.
The other reason is because children last a lot longer than Jay Mendel minks and Herme¬ès Birkins. From Sandy Weill (and his hospital) to Donald Trump (and his giant buildings with his giant name emblazoned on them in giant bronze letters), or Nina Griscom’s shop or Tory Burch’s clothing line, today’s rich are obsessed with the idea of immortality in whatever shape that might take (bigger apartments, bigger cars, bigger summer houses, bigger private jets, pay-for-play philanthropy). As the English aristocracy has known for centuries, children are our only real way of perpetuating our names.
For the last 40 years, women who had children in their 30′s and 40′s were considered members of the ruling class-yuppies. These women were part of power couples with two incomes and two BMW’s to match.
But more recently, many women in the ruling class stopped having jobs altogether. They just hop right out of school and into the maternity ward: Do not pass go, do not collect even one paycheck. And these women who never worked can start popping them out in their 20′s, which means that normal women can’t possibly catch up. Maybe in that way, these young never-working baby-poppers are really asserting their power against a world filled with Ivy-educated egg freezers.
Some illustrious folks grew up in big families. Our first president, George Washington, was one of at least six children; Thomas Jefferson was one of 10 children; and Marie Antoinette was one of 16 children. But life was different back then: Children were farmhands, smallpox and the bubonic plague wiped out four kids at a time, and life was cheaper. Kids didn’t need to have a Montessori pink tower from Kid-O-NY to the tune of $140; back then, kids just played out in the piles of cow-dung with rusty nails and corn husks.
Indeed, infant-mortality rates for the rich are microscopic. But the cost of raising these children is not. By far the largest expense for the young rich is nannies. High-end baby nurses now run in the neighborhood of $200 a day, and generally their employment tends to run from six weeks to a year. That’s $73,000 for a year of baby nursing.
Multiply that by four for four kids and that’s $292,000, which means you’re going to have to clear a total of $500,000 before taxes just to afford babyhood. An even larger expense is room and board: Where are you going to put up that baby nurse? A maid’s room (which measures on average seven by 10 feet) is going to add between $100,000 and $700,000 to the cost of your apartment, maybe more. Of course, most nannies don’t like to live in, so often perks must be offered-everything from being driven home after work by the chauffeur to 401(k) contributions.
Something tells me we’d all be better off if these women had gone for the Jay Mindel furs and Hermes handbags.
Amy Alkon is a syndicated advice columnist in over 100 newspapers, blogging daily at advicegoddess.com.
We get it Amy. You don’t like kids. Enough already.
Well, I don’t know if Amy doesn’t like kids, or if she’s simply jealous of these wealthy families. Her ostensible cover is a question about the size of rich broods: family values or fashion statement?
I do take issue with Jong-Fast’s statement:
“And these women who never worked can start popping them out in their 20′s, which means that normal women can’t possibly catch up.”
We had our kids in our mid to late 20′s, as did many of our friends. We elected to have one of us stop working the 9-5 grind and work 24/7 for the family. It was a financial struggle, a frustrating and joyous exercise, and I would do it all over again with relish.
So, define “normal.” These “normal” women chose to wait for their own reasons. Sadly for them, physiology waits for no one. I can’t help but characterize Jong-Fast’s treatise as a pathetic attempt to ignite class warfare on the battleground of fertility.
My guess is the phenomenon is driven by a longing for something more substantive, less superficial in their lives — which many ordinary people feel and I assume would be even more prevalent among the super-elite. Sooner or later, most people begin to feel as though there’s more to life than work and travel and parties. I have 3 kids and they are the most meaningful thing in my life — My wife and I are of the working middle-class and we would have more if we could afford a bigger house and a little childcare help.
Given the problems Europe is having with shrinking native populations being displaced by extremely aggressive (and fecund) immigrants, I fail to see how more native-born Americans is a Bad Thing.
One of the benefits of success is the ability to afford more children, and better care for those children. If you’ve studied evolutionary theory at all, you should soon realize that that’s the way things SHOULD be.
Why reduce childrearing to an economic consideration only? It’s calculations like these that are leading to a dying civilization — give these large families a break.
I have to be honest and note that I am number six of seven children. So really I don’t see anything wrong with this.
Back in the 70′s I got the impression that over population was a big problem. And responsible people only had one kid and worked hard to pay taxes so irresponsible people could have as many as they wanted.
Now we are told that most nations will have falling populations. And if we stick with the two child family then our grand chidren will be speaking Spanish.
And finally, hey if you can afford to have four kids then why not? Let the successful people try to raise healthy kids. If they accomplish nothing else they will at least learn a lot more about human nature.
I see no problem with people raising as many children as they see fit. This is after all still America and most Americans still do honor freedom of choice.
Not everybody hates kids, but for those who do, there is always China.
“Survival of the richest” — social Darwinism at its finest.
Are trust-fund billionaires (Getty, q.v.) and Hollywood celebrities more deserving of having their DNA preserved than hard-working, ambitious ordinary people are? If so, why — and how exactly is this good for America?
Just think of it as evolution in action . . .
So what was the point of this article? Other than to mostly just quote something someone else wrote. Rich people are having more kids and spending lots of money to raise them. Um… so?
No if there is some evidence that rich people are raising a generation of sociopaths due to emotionally neglecting their children or something like that, I could see the point. But this article just smacks of “I don’t like kids/don’t want kids so why are they having kids” or “rich people should spend their money how I want them to.”
Maybe Amy needed to fill the space with a column and couldn’t think of anything to write?
EI
Good comments so far!
Well-behaved children are truly a pleasure. And when you and your opposite-sex spouse create and raise them in a loving house, there is a feeling of fulfillment like no other. Income level doesn’t change it. This is primal.
Why the assumption that lavish gifts need to be bestowed on children? That quickly turns them into materialistic brats.
These days there is plenty of work that kids can do well. Dishes, laundry, bathrooms, stairs, doorknobs, computer repair, wire-pulling, painting, lot pickup, trash day, vacuuming, mopping, grocery stocking, food preparation, please-and-thank-yous. A respectfully and responsibly managed house full of kids can be lots of fun and a great learning environment (for everyone involved).
At some point the whole system does become self-sustaining, just add lots of love and (some) money.
And to quote Bart Simpson, “TV sucks.”
This phenomenon has been evident in the wealthy NYC ‘burbs for the past 6-7 years, as more of the younger ‘ladies who lunch’ and can be seen around club pools, tennis and paddle courts and golf courses, have been have 3, 4 and even 5+ kids.
It’s clearly a status thing: the big discussion among parents (if not real estate) is the high cost of bringing up baby, from the nanny to the elite nursery school, to the day school for elementary/middle school, the day or boarding prep school, and, of course, the now staggering cost of a private college or university (probably close to $250,000 for students starting next fall at the most exclusive schools) and graduate or professional school.
To have 5-6 kids, all in private school from nursery school through graduate school, and not to have this have any effect on one’s life style bespeaks pretty serious means available, whether earned or unearned.
In agrarian times, nails were expensive and you didn’t leave them around in dungheaps for kids to step on. You sent the kids into the dungheaps to find and retrieve them.
As Mark Steyn reminded us: the future belongs to those who show up. Ms. J-F’s subjects are the opposite of the English woman who had her self sterilized in order to save the planet. Molly: May your tribe increase.
Amy: take a pill and chill out.
Being #13 out of 13 I wouldn’t call 3,4, 5 or 6 a BIG family. Is 1 or 2 (or none like the woman in the UK who wants to minimize her carbon footprint) now the acceptable prescribed # of children to have according to Amy and Molly?
Anyway, the article is pretty mean spirited and full of vinegar. I suggest Amy Alkon and Molly Jong get a life.
We tell our kids that often things are just “misunderstandings”. I believe you are having a misunderstanding. Maybe you did not bond with your child, I do not know. Having children is a natural instinct and so is mothering/fathering. It grows the love and need inside ourselves. This is what is supposed to happen.
Many women nowadays are so busy I find they did not properly bond with their children. It has become easy to drop them off at daycare or school to daycare so the moms can go be themselves at work. It is sad, because they are giving up time that is so fleeting that you blink and it is over. Your kids will stop bringing you kooky drawings every five minutes, they will stop asking you to read to them at night, they will stop asking for five zillion hugs, they will stop it all. What will you have? No memories, no bond and no love.
My daughter has a long drawn out “baby kiss” she calls it. I realize soon she will stop. She is getting older and she will mature and grow out of it. It makes me feel so special. So every time I am leaving the house and she runs up to me to say goodbye, I get ready to be kissed.
It is time. Go hug your children and call your mother and thank her.
I’m wondering if there’s a more general “baby boom” happening… I live in SF and have been seeing lots & lots of pregnant women and couples with babies. I’ve been here for 10 years, and this is definitely new. SF is not a child-friendly place – the “progressives” here think of children as “bad for the planet,” and the schools are terrible – so it’s quite a change. I think it’s great – I silently say “You go!” to all of them…
I’m reminded of the oft-stated observation that the plural of anecdote is not data. In other words, a handful of socialites bearing a handful of children is not proof – or even a valid observation – of any kind of trend.
Even if it were, one can’t help but wonder how it is any business of Ms. Alkon’s. Did she somehow become the sex police, empowered like a Chinese bureaucrat to determine who may reproduce and how often?
Finally, just to be contrarian I’ll point out that if ANYONE is entitled to keep having children, it is surely those who can actually afford to have them and raise them without relying on the state (i.e., welfare, AKA – the rest of us) to assist on their behalf. If one has the means and the time, then why NOT have a softball team of children?
Ms. Alkon is clearly jealous, but she isn’t doing herself any favors by showing her spite.
I don’t understand why Molly Jong-Fast got paid to write this drivel. “Normal” people can’t afford to have big families? My wife and I have five kids, and no intentions of stopping yet. I’m a Captain in the Army, surely not poor, but a lot less wealthy than my fellow engineers in the civilian world. My wife is a full-time mom. It’s all about living within your means; an obviously dying art as evidenced by the housing/lending debacle.
I’m reminded of the oft-stated observation that the plural of anecdote is not data. In other words, a handful of socialites bearing a handful of children is not proof – or even a valid observation – of any kind of trend.
Even if it were, one can’t help but wonder how it is any business of Ms. Alkon’s. Did she somehow become the sex police, empowered like a Chinese bureaucrat to determine who may reproduce and how often?
Finally, just to be contrarian I’ll point out that if ANYONE is entitled to keep having children, it is surely those who can actually afford to have them and raise them without relying on the state (i.e., welfare, AKA – the rest of us) to assist on their behalf. If one has the means and the time, then why NOT have a softball team of children?
Ms. Alkon is clearly jealous, but she isn’t doing herself any favors by showing her spite.
Gee considering the taxes I have to pay to support other people’s brood of poor children I would not mind having a big enough tax cut so I could afford more of my own although at my age it’s probably too late.
I do believe Ms. Alkon is having a twinge of envy.
Really – Pajamas – is this the best you can come up with?