There are frequent warnings about how expensive it is to have a child in the UK, but father-of-six and Sticking Up For Siblings author Colin Brazier says scare stories shouldn't detract from the benefits of children having siblings.
Financial service providers - and their press offices - like to treat us to bulletins about the cost of raising a child.
There are several studies each year and they peddle catchy acronyms like Cots (the Cost Of The Sibling).
But it would be naive to assume the authors of these reports are entirely disinterested. Most PR folk in the City are there to plug a product.
In recent years Cots estimates have been running well ahead of inflation. Recently the figure has been put around the £250,000 mark.
So I was relieved this week to see that the Child Poverty Action Group, in tandem with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, had arrived at an estimate of £150,000. While still eye-wateringly high, it lacks the contraceptive impact of those quarter-of-a-million-pounds scare stories.
I say scare stories advisedly. Because all these studies usually ignore the way costs fall as family size rises.
There are economies of scale to offspring. It will set you back the same to run a bath for one child as it does for three. Children share heat and light, bedrooms and toys. Clothes are handed down.
Sibling discounts can be modest (hotel rooms), or worth thousands (private school fees). An older brother or sister can actually make childhood cheaper, by babysitting in loco parentis or reducing the need for a play-date or expensive excursion.
I've set out to recalibrate the cost/benefit analysis of family expansion, taking not as its starting point the fact that large families are a good thing, but the argument that simply giving an only child a sibling is demonstrably "worth it".
That assertion is the product of five years of work, much of it with Swedish researcher Therese Wallin. We found strong and, at times, compelling evidence, that belonging to a multi-child family has benefits.
Having a sibling while growing up can help a child resist allergies, obesity, and depression.
Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23778123
Hmmm, what do YOU think based on your personal experiences?
I think I'll make this as the next poll too.
Lol. What a silly question
defo have more than one. and in that have more than one close together.
Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?
It is better for children to have more siblings.
It is better for parents to have more children.
It is better for the country to have more children that will grow up into working taxpayers paying our pensions when we get old.
"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.
I'm serious - there is a population bubble in the UK where there will become a lot more people who are old than are working age (followed by a decline in population) unless something is done about it.
China and Japan will get hit by that earlier than us though.
"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.
I would argue from personal experience that I have benefitted from having siblings in so many ways. My older brother and I have been rivals for as long as I can remember and thats helped me push myself to try and out do him and vice versa. My younger sister is my first friend. The very first i ever had. I was four at the time and I remember the very first day my parents brought her home. Having a younger sister has helped me realise i cant always be so harsh and dismissive of the world. It helped me stay grounded and soft hearted.
And now I know that I can turn to either of them for help if i need anything and I know I will help them too where ever i can. As for my parents, it was a different world back when we were all born (the 80s) and things have changed. Whilst before it was just my mum n dad working trying to keep the house going. Now all us kids work and contribute too. So not everything lands on the shoulders of my parents. So in the long run id say having more than one kid has helped them too.
Children are a blessing, although we rarely stop to count our blessings i can assure you no one asks for them to stop.
Back in BLACK
I remember learning about that during the days of secondary school life. It's the stages in the Demographic Transition Model.
LOL that nice of them.
Clearly they've gone bat crazy by then. Must be something in the water.
Back in BLACK
Yeah I definitely do think its better for children to have siblings, like the times when I take one of my sisters to town because she doesn't want to go with anyone else lol, or maybe I just forced her to come with me on the say so of my dad?
I take my sisters for granted, honestly. Anyone who knows me well enough will probably notice that too! I don't give them enough attention or show them I love them as much as i should, but i've started to. Think i realised this recently. Better late than never eh?
I wouldn't want to be an only child, it sounds lonely.
"How many people find fault in what they're reading and the fault is in their own understanding" Al Mutanabbi
Do we have any only child-ers around?