Monday, August 06, 2007

The ultimate status symbol

What to get for the couple who has it all?  Salon as a nice discussion of that NPR piece about how the big trend among rich people is to have more children:

Historically, the country-club set has had the smallest number of kids. But in the past 10 years, the number of high-end earners who are having three or more kids has shot up nearly 30 percent.

Some say the trend is driven by a generation of over-achieving career women who have quit work and transferred all of their competitive energy to baby making.

They call it "competitive birthing."

The Salon author is critical of the NPR piece, and of women who choose to raise large families.  Real women, she thinks, "enjoy getting out of their houses, care about what they do professionally, like having a life outside their family, and value their economic independence, not to mention an identity not directly linked to their ovaries."

In a hundred years, is anybody going to know or care what your identity was?  Whether you are a man or a woman, the only part of you that will really last is the children you raise. Throughout history, children have always been the ultimate luxury.

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