Don't You Know What Causes That? Advice, Celebration, and Justification in a Large Families Bulletin Board

A thematic analysis of an on-line bulletin board for parents of large families revealed three prominent patterns of talk related to advice seeking and giving, celebration of family, and justification of family size. This combination of discursive behaviors strike one as being to be largely social supportive in nature and may have implications regarding the lack of face-to-face social support for large families and the potential importance of communication within on-line clusters for providing that support.

Keywords: Large Families; Bulletin Boards; Narratives; Social Support; Justification

Most pregnant women have had the experience of having a stranger touch their stomachs, or enumerate them what to eat and drink (or not eat and drink), or what to do (or not do). greatest in quantity parents of a newborn have had someone sum up them to "put a hat upon the baby," or that the baby is too warm in that outfit, or the baby necessitys to be fed, or if you clutch him or her that plenteous you will spoil him or her. greatest in quantity parents of toddlers have had someone gaze askance as their child cast in a winding directions a tantrum, eats candy, etc There is something about the parenting proces that looks to open an invitation for make notes advice, and criticism. Parents of large families earn all of that again, and again, and again. on the contrary they also get people asking if they are "done yet" or if they "know what causes that" or if they "really ne that many children" or in what way they can afford that many children.

The diversity of family forms in the United States means that the majority of clan do not live in the family many times presented as the standard (married heterosexual parents with sum of two units or three children) in media and public images. Today, large families are considered unusual in the U However, understanding communication one as well as the other within and about diverse family forms is an important part of the application of mind of family. The interpretive research described here focused upon an Internet bulletin board for members of large families. Analysis of the talk from that board indicates that the board provides these individuals with social support, in relation to their family lives, that they may not be receiving in other domains.

In this paper, I will first briefly consider the extant scholarly research related to large families. next to the first I will discuss social support and its issues on individuals and families. Third, I will provide a brief background of bulletin boards in general and this on-line community specifically. nearest I will discuss the main rhetorical patterns I saw upon this bulletin board during the 18 month below analysis. And finally, I will consider a certain quantity of of the implications of of the like kind discourse.

Large Family Research

Large families, while more for the use of all in the past and in les industrialized countries, have become rare in plenteous of the Western world. In the U the average number of children in a family (as of the 2000 census) is 187 (U Census Bureau, 2002) Families with more than six children are in like manner rare that the census no longer tracks that data (Hartill, 2001) In Canada, as of 1996 single 1% of all families had five or more children (Ko 1999) In the UK the average family has sum of two units children and less than 30% of women have three or more children (Office of National Statistics, 2004) In novel Zealand, Australia, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and the Netherlands the average birth rate for women is beneath two children (Statistics New Zealand, 2003) While large families have become rarer in many countries, they do still exist. Thus, it is important that similar families remain a part of family communication research.

A real small amount of research has been done concerning communication in or about large families by se. A group of studies exists in the fields of population studies, anthropology, sociology, and medicine related to communication specifically about contraception and family planning (principally as related to unindustrialized nations) (eg Feyisetan, 2000; Isiugo-Abanihe, 1994) However, there is little extant work upon the other communicative issues of or about, large families. Additionally, greatest in quantity of that work has been devot to family size more generally, with large families at single end of the continuum of findings. Kiesler (1977) for example, considered by what mode parents engage in justification of family size after the family is clean In this research, Kiesler set that women with more than the "normative" number of children (two) are more likely to engage in support hoc justification of their family size and have more positive attitudes about their hold family size. She argues that this is likely to be paid to the lack of external compressing to have more than sum of two units children and the fact that childbearing is generally considered a matter of choice. While Kiesler's research does not precisely focus upon large families, it suggests that as families come by larger they may feel more ne to justify their size.

Similarly, Mueller and Yoder (1999) argue that "supernormative mothers," those with four or more children, face criticism from others. Large families are viewed, say these researchers, as potentially careless and parents are encouraged to stay within "normal" (two or three children) parameters of childrearing. An example of this impressed sign of criticism of large families in scholarly research can be ground in the work of Douglas Downey. Downey and his associates (Downey, 19952001; Downey, Powell, Steelman, & Pribesh, 1999) argue a dilution original of parental resources. In this argument, they state that each additional child added to the family creates a reduction in parental time, potency and financial resources for the popular children. Thus, children in large families are positioned as lacking in these dimensions of parental support.