Did you ever think having three or more kids would make you a show off? Would you consider your third born a luxury item? According to an article in the Washington Post, many people, especially in metropolitan areas, would think just that. Especially with gas prices, large luxury SUV’s are soooo 5 years ago, so now kids are the new accessory for the wealthy.
The article explores how people with multiple children are now often seen as being ostentatious, depending on their geographic location. It sites the $200,000+ average cost as the reason why so many see larger families less as a loving family unit and more as a display of wealth.
Everyone knows how expensive kids can be, but they don’t have to be. I think rampant commercialism, and the particularly susceptible parent-child relationship are what make kids appear to cost a fortune. Parents want to give their children everything they can, and the media is brainwashing kids into thinking they need the latest and greatest of everything, and often times the kids prevail in the battle of need versus want. That is where kids get so much more expensive than the essentials and possibly why children are often viewed as a display of wealth.
And yet nowadays, people seem aghast if a couple wants more than two children. When Elana Sigall, a 43-year-old attorney in Brooklyn, was pregnant with her third, people came up to her constantly, she said, to admonish her: “You’ve got a boy and a girl already. Why don’t you just leave it alone?”
What’s worse, the desire to have another child opens one up to charges of elitism and status consciousness. In many major U.S. cities and their suburbs — especially New York, where I live — having three or more children has now come to seem like an ostentatious display of good fortune, akin to owning a pied-à-terre in Paris. The family of five has become “deluxe.” Last year, novelist Molly Jong-Fast mused in the New York Observer, “Are people having four or five children just because they can? Because they feel that it shows their wealth and status? In a world where the young rich use their $13,000 Birkin bags as diaper bags, one has to wonder.”
We not only wonder, we marvel, we get jealous, we gawk. “Having three kids in the city is a way of showing off, absolutely,” says Elisabeth Egan, who, like many families she knows, moved out of New York to the suburbs of Montclair, N.J., to manage the feat. “A third child in the city is definitely a luxury good.”
译文:
孩子是地位的象征（父亲情节）
你是否认为抚养两三个孩子会让别人觉得你在炫耀自己？你是否认为在家里排行老三是件奢侈的事？
华盛顿邮报上发表的一篇文章阐述了这样一个事实：许多人，尤其那些生活在大城市中的人们，会有这类想法。五年前，大型豪华越野车因为昂贵的油价成为财富的代表，五年后的今天，孩子成为财富新的象征。 这篇文章探究了现今由于地域不同，孩子多被视作一种炫耀的程度有何不同。抚养一个孩子的费用为20万+日常开销，文章认为这是许多大家庭被看作是炫耀财富的工具而非爱的集合的缘故。
大家都了解抚养孩子花销很大，其实并没有这个必要。 我认为导致孩子如此花销的罪魁祸首是猖獗的商业主义以及特别容易感情用事的父母子女关系。父母想方设法满足孩子的一切要求，同时媒体对孩子进行洗脑让他们认为最新最好的东西必不可少，很多情况下，孩子们在需要与想要的斗争中是获胜方。这就是孩子们拥有如此之多的不必要的贵重物品为非必需品的根本所在，可能也是他们被视为财富的显示的原因。
通过washingtonpost.com
当今仍然存在这种现象：如果一对夫妇想要生育不只两个孩子，人们会感到非常吃惊。当生活在布鲁克林的43岁的律师Elana Sigall怀第三胎的时候，她说，人们总是不停的来劝她：“你已经有一个儿子和一个女儿了，为什么还不知足？”
更糟糕的是，再要一个孩子的愿望使人们进一步想到高人一等的优越感和地位。在美国的许多主要城市及其郊区-尤其是纽约，我居住的城市-有三个甚至更多的孩子已经被看做是在卖弄财富，就像在法国有套房子一样。五口之家已经是一种奢求。去年，小说家Molly Jong-在《纽约观察者》中发表了深刻的言论，“只是因为人们有权利生育才有四五个孩子么？或者是因为人们觉得那是财富与地位的象征？我们必须怀疑，世界上哪个地方的有钱小年轻会把售价1.3万美元的名牌Birkin包包当做尿布包用."
我们不仅怀疑，我们惊讶，妒忌，发呆。“在城市里有三个孩子是一种炫耀，这是绝对的，” 伊丽莎白.伊亘说。像她知道的许多家庭一样，为了再生个孩子伊亘从纽约搬迁到新泽西蒙特克莱尔的郊区。“在城市中第三胎无疑能够带来许多好处，但是代价太大了。”