The big family as status symbol

The Times reports that having a big family is increasingly seen as a status symbol. Having four children "in comfort" is apparently beyond the realistic aspirations of most couples:

In the more expensive postcodes of Britain, in the upper-earning, over-achieving echelons of life in general, there is a new must-have status symbol. Not a car, not a certain type of house, not a super-sleek yacht, but something much more fundamental – and so much more significant: a child. Specifically, a fourth child.

Why four and not three? Well it seems that the incremental cost of having a fourth child is much higher due to the need to buy a much larger car, house and have staff:

Having four children means that you need a house the size of Texas; it means a convoy on the school run; an army of highly trained staff; multiple school fees. It’s the Darwinian expression of a person’s physical, mental and social superiority.

It transpires that the cost of rearing four children is actually about one third again more than the cost of raising three.

Having four children isn't the problem of course. Having them and still living a comfortable existence is the real achievement:

Having four children without incurring so much as a blip in your lifestyle is the ultimate proof of success. The pile of washing is irrelevant: someone else is doing it and there is any number of highly-trained nannies to do the early shift on a Saturday morning.

One reporter spoke about her deeper motives for having a fourth child:

There were also deeper forces at work, less comfortable to examine. At some level, the idea of having four children appealed to my vanity. What a statement about the health of my marriage! Look how competent I must be as a mother! At the time we were feeling financially secure. If I put off rebuilding some sort of career for myself, never mind. I wouldn’t be just a mother; I’d be a chief executive mother! And the small question of what to do with the rest of my life could be shelved for a few more years.