Love Dilution?

This is what I get for setting my Google alerts to "large families". I stumbled across this tonight and had to chuckle--not so much at the question posed, but at the phrase "love dilution"! I don't have an account at that site so I can't answer over there, but if I could, I'd ask: Did you love your parents less when you fell in love with your spouse or significant other? Do you love your siblings less each time you make a new close friend? Can love really be DILUTED? Time, sure--there's only so much time in a day, but parents with families of all sizes make choices about how to spend that time, and most of the time we can be amazingly resourceful about making sure all the myriad important people in our lives get some of our time. If we really don't have enough time to spend with our kids, something is out of balance, but it doesn't automatically follow that it's because there are TOO MANY KIDS!. And as others pointed out, you can't underestimate the value of siblings, who will probably outlive parents anyway. I consider my siblings to be some of the most important resources/gifts/people in my life, and any "love dilution" we may have created on my parents' part (snort!) was more than made up for by the fact that they are all here.

Comments

[Laundry & Children]

As the mother of 4 (and hopefully more someday), "love dilution" is a rediculous thought. Each of my children is a unique individual and I love each uniquely. I think that saying there is only so much love or attention available to each parent speaks more about the author than it does about larger families.