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Family relationships are among the most stable sources of personal affirmation. Nonetheless, the American family is shrinking. The U.S. birth rate has been declining for the last 12 years, falling from 16.7 per 1,000 in 1990 to 13.9 per 1,000 births in 2002 (Hamilton, Martin, & Sutton, 2003). The average number of children per family, in fact, was 2.3 in 1970 but has been hovering around 1.8 since the mid-1990s (Smith, 2001). As such, the total number of children has steadily declined. For example, in 1960 approximately 20% of families had one or two children but 11% had three and 9% had four or more children. By 1999, a similar proportion of families had one (20%) or two (18%) children but only 7% had three and 3% had four or more children (Bayer, 2001). Because sibling relationships last longer than parent–child relationships (most children outlive their parents), sibling ties is an important area of exploration (Cicirelli, 1994; White & Riedmann, 1992). There is a wealth of knowledge about relationships between parents and AU :2 their children (see Demo & Cox, 2000; Hogan, Eggebeen, & Clogg, 1993; Lee AU :3 & Aytac, 1998; Lye, 1996) as well as a long-standing body of work describing sibling relationships among children (see Sanders, 2004; Socha, SanchezHucles, Bromley, & Kelly, 1995) and adolescents (McHale, Updegraff, 1 |
