One of my favorite films in terms of the sheer good will it has is Dan in Real Life. It's not very much more than a very pleasant, nice film.
But I think it captures something that won't be really noticed for awhile. As different strata of society grow affluent and get solidly embedded in the middle class, family sizes are decreasing. This turns out to not be a gradual process, moving from 5 to 4 to 3, etc., but more a generational shift. This generation only has 1 or 2 kids who have 3-5 aunt and uncle (and more by marriage).
This thread got me thinking about the difference between the larger and smaller families and how that will play out in the near future. It makes me a little sad that I only have 1 sibling (although I wouldn't be nearly as competitive nor would I have tried as hard if I'd had another brother or sister)
I think this process happened a generation ago in China, but I'm way out of my knowledge base here. I wonder if there's a literature about it.
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