Flutterby™! : Steven Covey dead of a bicycling accident 2012-07-16 19:47:24.653233+00

Steven Covey dead of a bicycling accident

2012-07-16 19:47:24.653233+00 by Dan Lyke 4 comments

I probably wouldn't note the passing of '7 Habits' author Steven Covey except that:

Covey passed away at Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center at 2:15 a.m. due to "residual effect" of a bicycling accident in April, according to a family statement. Covey, who has nine children and 52 grandchildren, was surrounded by his wife, Sandra, and each of his children at the time of his death.

79 and dead of a bicycling accident.

I got stuck on "nine children and 52 grandchildren." My parents have five children and nine grandchildren (10 counting one step-grandchild.) I find the correlation interesting - children have 1/2 as many offspring as they had siblings. That's not great math and just two cases, but still interesting...to me, at least.

That's a lotta grandchildren. We had 24 family members gather last weekend in Alaska and I thought that was a big crowd!

#Comment Re: made: 2012-07-18 22:05:21.225599+00 by: Dan Lyke [edit history]

As standards of living raise, the number of children people have lowers. The Mormon culture favors huge families, but I suspect that as Utah becomes better off, the frequency of offspring will fall.

I also wonder: One of the things mentioned in A Farewell To Alms is that the economics of England in the early industrial revolution favored upper middle class families having large children. Mormon Utah may have a similar thrust right now, which, assuming we don't run up against other Malthusian limits, may have an interesting impact on the next few generations.

I'm the oldest of eleven, with a twenty-one year span. I'm thirty-six and almost three years into my second marriage, three others are married, one is divorced, and one is gay; all told, we are holding steady at zero grandchildren.

I'm sure someone will get around to reproducing eventually but it's clear that none of us are in any great hurry. I would be surprised if even one of us had as many as five children; it seems inconceivable that we will average that many.

My mother's older sister had twelve children. They got busy a lot faster than we did and I think she has a dozen grandchildren now. I could see that figure doubling before they're done.