Not only do children strain the wallet as that one-bedroom becomes infeasible, but many middle-class families have little confidence in public education.
Byatt explores the way adults try to define, preserve, celebrate and prolong childhood, even as they fail to see how their own children strain against the plot lines dreamed up for them.
A curtain is drawn and the children strain to overhear, but it becomes quickly apparent they needn't bother.
Yesterday Mr Brown was treated like a celebrity as he hit the doorsteps in a council estate on the southern outskirts of Edinburgh, where local voters and children strained to meet the next prime minister.
A quarter were children, straining even Israel's definition of "terrorist" as, according to its own experts, it expands the definition of "legitimate target" and, in so doing, narrows the definition of "collateral damage".
Wilson, who drew comparisons to Shirley Jackson with his 2009 story collection, "Tunneling to the Center of the Earth," brilliantly and hilariously explores the "art for art's sake" argument, even if the parents' callousness toward their children strains credulity at times.
For example, the standard nomenclature identifies SS/Jr (RGD: 10041) as a child strain of the parent SS (RGD: 69369) and as the parent from which two sibling strains SS/JrHsd (RGD: 1582190) and SS/JrMco (RGD: 724573) were derived.
I now know the sting of rejection when a child strains to be soothed by the other parent.
At the same time, Mr. Cera exudes the gawky bravado of an unformed man-child straining to act like a grown-up.
It also explains why opening a film with a small child straining on a toilet and talking about poop isn't just a bad idea; it's an invitation to unfortunate metaphor.
My copy of Just So Stories, in its brick-red cover with the Elephant's Child straining away with all his might to escape the jaws of the Crocodile on the banks of "the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River", the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake in close attendance, was the first book I truly loved.
