Grow up in a large (4+ kids) family?

[Anonymous]

I am one of four and loved it. Have four.

[Anonymous]

I am the youngest of 5. To be honest, I think my mother was completely worn out by the time she had me. My brother who is 20 months older, had some special needs (food allergies) as a child. He got a lot of attention. My oldest sister - 11 years older than me - spent a lot of time taking care of me. I was the 3rd girl - my mother had lost all sense of "sensitivity" when it came to me. For example, when I was 11, I was in a changing room in a department store with my mother and sister. In the middle of changing my shirt, my mother looks at me and says "I guess you need to start wearing a bra." So we go buy one. There was nothing about it to alleviate the angst of an 11 year old pre-adolescent. I don't think she intended to be insensitive - she just had already been there done that with 2 older sisters.

On the upside - my brother is my best friend. We had an awesome relationship growing up and still do to this day. (I am friendly with my other 3 siblings, at times feel close to them, and at times don't have much to do with them.)

We didn't have much money to spare when I was growing up. If we'd had more money, I'm not sure my parents would have spent it on material things though anyway. Still, I was often painfully aware that my clothes were hand-me-downs and I rarely had much more than what I absolutely needed.

[Anonymous]

4th of 5. Loved it. We have 5, my two brothers have 5 and I have a sister with....8. We do have one slacker sister with 3 and she gets a lot of grief. I think our positive childhood led us all to want to have "larger" families. no, not Mormon either. My Mom was one of 6 and my father one of 7.

My husband is one of two. He definitely gets overwhelmed with my family sometimes. But he gets a lot of fried from his family over our large family. His sister only has two kids and tends to say random things which really irritate him. It is sad because they used to be very close but now are distant mainly because how rude she can be.

[Anonymous]

I am the oldest of 4 and my husband is second to last of 6. We have 4 and love it!
I am extremely close to my brothers (even though we are scattered all over the world) but my husband is only close to 3 of his siblings (he has almost no contact with the other 2)
My kids so far are very close and love spending time one another and with their cousins when we get together.

[Anonymous]

One of 5. The negative side is that we each individually got very little attention. My parents wanted a lot of kids and are good people at heart, but can't stand sitting down and just talking to us. The positive side is that my siblings and I are very close and provided attention and love to each other. So I never felt lonely.

I wouldn't change a thing about my family, but I would like to have fewer than five kids myself. Like my parents, I have a tendency not to be able to sit still and pay attention to my kids for an extended period of time. Due to this tendency, and with the fact that I work, I don't think I should have more than three kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I didn't but my best friend growing up was one of 4 kids. They had a great dynamic - there was a big age difference between the two older and the two younger (8 years-ish) so I think that helped. Now that the kids are grown and have their own families, they have a huge clan of cousins that all hang out together and I'm jealous, I love that! Each of the younger generation seem to be having more 'typically' sized families - 2 kids each.

I grew up as an only. DH grew up with one brother, and then after his parents divorced his dad's new wife had a baby to try to keep the marriage intact (didn't work).

We have four, with a huge age gap between the older two and the younger two. I made very, very sure that we could afford to raise them all mostly the same way (so the 4th wouldn't be forced to wear clothes worn by all 3 of her siblings) and that the older two would not be forced to babysit the younger two. It's worked out quite well (the older two are in college, and the littles are in elementary school).

[Anonymous]

One of 4. We rarely did family things when i was young and I used to look longingly at other neighborhood families who had similar number of kids or more and was jealous of the fun their families were having. We were solidly middle class and no serious money struggles - no hand me downs and we did go on vacation sometimes.

As adults, we rarely speak and don't even get together on the holidays now. My parents have both died and we never had any extended family involvement.

Having many kids doesn't necessarily equate to having more of a "family" then having only one child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oldest of five here. In some ways, growing up in a large family was fun, and I love all of my brothers and sisters, but especially as the oldest I was put in a mock parenting/babysitting role from the age of 10. Not so great. My younger siblings, who are in their mid-30s, still don't take responsibility for things - they just think I will do it. We also didn't travel much or have new clothes, etc, though my parents did provide some $ for college, which I appreciated.

I have an only, and would not have more than 2 kids. There are three reasons why - we can't afford a big family, I want to be able to focus more individual attention on my child, and I would not want to be a SAHM like my mother was, which if I had that many kids, would be a necessity. My parents also had a tough time adjusting to empty nest, and are now divorced.

This describes my situation exactly, except that I am the oldest of 6 and my parents are still (unhappily) married and not adjusting well to the recently emptied nest. I think it is hard to keep your marriage strong with so many kids because it is next to impossible to have any time alone together. My parents were high school sweethearts and now I feel like they hardly know each other. Unless they are talking about us (their kids) or the grandkids, they have nothing in common and have totally different ideas of where and how to spend retirement. It is very sad.

As far as being the oldest of 6, it really sucked. I was the defacto babysitter by age 10 and had way more responsibility placed on me than I could handle. My mom also treated me more like her confidante/best friend rather than a mom, which messed me up in ways I didn't understand until I saw a therapist in my 20s. I also never got any alone time with my dad. I love my siblings, but I'm not really "close" to any of them in the way that my husband is with only 2 sisters. With 6 kids, it is just a constant shifting of factions and alliances. The chaos can drive you insane.

[Anonymous]

I am one of 5. I love coming from a large family. I have 4 children. I think I always knew I wanted a big family.

[Anonymous]

5th of 6. I thnk I liked it growing up but always longed for more attention. Family life was chaotic. It definitely taught me a lot about independence and self-reliance. I also think it helped me realize the world does not revolve around me.

I have 2 and that's perfect for me. One of my siblings has 5 kids and he has the largest family of all of us. The rest of us range from 0-3.

[Anonymous]

I am #2 of 4, plan to have 4 (2 so far). I never considered 4 to be a big family.

We never had a lot of money, but always did ok. I definitely worry about affording 4, but I would never deprive my kids of the fun family life that I had so they could get some new clothes or go on extra vacations. My sister and I are 9 years apart and super close and I know I will always have 3 people there for me for the rest of my life. Its also awesome for my kids to have so many cousins!

My mom was an only and my dad was 1 of 5, but none of them are close (and often fought) but even though my siblings and I dont see each other that much (we live in diff states), we are always happy to be together.

[Anonymous]

I am one of four and I just had my fourth child. DH is one of two FWIW. We had initially planned to try for two and see how we handled it since both of us work. Then we felt ready to try for a third who turned out to be a joyful addition to the family. All three are boys, so we thought we would try for a girl (but baby number four turned out to be another boy). We love having a big family. Our house is filled with four crazy boys, and we love it. When I see my boys playing together and think about them having each others backs as adults I am so glad we went for the fourth. I wouldn't change a thing.

[Anonymous]

I am the oldest of 5 and my DH is oldest of 4 plus a step sibling. We both loved it. We would ideally like a lot of children, but so far just 2 with IVF. Looking to adding to that. We'll see where we end up. I am guessing 4-6 of our own, with a very real possibility of adopting a sibling group down the line.

We have substantial means and I'm sure that makes a huge difference.

[Anonymous]

I'm one of 3 girls-but my aunt and uncle have 6 kids-so I grew up seeing that family pretty closely. My cousins are really close (5 still live in the same area as their parents and they all do a family dinner once a week). Watching them makes me want a big family! Only one of them has kids so far-and only one. She's now in her 40s and had fertility problems, so she is done. 2 more have gotten married in the last 2 years and I expect they'll have kids soon. The youngest just got engaged and wants a big family. She's a little sad that her siblings don't have more kids.

My sister has 4 kids (ages 3-9) and she always seems overwhelmed. Her kids get along great, but it makes me sure that I could not handle that many kids. The house is chaos, going anywhere is an ordeal, etc.

[Anonymous]

I'm the oldest of six. I have great memories of the early years but the teenage years were an absolute nightmare. I think that my parents loved having lots of babies/toddlers in the house (Catholic family---my mom was consistently pregnant for more than 10 years with multiple miscarriages along the way). Unfortunately, they weren't emotionally/financially prepared for the reality that these babies grow up and have more complicated needs. I have one elementary school child and that seems just right. It boggles my mind to think that, at my age, my mom was sending me off to college while also dealing with five younger kids in the house. Very different times.