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

[Anonymous]

Great thread! I am the 2nd of 4 and am mom to 5. I loved having a large family and love being a mom to many but I do worry about the chllenges that come along with being the child in a large family. Thanks for all the insight. We plan to have at least 1 more child.

[Anonymous]

Are the people from large families also from religious familes, eg Catholics or Mormons, or from places where large families are common?

[Anonymous]

Oldest of 10, mom of 9, so far.

I loved my childhood. We did not have money, but I simply didn't care. So much love, affection, and fun...a big garden...Lake Michigan for hikes...no vacations, not even once, just a yearly trip to visit family on the East Coast, but thought that was heaven. Mom from 14, dad from 8, tons of cousins and doting aunts/uncles/grandparents. Loved caring for younger siblings, holiday traditions, proud of my hardworking dad and my cool (artist) mom. Never felt deprived of attention, stuff, love. We all paid our own way through college, all are successful in the eyes of the world (well, the youngest two are still homeschooling, but I'm sure they'll be awesome).

We are all still super close. I talk to my mom every day. My sister lives in my town, another brother is close by. We are all always there for each other, ready to help. Get together as often as possible.

My kids love life. Finances are always a real struggle, but that's not what's important. What's important is love.

I am so thankful for this thread, because it gives me concrete things to work on in my parenthood, so my children grow up knowing how loved they are and what life is all about.

[Anonymous]

OP here, thank you for your responses! My parents and in laws grew up in large families (5-7) and all speak fondly of their childhoods. With the exception of one out of 20 none had large families themselves. So I always wondered about the disconnect. If it was & is amazing why did everyone choose less? So I thank you for your insight!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, thank you for your responses! My parents and in laws grew up in large families (5-7) and all speak fondly of their childhoods. With the exception of one out of 20 none had large families themselves. So I always wondered about the disconnect. If it was & is amazing why did everyone choose less? So I thank you for your insight!

OP, some PPs have given personal explanations, but I have some additional guesses:

Societal pressure. It's not easy being countercultural. Without a ton of support, it's hard to welcome children as blessings, as they come.

Lack of a depth of faith. If you don't know why you're open to life, it's easy to bail when things get tough.

Materialism. Not just for stuff and vacations, but also for school. There's a deeply ingrained idea that parents are responsible for college, but that's pretty new. It's hard to stand up to that idea. And for lower grades, there's the assumption that expensive private school is the only way to get a quality education--not true!

A negative birth culture. When women experience birth as healthy, normal, and enjoyable, they are more likely to look forward to repeating it.

Living outside the box. This kind of falls under social pressure, but it's hard driving a big van and living a big family lifestyle and generally looking foolish to everyone all the time.

The ingrained idea that you have children when you are ready because they are fun.

Fundamentally, this is a question of why we are here, what is love, what is marriage for, what does sex mean? the generally accepted answers to these questions do not conform to large families.

So sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, thank you for your responses! My parents and in laws grew up in large families (5-7) and all speak fondly of their childhoods. With the exception of one out of 20 none had large families themselves. So I always wondered about the disconnect. If it was & is amazing why did everyone choose less? So I thank you for your insight!

OP, some PPs have given personal explanations, but I have some additional guesses:

Societal pressure. It's not easy being countercultural. Without a ton of support, it's hard to welcome children as blessings, as they come.

Lack of a depth of faith. If you don't know why you're open to life, it's easy to bail when things get tough.

Materialism. Not just for stuff and vacations, but also for school. There's a deeply ingrained idea that parents are responsible for college, but that's pretty new. It's hard to stand up to that idea. And for lower grades, there's the assumption that expensive private school is the only way to get a quality education--not true!

A negative birth culture. When women experience birth as healthy, normal, and enjoyable, they are more likely to look forward to repeating it.

Living outside the box. This kind of falls under social pressure, but it's hard driving a big van and living a big family lifestyle and generally looking foolish to everyone all the time.

The ingrained idea that you have children when you are ready because they are fun.

Fundamentally, this is a question of why we are here, what is love, what is marriage for, what does sex mean? the generally accepted answers to these questions do not conform to large families.

So sad.

You make it sound like driving a bus full of clowns. Or maybe a clown car with clowns.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, thank you for your responses! My parents and in laws grew up in large families (5-7) and all speak fondly of their childhoods. With the exception of one out of 20 none had large families themselves. So I always wondered about the disconnect. If it was & is amazing why did everyone choose less? So I thank you for your insight!

OP, some PPs have given personal explanations, but I have some additional guesses:

Societal pressure. It's not easy being countercultural. Without a ton of support, it's hard to welcome children as blessings, as they come.

Lack of a depth of faith. If you don't know why you're open to life, it's easy to bail when things get tough.

Materialism. Not just for stuff and vacations, but also for school. There's a deeply ingrained idea that parents are responsible for college, but that's pretty new. It's hard to stand up to that idea. And for lower grades, there's the assumption that expensive private school is the only way to get a quality education--not true!

A negative birth culture. When women experience birth as healthy, normal, and enjoyable, they are more likely to look forward to repeating it.

Living outside the box. This kind of falls under social pressure, but it's hard driving a big van and living a big family lifestyle and generally looking foolish to everyone all the time.

The ingrained idea that you have children when you are ready because they are fun.

Fundamentally, this is a question of why we are here, what is love, what is marriage for, what does sex mean? the generally accepted answers to these questions do not conform to large families.

So sad.

I don't know what you are talking about. Is this YOUR experience?
I am PP with a sister with 8 kids. I can assure you that none of us with 5 or more kids think we look foolish or have experienced a negative "birth culture" (mine were all born at Georgetown where I had 1 natural, 1 c-section and 3 VBACs). We live in the city. We love it here and can't imagine living in the suburbs or moving out of the city. This is how we think so that is how we live life. I don't live by family and in fact none of my siblings live near family. We do have 529s set up for the kids but they are pretty meager. We save fully for retirement and fully expect to be able to (somehow) provide college funds for our kids. I don't think we are crazy or counterculture -- this is just. Just our family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, thank you for your responses! My parents and in laws grew up in large families (5-7) and all speak fondly of their childhoods. With the exception of one out of 20 none had large families themselves. So I always wondered about the disconnect. If it was & is amazing why did everyone choose less? So I thank you for your insight!

OP, some PPs have given personal explanations, but I have some additional guesses:

Societal pressure. It's not easy being countercultural. Without a ton of support, it's hard to welcome children as blessings, as they come.

Lack of a depth of faith. If you don't know why you're open to life, it's easy to bail when things get tough.

Materialism. Not just for stuff and vacations, but also for school. There's a deeply ingrained idea that parents are responsible for college, but that's pretty new. It's hard to stand up to that idea. And for lower grades, there's the assumption that expensive private school is the only way to get a quality education--not true!

A negative birth culture. When women experience birth as healthy, normal, and enjoyable, they are more likely to look forward to repeating it.

Living outside the box. This kind of falls under social pressure, but it's hard driving a big van and living a big family lifestyle and generally looking foolish to everyone all the time.

The ingrained idea that you have children when you are ready because they are fun.

Fundamentally, this is a question of why we are here, what is love, what is marriage for, what does sex mean? the generally accepted answers to these questions do not conform to large families.

So sad.

I don't know what you are talking about. Is this YOUR experience?
I am PP with a sister with 8 kids. I can assure you that none of us with 5 or more kids think we look foolish or have experienced a negative "birth culture" (mine were all born at Georgetown where I had 1 natural, 1 c-section and 3 VBACs). We live in the city. We love it here and can't imagine living in the suburbs or moving out of the city. This is how we think so that is how we live life. I don't live by family and in fact none of my siblings live near family. We do have 529s set up for the kids but they are pretty meager. We save fully for retirement and fully expect to be able to (somehow) provide college funds for our kids. I don't think we are crazy or counterculture -- this is just. Just our family.

I recognize the first PP as the catholic Mom of many that constantly harps about birth control being the root of societal problems, so I don't think she lives within everyone else's reality whether 2 or 10 kids.

For the above PP, will your kids be attending DC public schools? Are you worried about their education?

[Anonymous]

Huge Mormon family - 8 kids!!!! I left the faith and am vey happy with my three!

[Anonymous]

The PP here who lives in the city. We are in DCPS schools. Two in charter and three in our neighborhood school.

Not worried about their education at this time.

We aren't in hs yet. Not sure about that one still. Not sure any of my kids could do SWW and not committed to charter hs at this time. We have a few years but have always felt that if we were going to pay for private hs is where we would do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, thank you for your responses! My parents and in laws grew up in large families (5-7) and all speak fondly of their childhoods. With the exception of one out of 20 none had large families themselves. So I always wondered about the disconnect. If it was & is amazing why did everyone choose less? So I thank you for your insight!

A few possibilities from the economics literature:

1) All over the world, people in industrialized nations are having fewer children, as the kids are better off if there is more intensive investment in each child. These days, a decent job that offers health insurance really requires a college education. Sure people in trades do well at first, but they often find the physical requirements difficult after age 50, and that gives them a shorter working life to pay for retirement. Colleges base financial aid awards on parental income, so if parents refuse to pay, the kids are left scrambling to cover the parental contribution. Research by Dalton Conley finds that each extra child in a family reduces the access that the other children have to educational resources. Comments to A New York Times article pointed out last year pointed out that just having extra children offers economies of scale as you just reuse cribs, clothes etc. Giving them the trappings of a middle class life, however, with lessons, vacations, activities etc. results in increased costs with each child

2) College educations and housing costs have been rising faster than inflation for a while. (Food, clothes, toys etc. in contrast, have fallen as a share of the budget because those goods are cheaper now in real terms). These expenses make each extra child an even more expensive proposition that it used to be.

3) Not everyone had an idyllic experience. As other posters have noted, the oldest child or oldest daughter often ends up pulling a lot of extra weight. I have two colleagues who were the oldest daughters in large families. They love their siblings, but they are childless by choice. Also, read "Fourteen" by Steve Zanichkowski. Some parents really did have more kids than they could handle.

[Anonymous]

I could have written 11:46's post. So ditto that, exactly. Very happy with my small family and believe that I am better equipped to handle fewer kids.

[Anonymous]

I just wanted to add a thought. I have three children and have often thought it's good there are three so I don't "overinvest" in any one of them. I just think that given my personality if there were only one child they'd really feel pressured to meet my expectations. With two siblings to spread around the pressure, I think it's better. More "space" to just be who they want to be.