Why is having 4 kids not considered a large family but 5 kids are seemingly where it becomes a large family?

[Anonymous]

Anything more than three is a lot.

[Anonymous]

You have a large family ma’am

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lol anything over 2 is "large." Maybe in Provo, but nobody in the DMV thinks you have a "normal" sized family.

I think so too. My coworker just had her third and when she told people she was pregnant, everyone was amazed. The only people I know with more than two kids are really rich or really poor.

I feel this way too. I'm one of four and it was too much. Recently I met a woman pregnant with her fourth and she told me it's easy because she just just lets them take care of each other and just doesn't care too much about anything. I hope she was just being flippant because that's kind of how my parents were and it wasn't great. It mean I was often in charge of my younger brother even when I was still very young, and it means that negative dynamics between my siblings (like my older sister being really overbearing towards me) weren't checked by an adult and just got worse and worse with time.

I have one kid and that's all I need.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have 5. IME even among religious weirdos (I am a religious weirdo) it’s only the Catholics and the Mormons who regularly have that many. Other religious weirdos usually stop at four, tops. (Though many do two and ✂️ so they can drive to more extracurriculars like all y’all.)

There’s nothing factual about your numbers, just what you’ve observed.

A 2021 study showed U.S. Catholics aged 35 to 45 now have an average of 2.1 children . In contrast, agnostic/atheists the same age had 1.88 children.

Mormons birth rate hs gone down to about 3.4 average.

Most Catholics live in the Northeast which is the least religious area in the country.

[Anonymous]

A large family is anyone who has more kids than you.

[Anonymous]

My husband grew up with 5 siblings. I had two. We have one kid. Most of these large families aren’t as loving and awesome as people think they are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have 5. IME even among religious weirdos (I am a religious weirdo) it’s only the Catholics and the Mormons who regularly have that many. Other religious weirdos usually stop at four, tops. (Though many do two and ✂️ so they can drive to more extracurriculars like all y’all.)

There’s nothing factual about your numbers, just what you’ve observed.

A 2021 study showed U.S. Catholics aged 35 to 45 now have an average of 2.1 children . In contrast, agnostic/atheists the same age had 1.88 children.

Mormons birth rate hs gone down to about 3.4 average.

Most Catholics live in the Northeast which is the least religious area in the country.

It is almost like you don’t know how to respond to the claim. It is entirely possible that the average Catholic or Mormon has the number of children you posted, but that among families that have five children, Catholics and Mormons are an overrepresented population in that five-child subset.

I don’t know if the assertion is correct or not, but you didn’t address the point made.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband grew up with 5 siblings. I had two. We have one kid. Most of these large families aren’t as loving and awesome as people think they are.

I think there are some large families that are loving and rewarding and that people tend to fixate on those families (because they are big and loving and this combination tends to attract a lot of attention) and not really pay attention to the many large families that are dysfunctional.

Another thing that happens is that big families tend to have happy, satisfied siblings and unhappy, dissatisfied siblings. Very common, because resources within the family are often not distributed equally or fairly. You can talk to one of the siblings and they will have nothing but loving things to say about a big family and how great it was, and then you'll talk to another and not only will they not agree, they will tell you that their happy, satisfied brother or sister is happy and satisfied because they were the doted on favorite who got all the attention and praise. So even within the same big family, opinions can differ greatly as to how loving and awesome they are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have 5, age 3-13. We just moved from New England to the Midwest for COL. Four are in Catholic schools. I stay home. HHI is $160K. We had parent help with kids 1-4 but none since our fifth. We have a Honda Odyssey. We do a lot of laundry. Lots of systems. My house is cleaner now than it was with 3. For vacations we split the kids up. My husband just took the 3 older ones out West for a beach vacation with relatives. My grandmother had 12. Yes I am Catholic. I homeschooled one for 6 months and try to be faithful but am not trad or pious at all. Activities: hockey for one, musical instrument/band for another. Most families who want big families (on kid 3 say) will say oh you make it look fun! We want more! And I am sure 2 kid families shudder. You definitely lower standards for certain stuff (we do not do coordinating outfits photo shoots) but it’s also given me tremendous grace for others bc my 5 are so different. I can’t cluck my tongue in judgment when each of my kids has had a different path.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lol anything over 2 is "large." Maybe in Provo, but nobody in the DMV thinks you have a "normal" sized family.

There are roughly 50,000 military families in the DMV. Large families are extremely common in the military.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband grew up with 5 siblings. I had two. We have one kid. Most of these large families aren’t as loving and awesome as people think they are.

I think there are some large families that are loving and rewarding and that people tend to fixate on those families (because they are big and loving and this combination tends to attract a lot of attention) and not really pay attention to the many large families that are dysfunctional.

Another thing that happens is that big families tend to have happy, satisfied siblings and unhappy, dissatisfied siblings. Very common, because resources within the family are often not distributed equally or fairly. You can talk to one of the siblings and they will have nothing but loving things to say about a big family and how great it was, and then you'll talk to another and not only will they not agree, they will tell you that their happy, satisfied brother or sister is happy and satisfied because they were the doted on favorite who got all the attention and praise. So even within the same big family, opinions can differ greatly as to how loving and awesome they are.

+1 also, there are happy small families and happy big families. There are also dysfunctional small families and dysfunctional big families. The functionality of a family doesn’t really come down to size. Such a ridiculous construct to promote.

[Anonymous]

I see 4 as a big family. Not what is going on, how are these people coping, are they extremely religious or cult members big. But big.

3 is much more common in my area so this number doesn’t seem surprising. I also have 3 so it feels normal to me.

[Anonymous]

Most families I know have 1-2 kids only. I think 3 and more are considered big family. Think about it hotel room for 4 people, family package of 4 people (2 adults plus 2 kids), buy 1 adult ticket get 1 kid free etc ....

[Anonymous]

The few families I know with 3 kids complain quite a bit about how inconvenient/expensive it is (especially travel, summer camps, and housing once kids are older and want more space). Harder to get a table at a restaurant, harder to figure out hotel rooms, harder to deal with scheduling of activities and school.

So four is definitely a big family, if even families with 3 kids feel squeezed at times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have 5, age 3-13. We just moved from New England to the Midwest for COL. Four are in Catholic schools. I stay home. HHI is $160K. We had parent help with kids 1-4 but none since our fifth. We have a Honda Odyssey. We do a lot of laundry. Lots of systems. My house is cleaner now than it was with 3. For vacations we split the kids up. My husband just took the 3 older ones out West for a beach vacation with relatives. My grandmother had 12. Yes I am Catholic. I homeschooled one for 6 months and try to be faithful but am not trad or pious at all. Activities: hockey for one, musical instrument/band for another. Most families who want big families (on kid 3 say) will say oh you make it look fun! We want more! And I am sure 2 kid families shudder. You definitely lower standards for certain stuff (we do not do coordinating outfits photo shoots) but it’s also given me tremendous grace for others bc my 5 are so different. I can’t cluck my tongue in judgment when each of my kids has had a different path.

I have 3 kids myself but I related to this sooo much. I agree completely that the more kids you have, the more you appreciate that all kids are different. And I do think that’s a beautiful thing.