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

[Anonymous]

I think 4 is when it becomes large. 3 isn’t large, it’s very average for almost all upper middle class families I know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think 4 is when it becomes large. 3 isn’t large, it’s very average for almost all upper middle class families I know.

3 is very, very common in our Silver Spring circles as well, so I’m surprised when people say they don’t know anyone with 3+ kids (outside of very rich or very poor families). 4 is large but not unheard of in my experience.

[Anonymous]

I agree that 4 is a large family. When I had my fourth, people I knew peripherally (like my mom’s friends) couldn’t remember if I had four kids or six or eight. They just knew it was a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:4 IS a large family. AI says that only 7% of US adults have 4 or more children, a number that stands out even more when you realize that many of those adults are likely in the same families. I’ve always viewed 4 kids as “large” because that’s the point where the whole family can no longer fit in a car together. I guess there’s another “very large” category that’s reached when the whole family can’t fit in a mini-van or SUV together.

That number is 6.
We have a lot of Catholic and Mormon friends and know a lot of families with a large number of children.
IMO, 6 is the tipping point where they really feel different than other families. They have to move from a typical suburban minivan to a weird van. The kids HAVE to share rooms no matter how wealthy the family is. A lot of times they move to a neighborhood where they have a lot of friends that can help each other out. So that means it isn’t just their six kids at home, but often more like 10 kids in the house and yard. They start putting on additions to the house or unusual stuff in the yard because it’s hard to go anywhere.
People start to think you have a lot of kids at 4, but 6 is where you are really different from other families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:4 IS a large family. AI says that only 7% of US adults have 4 or more children, a number that stands out even more when you realize that many of those adults are likely in the same families. I’ve always viewed 4 kids as “large” because that’s the point where the whole family can no longer fit in a car together. I guess there’s another “very large” category that’s reached when the whole family can’t fit in a mini-van or SUV together.

That number is 6.
We have a lot of Catholic and Mormon friends and know a lot of families with a large number of children.
IMO, 6 is the tipping point where they really feel different than other families. They have to move from a typical suburban minivan to a weird van. The kids HAVE to share rooms no matter how wealthy the family is. A lot of times they move to a neighborhood where they have a lot of friends that can help each other out. So that means it isn’t just their six kids at home, but often more like 10 kids in the house and yard. They start putting on additions to the house or unusual stuff in the yard because it’s hard to go anywhere.
People start to think you have a lot of kids at 4, but 6 is where you are really different from other families.

An Odyssey will hold 6 kids, but yeah. I don’t get the room sharing point though because a) that tipping point is usually so much lower and b) I had one sibling and we shared a room for years and that seemed normal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:4 IS a large family. AI says that only 7% of US adults have 4 or more children, a number that stands out even more when you realize that many of those adults are likely in the same families. I’ve always viewed 4 kids as “large” because that’s the point where the whole family can no longer fit in a car together. I guess there’s another “very large” category that’s reached when the whole family can’t fit in a mini-van or SUV together.

That number is 6.
We have a lot of Catholic and Mormon friends and know a lot of families with a large number of children.
IMO, 6 is the tipping point where they really feel different than other families. They have to move from a typical suburban minivan to a weird van. The kids HAVE to share rooms no matter how wealthy the family is. A lot of times they move to a neighborhood where they have a lot of friends that can help each other out. So that means it isn’t just their six kids at home, but often more like 10 kids in the house and yard. They start putting on additions to the house or unusual stuff in the yard because it’s hard to go anywhere.
People start to think you have a lot of kids at 4, but 6 is where you are really different from other families.

An Odyssey will hold 6 kids, but yeah. I don’t get the room sharing point though because a) that tipping point is usually so much lower and b) I had one sibling and we shared a room for years and that seemed normal.

6 kids is usually where I see people switch cars.
I guess what I meant with the room sharing is that even my friends who make 7 figures still have their kids share rooms when they get to six kids. You can get a five bedroom house. And you and squeeze a sixth bedroom out of it. But can’t get a house with 7 bedrooms unless it’s some mansion on a ton of acerage, and that doesn’t really appeal to people who want to have a lot of kids running in and out of their house all day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:4 kids IS a big family.

+1000

[Anonymous]

I have 5 kids and I was very surprised to experience people processing us as a large family starting at 3 kids. I had figured 4 would be where it started happening and 5 would be a large family in pretty much everyone's minds, but there was a definite shift in people's reactions starting with #3 that I wasn't expecting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

I’m a mom of three and I wouldn’t consider it “complaining” but it’s definitely true that having three kids is expensive and travel becomes more expensive with three kids because you need a second room. Everything else cost wise is just an incremental kid.

Three kids is a huge time commitment. I’m considering leaving my job because of how busy it is. I definitely consider three to be the threshold of a large family.

At four you really need a stay at home parent.

[Anonymous]

4 is definitely large. I even think 3 is large. I’m 35 and for my entire life, the vast majority of my peers have been only children or had one sibling. I have to rack my brain to think of someone with multiple siblings.

I see a lot more 3 kid families in my circles now, but it still feels big to me. That’s when you need the bigger house, the minivan, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Curious about this viewpoint for families you meet with 4 and with 5. Pregnant with number 4 now fwiw. I’ve heard this many times over the years.

Is four just more common? I haven’t looked at the numbers.

Only an idiot thinks four children isn't a large family,!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

I’m a mom of three and I wouldn’t consider it “complaining” but it’s definitely true that having three kids is expensive and travel becomes more expensive with three kids because you need a second room. Everything else cost wise is just an incremental kid.

Three kids is a huge time commitment. I’m considering leaving my job because of how busy it is. I definitely consider three to be the threshold of a large family.

At four you really need a stay at home parent.

You must have missed the 3,000 posts on this site about how there is nothing a SAHP can do that you cannot do while working out of the home

[Anonymous]

I live in a rural area and 4-5 is not unheard of. The previous generation was even bigger. Usually not the UMC families, though.

[Anonymous]

2 to 3 you go from man on man to zone defense.

3 to 4, you divide and conquer each parent holding the hands of two kids.

When you hit 5, someone always gets through your defense and gets away.

[Anonymous]

Hurray for families, big and small! They are the future taxpayers, caretakers of people and environment, innovators.