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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=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![/quote]

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.[/quote]

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 [b]we[/b] 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.[/quote]

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