Reply to If you're from a big family, 4 + kids do you have or want a big family yourself?

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Reply to "If you're from a big family, 4 + kids do you have or want a big family yourself?"

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[quote=Anonymous]I mean, there are only two options - big or small family - even if you could quibble about the cutoff between big and small.

That said, my parents had 8 kids. My mom only had one sister and wanted a big family. My dad came from a big family - maybe 12 kids? I honestly don’t know. I don’t know that he actively wanted a big family, but he didn’t care to stop it from happening. We were technically poor (even though my parents were teachers and made reasonable salaries), but we always had a roof over our head and food on the table, and my mom was excellent with money and prioritized education and arts related activities. I actually don’t think you need that much money to raise happy and well adjusted kids, but you likely will have to make sacrifices. My mom is incredibly stylish and loves clothes, but she dressed in rags throughout my childhood. I felt shortchanged on the emotional front by my mom. She acknowledges that she only had the time and energy to deal with high level crises (like my brother’s Type 1 diabetes, which was difficult for him to manage, especially when he left for college early at 16 - and eventually died from it at 19) and I got less attention because I was always the kid she never had to worry about. (I spent 2 hrs each day with my dad as he drove me to my private high school, so I had a good relationship with him, but he was still a less communicative dude, so it didn’t fully meet my emotional needs).

Basically, I saw how kids stretched my parents thin financially and emotionally and it’s just now how I want to live my life. I would have had 0 kids had it not been a dealbreaker for my husband. So we’re one and done. Of my siblings only two others have kids. One has 2 and the other has 4. So 3 of 7 have kids. [/quote]

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