Anonymous wrote:My friend has 5 kids. She has a lot of help. I think she just loves having infants so she keeps having more, I'm not sure if she's done. She also is coping badly with her oldest not being a baby anymore (she's 10). Any time her daughter is doing something age appropriate, my friend gets angry and assumes all the other kids are bad influences and warping her instead of recognizing she's growing up and not a baby or toddler like her siblings.

This describes my sister except she only has 4. She is SO sanctimonious about teenagers (that she does not have yet) and how her children will NOT be like all the other teenagers.

She just seems really checked out. Her kids are running the place. She takes gentle parenting to the next level. Her kids have a lot of problems fitting in and I think it's because she doesn't help them or tell them what to do/normal expectations. Everything is just a bit messy and out of control.

I have a very good friend with four 10 and under. She’s amazing given all the chaos. She doesn’t work away from home but she has gotten into the business of buying, fixing up and flipping homes. I think she’s been making a lot of money. She has great design sense and really knows her stuff when it comes to costs. She doesn’t have a nanny though she does have a cleaning person once a week.

I had to think about it! I know several families of four, but only two families of five.

First - my AMAZING friend. I have no idea how she does it all. She has two biological children, one child that she adopted out of foster care when the child was 11, and two children who are currently in foster care. The two in foster care need lots of resources (therapy, etc.) and fortunately I think the state is relatively good at getting them what they need (for example, full time daycare M-F paid for by the state). My friend is a SAHM to her other three kids. I think my friend's Christian faith and her VERY high tolerance for chaos makes it work.

Second - a close family member has five. The parents ended up divorcing, and I believe a big part of it was the stress of raising five children. The mom initiated it, I believe because she didn't feel supported by her spouse. It was really tough on the kids but now, as teens / college kids, they are all doing exceptionally well socially / academically (both parents are surgeons).

Catholic, 6, doesn't work and has things very under control - more than I do with working and 3 kids.

I have two friends with 5 kids.

Both are pretty easygoing and have a great sense of humor. Fantastic parents. As a PP described, they also have a high tolerance for chaos and seem to roll with the life that 5 kids brings. One has a lot of help, the other has a very supportive husband who handles the childcare and household when she is at work (they both work). They both give 100% to their kids and the siblings seem genuinely close to each other. I have no idea how they do it all (and realize that not all large families manage as well).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most that have three either have a lot of hired help and do no hands on parenting or they are a hot mess and designate the kids needs, especially transportation and food to other families.

Three isn’t that many…none of the parents I know with three are like either of your examples.

Actually it is.

It’s not.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most that have three either have a lot of hired help and do no hands on parenting or they are a hot mess and designate the kids needs, especially transportation and food to other families.

Three isn’t that many…none of the parents I know with three are like either of your examples.

Actually it is.

4 kids…wealthy, very organized, high achieving (started and successfully exited ed tech company after being a SAHM mid-career), education oriented, comfortable juggling a lot, thoughtful, caretaker, outdoorsy, pragmatic, insightful.

Coworker has 4. They are deeply religious, have close family (both sets of parents within a mile) who help with childcare, and are struggling for money. The kids are sweet and the family is loving, but he's a pretty crummy coworker TBH because he's constantly bailing to fight kid fires. Ideally they'd have a nanny I guess, but there's no money for it.

3 friends with 4, 2 with 6, and a new friend at DC's school who has 7. Only one (w/4) is Catholic or from a large family themselves....the others just wanted a big family. The two with 6s are the only SAHM and did some portion of homeschooling early on but send/t all the HSers to public. Few have any regular 'help' be it from family or of the hired kind and they cross the racial and political spectrum. The two things they all have in common: they are two-parent households and drive vehicles big enough to transport their entire crew.

All their families seem 'normal' -- the occasional fights (between siblings or parents), with a dose of chaos thrown in every now and then but that's any family. I am in awe of their collective abilities to improvise, adapt, and overcome. We trade recipes and carpool turns and vent or whine sessions.

Why do you ask OP? Do you have a large family or want one?

My cousin has 5. Not religious, just loves kids. She has a lot of help from her mom and sister who live nearby (sister is single/no kids). She also has a very flexible job helping run her husband's business. Used to be a large store manager but quit after baby #2. She is uber organized and Dad is also very involved. Also, both are pretty laid back and don't get stressed out by stuff.

Anonymous wrote:She’s very laid back and has a high tolerance for chaos.

+1. The people I know with 4, 5, or 6 kids are all like this.

My stepsister had four. After meeting her DH, who (at least for awhile) fancied himself "the prophet of armageddon," she became super religious. It eventually settled down into an extreme form of MAGA non-denominational Christianity. My step sister never worked after meeting this guy, and the cycle continues -- her two oldest daughters were married and had kids while still in their teens. The oldest had her wedding 3 weeks after high school graduation, and she now has two kids and stays at home doing things like baking her own bread. There are all kinds of extreme ideas about gender -- lots of women cook, clean, and sew nonsense. There has been a lot of WIC involved thanks to lack of education and the women not working. The kids were home-schooled until high school (and the thought of my step sister being in charge of teaching anything is a little scary), and the girls were not expected to go to college at all (you don't need it, you only need to know how to cook a pot roast and knit baby clothes!). I'm hoping the two younger kids will break the cycle, but doesn't seem likely at this point -- their form of "Christianity" is pretty controlling.

All of that said, they all seem pretty happy. Wish I could say otherwise, but I can't.

We have several with 3 and they all have the following in common:

- Married on the young side. In one case they were high school sweethearts who married at 23. The others married by their late 20s. Most of my friends didn't meet their spouses until they were approaching or in their 30s, so these are outliers.

- Good family support. Either family nearby or very willing to travel. Stable parents with healthy relationships with their adult kids. Enormously helpful for dealing with the logistics of having 3 kids in this day and age, but also I think offer greater emotional support and encouragement.

- One partner has a flexible career or is a willing SAHP. Most of the couples I know are dual income, but with 3 kids one of them has a job where they can dip out of work for a year or two here and there, work an unconventional schedule that accommodates pick ups and drop offs and all that jazz, and also eases things like summer vacation (like I know one couple where the wife is a professor and in the summer she just takes all the kids to her parents vacation home for a month and her DH comes to visit on the weekends).

I met my spouse at 29, neither of us have good family support at all (we actually support his mom financially and my parents are very immature and disorganized, not really a source of emotional or logistical support at all), and when we married, we both worked pretty inflexible in-office jobs. We have one kid. I remember our friends with 3 all encouraged us to have more at one point and kept trying to convince us how great it is and "it gets easier with more" and so on. I read the landscape and while I'm happy for them, that's not what it would have looked like for us. We are good with one, it's more than enough and we still have fun.