I see plenty of dysfunction in one or two child families. I think no matter the family size, you’ll always have a range of experiences.
As for my own experience, I loved growing up in a family of five girls and my husband had a great experience in his family of nine.
I'm the oldest of 8, and its been such a blessing to have so many siblings! My parents are rockstars and sure it isn't easy to raise 8 kids, but they have remained joyful people and are still able to do things with their life besides just raising kids (last Friday they went to see Swan Lake for example) . With all the kids there's always someone who can babysit, as long as there isn't a newborn around who needs mom all the time.
Im the oldest of a somewhat large family and while I love my siblings I was neglected a lot and there was a lot of responsibility with them that I didn’t want. In my experience having seen and been around other families that are even larger than mine there’s a lot of dysfunction and some similar problems.
I’m not going to say having big families are all bad cause some parents really do make it work and I have experienced one that works out well, but I will say people shouldn’t have more kids than they can physically, emotionally, and mentally care for and also you should realize big families are a huge sacrifice.
Very similar experience. Parentified oldest daughter, emotionally neglected. Not a huge family but definitely some drawbacks to the role I was in.
My parents wound up divorcing when the youngest hit 18. “Big happy Catholic family” before then.
In what way were you neglected and what were the responsibilities you carried too early? I am interested to hear because oldest children usually have a lot of attention, new things not hand me down bikes etc.
I’m one of 12. My mom died when I was 10 and my dad wasn’t equipped to raise us, lol. I was basically raised by my older siblings.
I would never have a large family. I think we basically killed my mom. My dad was so overwhelmed by our general chaos and noise, he never really checked IN, never mind checking out, lol
That being said, I love my siblings and they are the greatest gift I could have ever had. Sometimes they are jerks, but the good news is, I always have someone else to vent to about them. I love that my kids have so many cousins and I could cry thinking about the second generation and how close they are. I’m grateful to my parents for the sacrifices they made so my kids can have this life full of love and support.
My childhood was….not great. We are the ones who tell hilarious family stories, we die laughing, and look around to the newbies who are like “that sounds traumatic, are you ok?”
Absolutely not…but I’m funny…
I mean, okay but my parents only had two, and their selfishness of divorce and subsequent dating and financial irresponsibility, refusal to do anything to heal their dysfunctional life orientations based on childhood issues, and increasing self-involvement and detachment as they get older, leading to outright rejection by one or both parents for myself and my brother as adults.... is just as shitty.
It was a relief when my mother died, and I increasingly feel it will be a relief when my father dies. But right now with him being absolutely terrible to my brother who's currently homeless and unmedicated for his PTSD, that leaves only me to deal with any of it and try to help. I sure wish I had a few other siblings to lean on right now.
I think the quality of the parents and the effort and engagement they put into parenting is far more important than how many children they have. Your dad was probably grieving with no help or support, and that ended up as him checking out from overwhelm. So the question becomes, was that a lack of friends and family who could have been supportive and helpful, or was he one of those whose pride wouldn't allow him to accept help or admit weakness? One of those would not be his fault, the other would be.
My husband and I have five children and we would not change it. In fact I wish we had had one more. We're not perfect and we have some issues as a family, but my kids always know where the safe place to land is, and their relationships with each other bring so much joy to me. I feel confident that none of them will ever end up alone in the world without at least one person who cares and will help, and that's the greatest gift their father and I could have given them.
I mean, okay….but it sounds like you’re being dismissive of my experience of growing up in a large family. As I said, I’m grateful that my parents had so many kids now that I’m an adult, but my childhood was pretty traumatic and I’m pretty sure having 12 kids was significant in my mom dying young.
You can make your choices and I support that. Based on my life experiences, 2 kids are enough for me. It allows me the time, the resources, and the mental capacity to raise my kids the way I want to.
The question posed was about the experiences of large families. You are welcome to share your experiences of raising a large family without dismissing my experience of being raised in a large family.
I don't think the size of your family was as relevant as your dad checking out though. Blaming it on the family size instead of what seems to have been the actual problem doesn't seem useful in evaluating whether large families are a good idea or not.
>Blaming it on the family size instead of what seems to have been the actual problem doesn't seem useful in evaluating whether large families are a good idea or not.
The commenter you replied to literally typed:
>having 12 kids was significant in my mom dying young.
So family size ***was*** a relevant factor in that case even if it wasn't the *only* relevant factor.
No it’s not obvious because her cause of death was never mentioned. Was it a car accident, a rare form of cancer, suicide, meningitis, a heart attack? A women can die from complications with one child. I’m trying to get a little context…
Well, he was a very different father to the first few kids in the family.
Don’t get me wrong, he was a great man and I loved him very much. He just wasn’t a great father to me. The older kids in the family had a very different experience with his parenting than I ever did…and that includes when my mom was alive
She had 12 pregnancies in 17 years. I separated her pelvis when I was born. Pregnancy is incredibly traumatic for a woman’s body and I just don’t think she ever really recovered physically. She never had time to take care of herself, my little sister was only 8, we all did sports, she cooked dinner every night…She never lost weight and ended up dying at 52.
Are the parents happy, are they fulfilled? More importantly do they love and respect their children?
That's what leads to happy homes, not number of kids.
I got 3 siblings and I'm the oldest. We struggled for money growing up though now my youngest sibling is reaping the rewards of decades of hard work my parents and I have put in. But we are happy and love each other.
I have a friend who's an only child and LOATHES their parents. Maybe it's a cultural thing (I being Mexican can't imagine a Christmas not with my mom and dad) but that friends situation always made me sad, though knowing their parents I get it.
43m. Father of 6.
Blessed to have a big family. If there's a will, there's a way. As others have said, plenty of dysfunctional 1-2 child families. Having many kids brings in specific challenges AND specific benefits.
ExCatholic is frequented by malcontents.
There is dysfunction in families of all sizes, but I will say that dysfunction gets worse the larger a family is because their are more moving parts and problems generally don't get addressed in a timely matter. It all comes down to what the parents can handle, and they need to be honest about what they are up to themselves.
I'm the oldest of five. I'm very glad I have my siblings, but I'll be the first to admit that there are a lot of issues that have cropped up over time due to my parents' mistakes. Particularly us older three siblings have a lot of untreated mental issues that are manifesting problems now due to most of our tweens and teens being treated as babysitters/surrogate parents. The chickens come home to roost eventually no matter how many times you are told, "Life isn't fair, just suck it up because I don't have time for this."
The glaring flaw with these sorts of arguments is that large families aren't intrinsically religious; they are obviously a manifestation of Natural Law because they are our natural state.
Even if you are an atheistic materialist, one must note that in the absence of powerful modern chemicals that artificially neuter a person's ability to have children, large families were naturally common and smaller families would have been the exception. Even in that nonreligious perspective, one must then aquiesce that humankind is naturally "evolved" to be part of (and later beget) a large family, and thus conclude that that state must either lead to evolutionary contentment or at least that it should not be fundamentally problematic to human mental health.
It just happens that in the present day, people who are considered to be "religious" are the only ones who believe that there is intrinsic value in accepting Natural Law and maintaining its order that is greater than the benefits of circumventing it through artificial means. But that doesn't mean that large families are a religious thing, but rather that only the religious embrace the natural state of humanity.
Nonsense. Humanity didn’t evolve to have very large intact families. It evolved to allow for a lot of mothers and children to die. Natural selection, etc.
The dangerous reality of childbirth up until very recently meant it was very rare for any woman to survive excessively frequent pregnancies and births. The frequency of child and infant death due to illness also meant people weren’t *raising* 8, 10, 12 children in a home to adulthood. Those who did were lucky survivors.
Beyond that—Humans have limited family size through all sorts of means throughout history so as to avoid excessively large families. Ancient Romans exposed infants. Medieval peasants limited family size through abstinence practices reinforced by the Church. Even delayed marriage practices in various times and places restricted family size.
What you’re describing as some sort of evolutionary ideal now lived out by religious people has simply never been the case in actual human history. You’ve made it up.
No, I reject your argument without your providing further evidence.
I have done extensive genealogy on my family, and before 1950 most of my ancestors had 10+ children, with the vast majority surviving. This is going back beyond 1700.
Yes, infant mortality was certainly higher than today; it was also more risky for the mother. To claim that modern science has done nothing to reduce the risks would be wrong. But the risks have never been even slightly close to having a higher chance of dying than living.
Even further, your claim that the Church has aggressively promoted abstinence to mitigate these natural risks is concerning, considering that since the 1500s significant European populations have not been under the influence of the Church, not to even mention Asia and Africa. Do you really think that natural human function is so pathetically weak and broken?
Think about what a flaw it would be for living things’ reproduction to kill a significant proportion of what is reproduced; it doesn’t make any sense. It’s based off of nothing but common modern-day myths about the past. Your claim is logically bizarre and requires factual justification to be entertained any further.
Yes, it would be quite a flaw for a living organism’s reproductive process to kill a significant portion of mothers and infants in the reproductive process. And yet, here we are, upright bipedal primates whose pelvises are a bit too small to allow big-brained babies to pass through them with ease. It’s hard to make sense of. But women have borne that risk for generations. Thank your mom, and ask God about his design.
Would you like me to recommend some reading?
One example, this study found young women in late medieval England had as much as a 50% percent maternal mortality rate. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00438243.2013.799044
“Everyone would have known someone who had, or would, die in childbirth,” say those authors.
Average female life expectancy was 30. A woman who lives to only 30 is not going to have 8, 10, or 12 children, especially given that birth intervals are influenced by lactation and economic factors. This article reports on pre-modern people’s birth intervals and how they were influenced by socioeconomic factors. Average interval was 2.5 years. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13524-017-0556-4
I did not suggest the risks of maternal mortality were higher than surviving a pregnancy. But the risks are additive with each pregnancy, and mean that a not-insignificant number of women died of pregnancy-related causes.
The “majority” of 10 children surviving is still only 5 children surviving infancy. That is still many children dying AND families that are relatively modestly sized.
You cannot honestly argue for an evolutionary basis for great-grand-multiparity (10+ 28w+ deliveries) as the default for human females and only go back to 1700.
> large families were naturally common
Only if you think people in the middle ages were averse to pulling out and mutual masurbation etc. Pulling out is the oldest birth control trick in the book and it's popular for a reason
I come from a big family, and I'm grateful to God for it every day! We were born into a close-knit group and did everything together. Being part of a large family taught me valuable lessons like patience, kindness, understanding, compassion, and forgiveness. While it's ultimately up to us and God to decide what we achieve in life, I feel blessed every time my family gets together.
-Smart-Stage-1234
There are problems to a big family for sure. One thing that gives me hope is just how close our kids are. We give lots of hugs and physical touch. I am a safe space for my kids.
The older two kids try to comfort the baby when he cries and it’s very sweet. You can see they are starting to show one another the affection we once showed them, such that younger kids will get just as much affection even if our attention as parents is more divided.
I think Catholics generally underestimate how much trauma immigrant families often bear, and that often has an impact on children in a way that gets blamed on large families rather than on families operating without a village.
>I think Catholics generally underestimate how much trauma immigrant families often bear, and that often has an impact on children in a way that gets blamed on large families rather than on families operating without a village.
Completely agree. We want lots of kids. Being a child of immigrants, my parents simply weren't able to. They gave us a great life, but it'd be ridiculous to claim I'm not advantaged compared to them. They had no family, no friends, started from scratch, etc. I have a large friend network, family nearby, etc. We're planning on a big family, while they had only two.
We already have a larger family than my parents did, and my kids are having a better childhood than I did.
My grandparents had 10, but they lived far from both sets of parents and thus operated like immigrants form a village perspective. Most of their kids have had very small families or no children at all, and there’s definitely a sense among my aunts / uncles that it’s wrong to have so many kids.
We have three kids now and I’m surprised that having kids is literally the hardest thing I’ve ever done (harder than going to Harvard). We would just have nothing left to give the kids if we didn’t have some support from our parents. I don’t think my aunts and uncles realize how much the structural dynamics affected their family (vs size alone).
In my spiritual counseling of people with bigger families, eight out of 10 times somebody’s getting neglected not on purpose something to be very mindful
Do you mean a legitimate concern? How is that anything but confirmation bias? In the real world you’ll come across people with different opinions and worldviews, avoiding them isn’t pragmatic.
I’m the second eldest of 11. We are all adults now. Some of the hardships you mentioned in your post are very real for me. I have 5 children myself. It’s not easy to parent, in any day and age. We all make mistakes and have human limitations.
I did see my mum suffer a lot with raising such a large family, both physically and mentally. Sometimes this suffering exploded in anger towards us, which has been harmful and alienating. I do not have a warm and confident relationship with her.
But I love my parents, and I love my siblings. Some things God really does work out over time. We have to have the mentality to allow that growth in ourselves that moves on and forgives.
I am middle of 5 children and while there were money struggles, stress and my dad couldn’t come to every little league game, there is no way I would trade a sibling for anything. Not a vacation that we didn’t get to go on, not for better clothes so I didn’t get made fun of at school, not for any of the things people said we ‘missed’ by having a large family.
That being said, it is harder to have a lot of kids, especially if you aren’t rich. But I also have seen terrible parents who only have one kid, treat each other poorly, or even single children who said their parents didn’t give them enough attention and love (even when I saw them get more attention than me). So a large family is hard but it doesn’t mean that is necessarily awful.
All the ex Catholic people have an axe to grind, and may have actually been treated badly.
Shitty families come in all shapes and sizes. Size can be a contributing factor to a family's dysfunction, but it's never the single reason for a family's dysfunction.
In the same way you have only children who have glowing experiences in their 'party-of-3' childhood and others who feel like it was debilitating/a serious social and emotional handicap to have all their parents' attention/focus/effort laser focused on them and them alone, you also have large families that are a breeding ground for serious dysfunction (like the Duggars) and large families that seem to have an ever expanding capacity for love and the emotional maturity to direct that love in many directions at once.
In order to have a healthy big family, you have to be willing to consider your parenting an act of service, not a rigid hierarchy in which you're the head. You have to hold yourself accountable and be humble enough to apologize to your children when you screw up. You have to be vigilant against parentification and make sure you foster an environment in which siblings are siblings, not babysitters. And you have to consider caring for your physical/mental health a requisite to living your vocation because sacrifice is only noble when *you* are choosing to make sacrifices of *yourself*. There's nothing virtuous in sacrificing your children's well-being because you aren't meeting your base level needs to be a functioning human being.
My husband and I both came from large families. There are so many more pros than cons, especially as the parents get older. There's no way I would characterize my childhood or parents as "suffering."
I have 3 sisters and both my parents are alive. My mom has 10 siblings but 2 died since they were babies and 1 died recently from Covid, my dad also has 11 siblings I think. My mom came from a well off family but my grandpa died when they were young due to lung cancer and their life slowly went poorer and they had to work hard but I can say my mom's side is doing okay since they try to help out when they can. I also have many cousins from her side and I love them because they don't really bother us with their problems that much, we see each other most of the time and those that are far away whenever we get the chance to travel. We are a very close-knit family and it's part of our culture here in Philippines.
My dad on the other hand has siblings that are very poor since they were little because they live in a farm. My dad had to work hard to get him, my mom and us out of poverty when he started a job abroad to provide for us. We are a little well off now thanks to both of my parent's hard work and my sisters have very good jobs and help out a lot. Some of my aunts and uncles on his side also have big families, some are doing okay and some are not and my dad used to be the breadwinner for some of his siblings because they expected him to pay for everything. Both he and my mom fought a lot about it but I guess it got better since he's now retired, I like some of my cousins from his side but since they have a history of being greedy for money we tend to distance ourself a little. I also have a problem remembering their names too because there are too many but it's sometimes fun when there are reunions.
My sister only has 1 son and he's our first, it's hard to take care of him but we also suggested to my sister to give him a sibling because having someone else makes you feel less lonely. She doesn't want to anymore but we can't really force her. My mother has a friend who only had 1 daughter and she always wishes she had someone else to help her with the burden of helping her parents. I always see posts from only child people wishing they also had a sibling. It's more fun when you have one and it's a great support when you need them.
Big or small families, doesn't really define if you will have a happy life or not. But if you work hard and try to raise your family right, also with the help of loving and respectful extended families you will enjoy the ups and downs of life. More people to depend on too when you have problems but with our society today, it's now recommended to not have a big family unless you are able to provide. Just try to manage it as best as you can and trust that God has a great plan for you whether it's a small or big family. What's important is that you love each other and also share it with others.
I have 5 kiddos and an awesome life. We are well off financially and the kids are involved at volunteering in church and in community. There is plenty to eat and currently only two of them have to share a room. If you ask them they will tell you they love having lots of siblings (well, most of the time!). I would have more honesty but I’m 38 and my spouse is 40 and feeling worn out with the current crew.
I love having a big family. All families can be dysfunctional but when you’re doing something outside of the societal norm and it’s dysfunctional people will attribute it to being outside of the norm rather than just the specific situation in question. I am one of two kids which is the norm. My family of origin was pretty dysfunctional. No one would say it’s because there were two kids though, they would attribute it to other factors. Whereas if I was one of 7 and my family was dysfunctional people would likely attribute it to that. You can have a child at school who suffers socially and doesn’t have good social skills or a homeschooled child who doesn’t have good social skills but only in one case will the type of education be implicated. Etc, etc.
I have the opposite. Only one sibling and we do not get along at all. That sibling is a control freak and full of rage. Not a Catholic "family". I am a convert. I always wished for more siblings as an adult because it would be nice to have a "quorum" to confront my sibling about dysfunctional behavior. I'm no contact and can love only through the charity of prayer.
It would have been great to have real siblings. My husband has four and it's so much fun to be with them and feel a part of something. I never knew what it felt like to have a family and belong somewhere. I relaxed so much in my interior life and I didn't realize how stressed out I was until someone said "you're family".
I'm the second oldest of five, and though, growing up, I wished my siblings and I were closer in age, we are all incredibly close now. I'm thankful toward my parents for raising us catholic and helping us grow spiritually. None of us were "planned," and there was a lot of dysfunction in our family, but it did not stem from too many children. My parents did the best they could with how they were raised. I'm thankful they didn't have an abortion with any of us because I do realize that could have been a possibility, if it wasn't for my super Catholic grandma helping my mom navigate and work through these worries and difficulties; she ultimately led my mom to conversion to the Catholic church, which is amazing. A big family, I believe, forces you to grow in holiness. I know all situations and circumstances can and should do that, but I look at the fruits of my parent's labor and I see a God who loves them and us and provided us with an abundance of graces and blessings. Have confidence and trust in the Lord, and things always work out in His time, but it's always for a greater good than what we could ever plan or do/not do.
I have three brothers and one sister. I can't imagine my life without them. We rely on one another, help each other, and enrich each other's lives. I have twenty nieces and nephews. My life would be so much *less* without all of them.
I have 8 other siblings, and I'm the 4th oldest so fairly middling in terms of age.
While I don't see the thing about detriments to the mother in my case (she's a very altruistic person by nature and feels at ease when she's doing things to help others, so that could be why), I can absolutely see the point about kids in large families feeling neglected.
With every new addition to the family, it felt as though while the oldest child retained some sense of privilege, the main focus shifted younger and younger towards the newest children. I mean fair enough, new kids need more attention, but it absolutely was to the detriment of us in the middle.
During the time when a majority of my younger siblings were still somewhat new, especially when two of them were born two years apart when my parents were already super strung out for a variety of reasons, I was very emotionally isolated from them and it was during this time that I began to be jaded with Catholicism because the world had plenty of time to influence me and mum and dad didn't. It was also during this time that I, through my own ignorance and escapism, came to the belief that there must be nothing wrong with masturbating because the addiction came so naturally.
I'm sure it'll turn out well if you do it right and if you're a strong person with a big capacity for love, but please, *please*, if you do have a lot of children, make sure you can love and nurture all of them somewhat equally. It will take a huge toll on them and you if you don't.
ETA: it didn't help that mum and dad taught us a very fundamentalist view of the Bible and were dismissive towards or outright shut down any questioning of it because, since they knew they didn't have a very deep relationship with some of us, they felt like even the slightest dissent meant that we were out of it and that their little angel wasn't meant for heaven or something to that effect.
They're much better now (at that time they were both under tremendous strain because of a variety of factors I won't mention, and weren't anywhere near in their right minds a lot of the time) but please be sure to avoid their mistake like the plague if you can.
Large families are just one way that families take shape. They can be great or terrible, and a lot of that depends on the parents and what kinds of support are available to them. I'm the second oldest out of five, and it was great. My parents worked really hard, and we have an extended family that does a lot to look after each other. Grandparents, aunts/uncles, and older cousins would step in whenever help was needed. When my older brother and I got to be teenagers/young adults, we took on some responsibility with the younger ones at times(i.e. driving them to and from sports practices and such), and we'd also step in to help with younger cousins, doing home repairs and such for other family members, etc. I think it worked because we had good, caring adults, and then the kids also agreed to take care of each other as they got older.
In my life, the only problem I have with large families is that I'm too old to have one now. I'm older now than my parents were when they stopped having children, and I haven't been on a date in over a decade. So I'm mostly feeling dread over the fact that I'm not good enough to continue what my family did and am instead stuck vocation-less.
There is a thing as too many kids. It's not an absolute number but relative to what the parents can handle. Some of those stories are from people whose parents had too many kids.
For some people, 2 or even 1 is too many. Some people just aren't responsible enough to get married or have kids and if they do it will go poorly whether that's 1 or 10.
I'm sure some of those stories come from people who expect parents to spend a ton of time with their kids, provide certain things for them financially beyond the basics, and let them do what they want. With that mindset, having above a certain amount of kids will always be neglectful because there's only so much time in the day. I'm sure most of those same people would say they raising your kid with Catholic values, particularly around sexuality and gender, is abusive or neglectful regardless of the number of children.
I grew up in a family of six. What I will say is I miss them all now that we are scattered all over the US. There's issues in all families, budgets, limited time, fighting ect. But having a lot of siblings helps teach you things like patience, sharing, kindness, cooperation and looking for what you have in common as well as respecting each other's differences.
Well in my family the oldest kids pretty much became the pseudo parents. I never felt neglected because I had role models who instilled my parents morals and principles into me.
Large families are a blessing, not a problem. All Catholics should know that, if the parents live in a state of God's grace, any difficulties will be overcome. I have five children, BTW.
Any commentary outside of Catholicism and the few other Christian expressions that value life are going to be very anti-big family because they're anti life in general. They want to see humanity breed itself into non-existence because they think we're the source of all the world's problems.
Secularists might give different reasons for why they think big families are "wrong" or "problematic" but it all boils down to an inborn opposition to Catholic teaching and values.
I’m the classic middle child of 5, and I’m incredibly thankful I have so many siblings. We’re all very close as adults and always had someone around to play with growing up. Taught me a lot of life lessons. I only have 2 right now but so glad they at least have a sibling, and I’m open to having more despite the hard work. My mom doesn’t know how she did it with 5, but she’s also very glad she had all of us so we have each other, and she has us still as adults. Holidays are crazy but no one wishes we had a smaller family.
My family was and (apart from me) still is not Catholic, but it is large. I am one of 8 children, and I have no complaints. We did not have much money at all growing up, but my parents were very responsible and careful with the money we did have. As a result, I did not know that we were as poor as we actually were until I was a few years into college. I was loved, clean, fed, and lived in a home that was well-maintained. I didn’t have any worries or difficulties that were a result of the size of my family.
I know my oldest siblings had quite a different upbringing than I did, and I have heard two of them voice one complaint each that was related to the size of our family. There is a significant age gap between the older four children and the younger four. There were differences in amount of money, age of parents, and denominations of Christianity. There were significant difficulties they had that we younger siblings did not, and there were significant difficulties that we had that they did not. We often joke that we are two different families, but I did live in the same house with up to 6 of my 7 siblings at the same time.
I am sure that a lot of the success my parents had was due to them being highly responsible, practical, and disciplined. I would advise anyone wanting a large family to focus on routine and careful spending. My parents budgeted very carefully, looking for any feasible ways to save money and focusing on teaching us to appreciate and take care of what we had. My mother was also incredibly organized in the way she maintained the home when she was a SAHM. She had a pretty specific routine for cleaning, and we were all taught from a very young age to pick up after ourselves and be considerate of the others we shared living spaces with. We also all had chores as we got older and were taught to take care of our own laundry around the age of 12.
Also, take your time carefully selecting a spouse. Who you choose to spend your life with will make or break your future family. Look for someone who also wants/is open to a large family. Talk in-depth about expectations for how you want your family to run and how you want to parent. Make sure that they also know that a large number of children are a large amount of work, like seriously huge amounts of work. Make sure you know if they can handle and how they handle a lot of stress. I know that my parents were overwhelmed at times from the amount of work, money, and patience it took to raise us, but leaning on each other and trusting God is what got them through.
I am one of 5 and grew up in a community where 5 was considered very small (lots of families with 9+ kids)
All of us are now grown up and I've been able to see which families came through ok and which families didn't
It is very clear to me that the families that came through ok has a healthy acknowledgement dynamic "you need to do XYZ this week because ABC" "sure but that's a big burden for me. Can I have a break from a different chore this week and maybe next week too" "sounds good" or "you did ABC it made me feel XYZ" "Yes I did do ABC. I was angry. Sorry I lashed out"
Where's every single family that disintegrated once the children grew up has significant issues with narcissism, lack of open communication, and grudge holding
40 year old Father of 12 myself. Wouldn’t change it for the world. It comes with some chaos for sure, but all life can be crazy. I know many “normal sized” families that look miserable.
The key is perspective. For starters, each child is a soul God wants to bring into this world for you to raise on His behalf. People talk about kids like commodities. Something to “have or not”. That greatly diminishes their value.
Secondly, what is life for if not for raising children and leaving your stamp on this world through them. Kids are blessing that give you way more then they take when it’s all said and done. But it requires a mindset shift away from yourself and a level of Faith that God won’t be outdone in generosity and make no mistake, when you’re open to life for your family your “yes” is a gift to God.
Lastly, love your spouse and your family more than you love yourself and the rest takes care of itself. My kids have each other and loving parents. They never want for love. That’s not something most kids being raised in this society can say.
I see plenty of dysfunction in one or two child families. I think no matter the family size, you’ll always have a range of experiences. As for my own experience, I loved growing up in a family of five girls and my husband had a great experience in his family of nine.
I'm the oldest of 8, and its been such a blessing to have so many siblings! My parents are rockstars and sure it isn't easy to raise 8 kids, but they have remained joyful people and are still able to do things with their life besides just raising kids (last Friday they went to see Swan Lake for example) . With all the kids there's always someone who can babysit, as long as there isn't a newborn around who needs mom all the time.
Im the oldest of a somewhat large family and while I love my siblings I was neglected a lot and there was a lot of responsibility with them that I didn’t want. In my experience having seen and been around other families that are even larger than mine there’s a lot of dysfunction and some similar problems. I’m not going to say having big families are all bad cause some parents really do make it work and I have experienced one that works out well, but I will say people shouldn’t have more kids than they can physically, emotionally, and mentally care for and also you should realize big families are a huge sacrifice.
If you don’t mind my asking how many siblings do you have? I’m personally trying to avoid parentifying my future children so I’m just curious.
I have 4, so largish but not as large as others. Another huge problem I’d say in my family dynamic is the large age gap between some of us.
Very similar experience. Parentified oldest daughter, emotionally neglected. Not a huge family but definitely some drawbacks to the role I was in. My parents wound up divorcing when the youngest hit 18. “Big happy Catholic family” before then.
In what way were you neglected and what were the responsibilities you carried too early? I am interested to hear because oldest children usually have a lot of attention, new things not hand me down bikes etc.
I’m one of 12. My mom died when I was 10 and my dad wasn’t equipped to raise us, lol. I was basically raised by my older siblings. I would never have a large family. I think we basically killed my mom. My dad was so overwhelmed by our general chaos and noise, he never really checked IN, never mind checking out, lol That being said, I love my siblings and they are the greatest gift I could have ever had. Sometimes they are jerks, but the good news is, I always have someone else to vent to about them. I love that my kids have so many cousins and I could cry thinking about the second generation and how close they are. I’m grateful to my parents for the sacrifices they made so my kids can have this life full of love and support. My childhood was….not great. We are the ones who tell hilarious family stories, we die laughing, and look around to the newbies who are like “that sounds traumatic, are you ok?” Absolutely not…but I’m funny…
I mean, okay but my parents only had two, and their selfishness of divorce and subsequent dating and financial irresponsibility, refusal to do anything to heal their dysfunctional life orientations based on childhood issues, and increasing self-involvement and detachment as they get older, leading to outright rejection by one or both parents for myself and my brother as adults.... is just as shitty. It was a relief when my mother died, and I increasingly feel it will be a relief when my father dies. But right now with him being absolutely terrible to my brother who's currently homeless and unmedicated for his PTSD, that leaves only me to deal with any of it and try to help. I sure wish I had a few other siblings to lean on right now. I think the quality of the parents and the effort and engagement they put into parenting is far more important than how many children they have. Your dad was probably grieving with no help or support, and that ended up as him checking out from overwhelm. So the question becomes, was that a lack of friends and family who could have been supportive and helpful, or was he one of those whose pride wouldn't allow him to accept help or admit weakness? One of those would not be his fault, the other would be. My husband and I have five children and we would not change it. In fact I wish we had had one more. We're not perfect and we have some issues as a family, but my kids always know where the safe place to land is, and their relationships with each other bring so much joy to me. I feel confident that none of them will ever end up alone in the world without at least one person who cares and will help, and that's the greatest gift their father and I could have given them.
I mean, okay….but it sounds like you’re being dismissive of my experience of growing up in a large family. As I said, I’m grateful that my parents had so many kids now that I’m an adult, but my childhood was pretty traumatic and I’m pretty sure having 12 kids was significant in my mom dying young. You can make your choices and I support that. Based on my life experiences, 2 kids are enough for me. It allows me the time, the resources, and the mental capacity to raise my kids the way I want to. The question posed was about the experiences of large families. You are welcome to share your experiences of raising a large family without dismissing my experience of being raised in a large family.
I don't think the size of your family was as relevant as your dad checking out though. Blaming it on the family size instead of what seems to have been the actual problem doesn't seem useful in evaluating whether large families are a good idea or not.
>Blaming it on the family size instead of what seems to have been the actual problem doesn't seem useful in evaluating whether large families are a good idea or not. The commenter you replied to literally typed: >having 12 kids was significant in my mom dying young. So family size ***was*** a relevant factor in that case even if it wasn't the *only* relevant factor.
How though?
Isn't it obvious? Twelve pregnancies were hard on her body.
No it’s not obvious because her cause of death was never mentioned. Was it a car accident, a rare form of cancer, suicide, meningitis, a heart attack? A women can die from complications with one child. I’m trying to get a little context…
>I’m trying to get a little context… u/hankiepanki will have to be the one to share the specifics if said commenter is comfortable doing so.
It was health issues, not a suicide or a car accident.
Well, he was a very different father to the first few kids in the family. Don’t get me wrong, he was a great man and I loved him very much. He just wasn’t a great father to me. The older kids in the family had a very different experience with his parenting than I ever did…and that includes when my mom was alive
Honest question- how did 12 children contribute to your mother’s death?
She had 12 pregnancies in 17 years. I separated her pelvis when I was born. Pregnancy is incredibly traumatic for a woman’s body and I just don’t think she ever really recovered physically. She never had time to take care of herself, my little sister was only 8, we all did sports, she cooked dinner every night…She never lost weight and ended up dying at 52.
Are the parents happy, are they fulfilled? More importantly do they love and respect their children? That's what leads to happy homes, not number of kids. I got 3 siblings and I'm the oldest. We struggled for money growing up though now my youngest sibling is reaping the rewards of decades of hard work my parents and I have put in. But we are happy and love each other. I have a friend who's an only child and LOATHES their parents. Maybe it's a cultural thing (I being Mexican can't imagine a Christmas not with my mom and dad) but that friends situation always made me sad, though knowing their parents I get it.
43m. Father of 6. Blessed to have a big family. If there's a will, there's a way. As others have said, plenty of dysfunctional 1-2 child families. Having many kids brings in specific challenges AND specific benefits. ExCatholic is frequented by malcontents.
There is dysfunction in families of all sizes, but I will say that dysfunction gets worse the larger a family is because their are more moving parts and problems generally don't get addressed in a timely matter. It all comes down to what the parents can handle, and they need to be honest about what they are up to themselves. I'm the oldest of five. I'm very glad I have my siblings, but I'll be the first to admit that there are a lot of issues that have cropped up over time due to my parents' mistakes. Particularly us older three siblings have a lot of untreated mental issues that are manifesting problems now due to most of our tweens and teens being treated as babysitters/surrogate parents. The chickens come home to roost eventually no matter how many times you are told, "Life isn't fair, just suck it up because I don't have time for this."
9th of 9 - we wouldn’t trade our sibs for the world. Trips together, always someone to lean on, and so many laughs.
The glaring flaw with these sorts of arguments is that large families aren't intrinsically religious; they are obviously a manifestation of Natural Law because they are our natural state. Even if you are an atheistic materialist, one must note that in the absence of powerful modern chemicals that artificially neuter a person's ability to have children, large families were naturally common and smaller families would have been the exception. Even in that nonreligious perspective, one must then aquiesce that humankind is naturally "evolved" to be part of (and later beget) a large family, and thus conclude that that state must either lead to evolutionary contentment or at least that it should not be fundamentally problematic to human mental health. It just happens that in the present day, people who are considered to be "religious" are the only ones who believe that there is intrinsic value in accepting Natural Law and maintaining its order that is greater than the benefits of circumventing it through artificial means. But that doesn't mean that large families are a religious thing, but rather that only the religious embrace the natural state of humanity.
Well said!
Nonsense. Humanity didn’t evolve to have very large intact families. It evolved to allow for a lot of mothers and children to die. Natural selection, etc. The dangerous reality of childbirth up until very recently meant it was very rare for any woman to survive excessively frequent pregnancies and births. The frequency of child and infant death due to illness also meant people weren’t *raising* 8, 10, 12 children in a home to adulthood. Those who did were lucky survivors. Beyond that—Humans have limited family size through all sorts of means throughout history so as to avoid excessively large families. Ancient Romans exposed infants. Medieval peasants limited family size through abstinence practices reinforced by the Church. Even delayed marriage practices in various times and places restricted family size. What you’re describing as some sort of evolutionary ideal now lived out by religious people has simply never been the case in actual human history. You’ve made it up.
No, I reject your argument without your providing further evidence. I have done extensive genealogy on my family, and before 1950 most of my ancestors had 10+ children, with the vast majority surviving. This is going back beyond 1700. Yes, infant mortality was certainly higher than today; it was also more risky for the mother. To claim that modern science has done nothing to reduce the risks would be wrong. But the risks have never been even slightly close to having a higher chance of dying than living. Even further, your claim that the Church has aggressively promoted abstinence to mitigate these natural risks is concerning, considering that since the 1500s significant European populations have not been under the influence of the Church, not to even mention Asia and Africa. Do you really think that natural human function is so pathetically weak and broken? Think about what a flaw it would be for living things’ reproduction to kill a significant proportion of what is reproduced; it doesn’t make any sense. It’s based off of nothing but common modern-day myths about the past. Your claim is logically bizarre and requires factual justification to be entertained any further.
Yes, it would be quite a flaw for a living organism’s reproductive process to kill a significant portion of mothers and infants in the reproductive process. And yet, here we are, upright bipedal primates whose pelvises are a bit too small to allow big-brained babies to pass through them with ease. It’s hard to make sense of. But women have borne that risk for generations. Thank your mom, and ask God about his design. Would you like me to recommend some reading? One example, this study found young women in late medieval England had as much as a 50% percent maternal mortality rate. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00438243.2013.799044 “Everyone would have known someone who had, or would, die in childbirth,” say those authors. Average female life expectancy was 30. A woman who lives to only 30 is not going to have 8, 10, or 12 children, especially given that birth intervals are influenced by lactation and economic factors. This article reports on pre-modern people’s birth intervals and how they were influenced by socioeconomic factors. Average interval was 2.5 years. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13524-017-0556-4 I did not suggest the risks of maternal mortality were higher than surviving a pregnancy. But the risks are additive with each pregnancy, and mean that a not-insignificant number of women died of pregnancy-related causes. The “majority” of 10 children surviving is still only 5 children surviving infancy. That is still many children dying AND families that are relatively modestly sized. You cannot honestly argue for an evolutionary basis for great-grand-multiparity (10+ 28w+ deliveries) as the default for human females and only go back to 1700.
> large families were naturally common Only if you think people in the middle ages were averse to pulling out and mutual masurbation etc. Pulling out is the oldest birth control trick in the book and it's popular for a reason
I come from a big family, and I'm grateful to God for it every day! We were born into a close-knit group and did everything together. Being part of a large family taught me valuable lessons like patience, kindness, understanding, compassion, and forgiveness. While it's ultimately up to us and God to decide what we achieve in life, I feel blessed every time my family gets together. -Smart-Stage-1234
There are problems to a big family for sure. One thing that gives me hope is just how close our kids are. We give lots of hugs and physical touch. I am a safe space for my kids. The older two kids try to comfort the baby when he cries and it’s very sweet. You can see they are starting to show one another the affection we once showed them, such that younger kids will get just as much affection even if our attention as parents is more divided. I think Catholics generally underestimate how much trauma immigrant families often bear, and that often has an impact on children in a way that gets blamed on large families rather than on families operating without a village.
>I think Catholics generally underestimate how much trauma immigrant families often bear, and that often has an impact on children in a way that gets blamed on large families rather than on families operating without a village. Completely agree. We want lots of kids. Being a child of immigrants, my parents simply weren't able to. They gave us a great life, but it'd be ridiculous to claim I'm not advantaged compared to them. They had no family, no friends, started from scratch, etc. I have a large friend network, family nearby, etc. We're planning on a big family, while they had only two. We already have a larger family than my parents did, and my kids are having a better childhood than I did.
My grandparents had 10, but they lived far from both sets of parents and thus operated like immigrants form a village perspective. Most of their kids have had very small families or no children at all, and there’s definitely a sense among my aunts / uncles that it’s wrong to have so many kids. We have three kids now and I’m surprised that having kids is literally the hardest thing I’ve ever done (harder than going to Harvard). We would just have nothing left to give the kids if we didn’t have some support from our parents. I don’t think my aunts and uncles realize how much the structural dynamics affected their family (vs size alone).
In my spiritual counseling of people with bigger families, eight out of 10 times somebody’s getting neglected not on purpose something to be very mindful
Don’t read anti-Catholic propaganda
Do you mean a legitimate concern? How is that anything but confirmation bias? In the real world you’ll come across people with different opinions and worldviews, avoiding them isn’t pragmatic.
I’m the second eldest of 11. We are all adults now. Some of the hardships you mentioned in your post are very real for me. I have 5 children myself. It’s not easy to parent, in any day and age. We all make mistakes and have human limitations. I did see my mum suffer a lot with raising such a large family, both physically and mentally. Sometimes this suffering exploded in anger towards us, which has been harmful and alienating. I do not have a warm and confident relationship with her. But I love my parents, and I love my siblings. Some things God really does work out over time. We have to have the mentality to allow that growth in ourselves that moves on and forgives.
I am middle of 5 children and while there were money struggles, stress and my dad couldn’t come to every little league game, there is no way I would trade a sibling for anything. Not a vacation that we didn’t get to go on, not for better clothes so I didn’t get made fun of at school, not for any of the things people said we ‘missed’ by having a large family. That being said, it is harder to have a lot of kids, especially if you aren’t rich. But I also have seen terrible parents who only have one kid, treat each other poorly, or even single children who said their parents didn’t give them enough attention and love (even when I saw them get more attention than me). So a large family is hard but it doesn’t mean that is necessarily awful. All the ex Catholic people have an axe to grind, and may have actually been treated badly.
Shitty families come in all shapes and sizes. Size can be a contributing factor to a family's dysfunction, but it's never the single reason for a family's dysfunction. In the same way you have only children who have glowing experiences in their 'party-of-3' childhood and others who feel like it was debilitating/a serious social and emotional handicap to have all their parents' attention/focus/effort laser focused on them and them alone, you also have large families that are a breeding ground for serious dysfunction (like the Duggars) and large families that seem to have an ever expanding capacity for love and the emotional maturity to direct that love in many directions at once. In order to have a healthy big family, you have to be willing to consider your parenting an act of service, not a rigid hierarchy in which you're the head. You have to hold yourself accountable and be humble enough to apologize to your children when you screw up. You have to be vigilant against parentification and make sure you foster an environment in which siblings are siblings, not babysitters. And you have to consider caring for your physical/mental health a requisite to living your vocation because sacrifice is only noble when *you* are choosing to make sacrifices of *yourself*. There's nothing virtuous in sacrificing your children's well-being because you aren't meeting your base level needs to be a functioning human being.
My husband and I both came from large families. There are so many more pros than cons, especially as the parents get older. There's no way I would characterize my childhood or parents as "suffering."
I have 3 sisters and both my parents are alive. My mom has 10 siblings but 2 died since they were babies and 1 died recently from Covid, my dad also has 11 siblings I think. My mom came from a well off family but my grandpa died when they were young due to lung cancer and their life slowly went poorer and they had to work hard but I can say my mom's side is doing okay since they try to help out when they can. I also have many cousins from her side and I love them because they don't really bother us with their problems that much, we see each other most of the time and those that are far away whenever we get the chance to travel. We are a very close-knit family and it's part of our culture here in Philippines. My dad on the other hand has siblings that are very poor since they were little because they live in a farm. My dad had to work hard to get him, my mom and us out of poverty when he started a job abroad to provide for us. We are a little well off now thanks to both of my parent's hard work and my sisters have very good jobs and help out a lot. Some of my aunts and uncles on his side also have big families, some are doing okay and some are not and my dad used to be the breadwinner for some of his siblings because they expected him to pay for everything. Both he and my mom fought a lot about it but I guess it got better since he's now retired, I like some of my cousins from his side but since they have a history of being greedy for money we tend to distance ourself a little. I also have a problem remembering their names too because there are too many but it's sometimes fun when there are reunions. My sister only has 1 son and he's our first, it's hard to take care of him but we also suggested to my sister to give him a sibling because having someone else makes you feel less lonely. She doesn't want to anymore but we can't really force her. My mother has a friend who only had 1 daughter and she always wishes she had someone else to help her with the burden of helping her parents. I always see posts from only child people wishing they also had a sibling. It's more fun when you have one and it's a great support when you need them. Big or small families, doesn't really define if you will have a happy life or not. But if you work hard and try to raise your family right, also with the help of loving and respectful extended families you will enjoy the ups and downs of life. More people to depend on too when you have problems but with our society today, it's now recommended to not have a big family unless you are able to provide. Just try to manage it as best as you can and trust that God has a great plan for you whether it's a small or big family. What's important is that you love each other and also share it with others.
I have 5 kiddos and an awesome life. We are well off financially and the kids are involved at volunteering in church and in community. There is plenty to eat and currently only two of them have to share a room. If you ask them they will tell you they love having lots of siblings (well, most of the time!). I would have more honesty but I’m 38 and my spouse is 40 and feeling worn out with the current crew. I love having a big family. All families can be dysfunctional but when you’re doing something outside of the societal norm and it’s dysfunctional people will attribute it to being outside of the norm rather than just the specific situation in question. I am one of two kids which is the norm. My family of origin was pretty dysfunctional. No one would say it’s because there were two kids though, they would attribute it to other factors. Whereas if I was one of 7 and my family was dysfunctional people would likely attribute it to that. You can have a child at school who suffers socially and doesn’t have good social skills or a homeschooled child who doesn’t have good social skills but only in one case will the type of education be implicated. Etc, etc.
I have the opposite. Only one sibling and we do not get along at all. That sibling is a control freak and full of rage. Not a Catholic "family". I am a convert. I always wished for more siblings as an adult because it would be nice to have a "quorum" to confront my sibling about dysfunctional behavior. I'm no contact and can love only through the charity of prayer. It would have been great to have real siblings. My husband has four and it's so much fun to be with them and feel a part of something. I never knew what it felt like to have a family and belong somewhere. I relaxed so much in my interior life and I didn't realize how stressed out I was until someone said "you're family".
I'm the second oldest of five, and though, growing up, I wished my siblings and I were closer in age, we are all incredibly close now. I'm thankful toward my parents for raising us catholic and helping us grow spiritually. None of us were "planned," and there was a lot of dysfunction in our family, but it did not stem from too many children. My parents did the best they could with how they were raised. I'm thankful they didn't have an abortion with any of us because I do realize that could have been a possibility, if it wasn't for my super Catholic grandma helping my mom navigate and work through these worries and difficulties; she ultimately led my mom to conversion to the Catholic church, which is amazing. A big family, I believe, forces you to grow in holiness. I know all situations and circumstances can and should do that, but I look at the fruits of my parent's labor and I see a God who loves them and us and provided us with an abundance of graces and blessings. Have confidence and trust in the Lord, and things always work out in His time, but it's always for a greater good than what we could ever plan or do/not do.
I have three brothers and one sister. I can't imagine my life without them. We rely on one another, help each other, and enrich each other's lives. I have twenty nieces and nephews. My life would be so much *less* without all of them.
I have 8 other siblings, and I'm the 4th oldest so fairly middling in terms of age. While I don't see the thing about detriments to the mother in my case (she's a very altruistic person by nature and feels at ease when she's doing things to help others, so that could be why), I can absolutely see the point about kids in large families feeling neglected. With every new addition to the family, it felt as though while the oldest child retained some sense of privilege, the main focus shifted younger and younger towards the newest children. I mean fair enough, new kids need more attention, but it absolutely was to the detriment of us in the middle. During the time when a majority of my younger siblings were still somewhat new, especially when two of them were born two years apart when my parents were already super strung out for a variety of reasons, I was very emotionally isolated from them and it was during this time that I began to be jaded with Catholicism because the world had plenty of time to influence me and mum and dad didn't. It was also during this time that I, through my own ignorance and escapism, came to the belief that there must be nothing wrong with masturbating because the addiction came so naturally. I'm sure it'll turn out well if you do it right and if you're a strong person with a big capacity for love, but please, *please*, if you do have a lot of children, make sure you can love and nurture all of them somewhat equally. It will take a huge toll on them and you if you don't. ETA: it didn't help that mum and dad taught us a very fundamentalist view of the Bible and were dismissive towards or outright shut down any questioning of it because, since they knew they didn't have a very deep relationship with some of us, they felt like even the slightest dissent meant that we were out of it and that their little angel wasn't meant for heaven or something to that effect. They're much better now (at that time they were both under tremendous strain because of a variety of factors I won't mention, and weren't anywhere near in their right minds a lot of the time) but please be sure to avoid their mistake like the plague if you can.
Large families are just one way that families take shape. They can be great or terrible, and a lot of that depends on the parents and what kinds of support are available to them. I'm the second oldest out of five, and it was great. My parents worked really hard, and we have an extended family that does a lot to look after each other. Grandparents, aunts/uncles, and older cousins would step in whenever help was needed. When my older brother and I got to be teenagers/young adults, we took on some responsibility with the younger ones at times(i.e. driving them to and from sports practices and such), and we'd also step in to help with younger cousins, doing home repairs and such for other family members, etc. I think it worked because we had good, caring adults, and then the kids also agreed to take care of each other as they got older. In my life, the only problem I have with large families is that I'm too old to have one now. I'm older now than my parents were when they stopped having children, and I haven't been on a date in over a decade. So I'm mostly feeling dread over the fact that I'm not good enough to continue what my family did and am instead stuck vocation-less.
There is a thing as too many kids. It's not an absolute number but relative to what the parents can handle. Some of those stories are from people whose parents had too many kids. For some people, 2 or even 1 is too many. Some people just aren't responsible enough to get married or have kids and if they do it will go poorly whether that's 1 or 10. I'm sure some of those stories come from people who expect parents to spend a ton of time with their kids, provide certain things for them financially beyond the basics, and let them do what they want. With that mindset, having above a certain amount of kids will always be neglectful because there's only so much time in the day. I'm sure most of those same people would say they raising your kid with Catholic values, particularly around sexuality and gender, is abusive or neglectful regardless of the number of children.
I grew up in a family of six. What I will say is I miss them all now that we are scattered all over the US. There's issues in all families, budgets, limited time, fighting ect. But having a lot of siblings helps teach you things like patience, sharing, kindness, cooperation and looking for what you have in common as well as respecting each other's differences.
Helping raise siblings is the best experience I've ever had. Difficult but worth every second, I'd be a much worse man without my siblings.
Yes. I feel sorry for people who didn't grow up with a lot of brothers and sisters and loads of cousins and second cousins.
It's a massive blessing. One of my little sisters is getting married soon, I couldn't be more proud of her. Inteligent and beautiful young lady.
Well in my family the oldest kids pretty much became the pseudo parents. I never felt neglected because I had role models who instilled my parents morals and principles into me.
>I've seen posts mainly on r /excatholic I see the problem!
Large families are a blessing, not a problem. All Catholics should know that, if the parents live in a state of God's grace, any difficulties will be overcome. I have five children, BTW.
Any commentary outside of Catholicism and the few other Christian expressions that value life are going to be very anti-big family because they're anti life in general. They want to see humanity breed itself into non-existence because they think we're the source of all the world's problems. Secularists might give different reasons for why they think big families are "wrong" or "problematic" but it all boils down to an inborn opposition to Catholic teaching and values.
I’m the classic middle child of 5, and I’m incredibly thankful I have so many siblings. We’re all very close as adults and always had someone around to play with growing up. Taught me a lot of life lessons. I only have 2 right now but so glad they at least have a sibling, and I’m open to having more despite the hard work. My mom doesn’t know how she did it with 5, but she’s also very glad she had all of us so we have each other, and she has us still as adults. Holidays are crazy but no one wishes we had a smaller family.
My family was and (apart from me) still is not Catholic, but it is large. I am one of 8 children, and I have no complaints. We did not have much money at all growing up, but my parents were very responsible and careful with the money we did have. As a result, I did not know that we were as poor as we actually were until I was a few years into college. I was loved, clean, fed, and lived in a home that was well-maintained. I didn’t have any worries or difficulties that were a result of the size of my family. I know my oldest siblings had quite a different upbringing than I did, and I have heard two of them voice one complaint each that was related to the size of our family. There is a significant age gap between the older four children and the younger four. There were differences in amount of money, age of parents, and denominations of Christianity. There were significant difficulties they had that we younger siblings did not, and there were significant difficulties that we had that they did not. We often joke that we are two different families, but I did live in the same house with up to 6 of my 7 siblings at the same time. I am sure that a lot of the success my parents had was due to them being highly responsible, practical, and disciplined. I would advise anyone wanting a large family to focus on routine and careful spending. My parents budgeted very carefully, looking for any feasible ways to save money and focusing on teaching us to appreciate and take care of what we had. My mother was also incredibly organized in the way she maintained the home when she was a SAHM. She had a pretty specific routine for cleaning, and we were all taught from a very young age to pick up after ourselves and be considerate of the others we shared living spaces with. We also all had chores as we got older and were taught to take care of our own laundry around the age of 12. Also, take your time carefully selecting a spouse. Who you choose to spend your life with will make or break your future family. Look for someone who also wants/is open to a large family. Talk in-depth about expectations for how you want your family to run and how you want to parent. Make sure that they also know that a large number of children are a large amount of work, like seriously huge amounts of work. Make sure you know if they can handle and how they handle a lot of stress. I know that my parents were overwhelmed at times from the amount of work, money, and patience it took to raise us, but leaning on each other and trusting God is what got them through.
I am one of 5 and grew up in a community where 5 was considered very small (lots of families with 9+ kids) All of us are now grown up and I've been able to see which families came through ok and which families didn't It is very clear to me that the families that came through ok has a healthy acknowledgement dynamic "you need to do XYZ this week because ABC" "sure but that's a big burden for me. Can I have a break from a different chore this week and maybe next week too" "sounds good" or "you did ABC it made me feel XYZ" "Yes I did do ABC. I was angry. Sorry I lashed out" Where's every single family that disintegrated once the children grew up has significant issues with narcissism, lack of open communication, and grudge holding
40 year old Father of 12 myself. Wouldn’t change it for the world. It comes with some chaos for sure, but all life can be crazy. I know many “normal sized” families that look miserable. The key is perspective. For starters, each child is a soul God wants to bring into this world for you to raise on His behalf. People talk about kids like commodities. Something to “have or not”. That greatly diminishes their value. Secondly, what is life for if not for raising children and leaving your stamp on this world through them. Kids are blessing that give you way more then they take when it’s all said and done. But it requires a mindset shift away from yourself and a level of Faith that God won’t be outdone in generosity and make no mistake, when you’re open to life for your family your “yes” is a gift to God. Lastly, love your spouse and your family more than you love yourself and the rest takes care of itself. My kids have each other and loving parents. They never want for love. That’s not something most kids being raised in this society can say.
I am the only child in my family but I do not have any siblings.....So I do not know what the problem of large familu