Large Families

[homeschoolmom]

[quote name='Azriel' post='1784344' date='Feb 18 2009, 09:39 AM']Ponder the flip side for those of us who only have one child, or are an only child and wonder why you as a good Catholic mom only have one child. People will ALWAYS find ways to judge other people without being in their particular position. I should not have to explain to anyone why I have only one child. Its between myself, my husband and God.[/quote]

[Archaeology cat]

[quote name='Socrates' post='1784029' date='Feb 18 2009, 02:51 AM']It's not about size; it's about the family doing things together as a family. While there may not be as much individual parental one-on-one, older siblings help raise the younger, and there seems to be a lot of connection between family members.
A lot of these families seem closer than a lot of families with 1.5 kids.[/quote]
Very much agreed.

[quote name='picchick' post='1784463' date='Feb 18 2009, 05:32 PM']Also as far as the close knit thing goes. I agree with Socs on this one. It is not the size that matters. It is what you do together that does. Furthermore, sibilings will be closer to some rather than others. That is just how it goes. But a family that prays and plays together stays together. You could have one or two kids and take them to the park, take them places, play games, watch videos and be very tight knit and close. You could have a large family that does the same thing. And then you could have the complete opposite.[/quote]
Yep. In any size family some will naturally be closer to some than others. For example, I'm the youngest of three, and have always been closest to my brother, who is the oldest, even though there's 12.5 years between us. It's just the way it happens.

[tinytherese]

[quote name='Azriel' post='1784344' date='Feb 18 2009, 09:39 AM']Ponder the flip side for those of us who only have one child, or are an only child and wonder why you as a good Catholic mom only have one child. People will ALWAYS find ways to judge other people without being in their particular position. I should not have to explain to anyone why I have only one child. Its between myself, my husband and God.[/quote]

It's ironic because the Holy Family only had one child.

[tinytherese]

[quote name='Deeds' post='1781805' date='Feb 15 2009, 06:34 PM']I was an only child until I was nearly 9. I remember very clearly being around 6 or 7 and thinking that I would never have a sister or brother and feeling very sad. My parents planned to have such a large gap because they thought it would be good to give me lots of attention for those years, but it was no substitute for having siblings around. I have one brother now and we're very privileged materially, but I've always felt drawn to the idea of having a large family myself.

[url="http://www.conversiondiary.com/search/label/Family%20Size?max-results=200"]This blog[/url] contains some very interesting posts about openness to life and societal expectations of family size.[/quote]

There are considerable age gaps between my brothers and I. My half brother from my first dad's disaster, that was originally called a marriage that got annuled, is ten years older than me. He visited my dad, mom, and I a lot when I was a baby and toddler but after that he only came around for special occasions or for a few random visits a year. He lived with his mom and step dad in another town and his mom and my dad were on (and unfortunatley still are on) really bad terms. Their divorce was very bitter and his mom lied to my brother about my dad in an attempt to turn him away from him. My brother is commitment phobic because of this and the behavior problems that he had growing up might have been influenced by the very bitter divorce as well. He was just a baby when they split.

During some of my childhood I didn't understand what a half sibling was and didn't understand or know about really the situation about my dad's first marriage. I mistakingly thought that he was my step brother but my mom explained it to me when I was eight. So I technically had a brother but didn't see him much and thought of myself as only child. My brother was (and still is to a certain extent) a stranger to me. He lived somewhat closeby when he went to community college and then when he was at the police academy and at his job in another town of my state but he wasn't as interested in visiting us (except for when our little brother was a baby.) He's now in another state far away back in school getting his bachelors and might go onto law school.

Last Christmas Eve, he and I had a breakthrew. Before on his visits he and I didn't have much of anything to talk about but that night he kept complimenting me, telling me that I was beautiful, and actually took an interest in me. He seemed to want to make up for all of the time that he wasn't around when I was growing up.

Other than the decade between my older half-brother and I, there's also the miscarried baby that died inside of my mom when I was eleven. I really was heart-broken when that happened. What was even worse was that that baby's due date was on Christmas, so that was a really bad Christmas for me because no baby was coming. I had really looked forward to not being the only kid around. I might have wanted that baby more than my parents did. I hated being basically an only child. My difficulty in making and keeping friends and the scarce amount of cousins that I had didn't help. I named that miscarried baby Nicholas and the middle name that I gave him was Theodore because it means gift from God which is what he is even though I never met him.

Then at thirteen my little brother was born. Years ago my mom joked about the age gap of us kids--24, 14, and 14 months. That kind of age gap in siblings has its pluses and minus but if I ever have kids I would preferably have them be closer together. I would have liked to have actually grow up with my little brother instead of almost being old enough to be his mother (which on more than one occasion I have been asked if I was) and for the situation with my older brother to run smoother.

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote name='CatherineM' post='1781979' date='Feb 15 2009, 09:12 PM']My husband has 50 first cousins. He doesn't even attempt to know or remember all their names, let alone their spouses or children. One of the questions that Immigration asks is for you to name your spouse's siblings and cousins. It's a way of proving the relationship is real, and not just so you can immigrate. I told the officer that my husband didn't know all of them, so there was no way I was even going to try.[/quote]

yeah this is what i was talking about.
it's just not possible at a certain stage of the familys growth, to maintain anything meaningful, wth ever typcally thought relative ie, cousin uncle aunt bro sis perhaps cousins kid etc.
as i mentioned in that last post of mine.

[kavalamyself]

I come from a family of eight. Very cool.

[hoosieranna]

[quote name='Era Might' post='1784987' date='Feb 18 2009, 09:17 PM']You didn't hijack the thread. I just wanted to make clear that I was not trying to judge anyone's personal family situation, just trying to have a general sociological/psychological discussion on large families. It's fine if someone wants to post about their personal experience, I just don't want them to feel like this thread is meant to be a judgment on their specific family. I just meant the thread as a general discussion.[/quote]

I'll attempt to address the original question. I'm a geographer by education and training, with some background in population geography.

Historically, families have been large. What you also have to keep in mind is that infant mortality has been high for most of our history. A female might have seven or eight children, but only three would live to adulthood, and then have more children. With such a large chance of losing a child, parents and children didn't really get close, at least not in the way we now mean it. It wasn't a good or bad thing. It's just the way things were.

Personally, if a couple wants (and CAN support) a large family, more power to them. I feel the same way about small families, which is likely one of the reasons I'm still not Catholic (I know, I know, you're gradually wearing me down...). I have one sister, and we are each very close to our parents, but we weren't smothered. I've known some other families that were a little too close for me. My great-uncle had nine kids, and parties with them usually devolve into a sort of cheerful chaos. It's not bad.

edited for a typo

Edited February 26, 2009 by Nadezhda

[elizabeth09]

Large family is fun to be in. I always hear how many child we have. They told us that they can only have two children. When they grow older, they wish that they had more children then two.

[takebacktonight]

My Mom is one of 11 (well, 13 actually but I'll get to that)..

I can't imagine not having so many aunts and uncles and cousins...it would just be weird...and my mom and all of her siblings (except for one) are close.

That being said, my mom does not have very fond memories of growing up. She was small, quiet and lost in the crowd I think. There wasn't a lot of food or money (she remembers having a glass of chocolate milk as a huge treat) and the girls had to wait on the boys hand and foot. There were definitely favorites of the parents...and she wasn't one.

Then, about 7 years ago...we find out that there were two more full-blooded siblings...twins, that were conceived out of wedlock...but born into it. There was a lot of pressure from people (the Church included) to give them up, and nobody knew.

Chaos is not a strong enough word.

I guess my verdict is: Large, stable, families: cool. Large families with tyrannical mothers and deep dark skeletons in the closet: bad.

[elizabeth09]

So sad.

[princessgianna]

[quote name='takebacktonight' post='1797039' date='Mar 4 2009, 12:06 AM']My Mom is one of 11 (well, 13 actually but I'll get to that)..

I can't imagine not having so many aunts and uncles and cousins...it would just be weird...and my mom and all of her siblings (except for one) are close.

That being said, my mom does not have very fond memories of growing up. She was small, quiet and lost in the crowd I think. There wasn't a lot of food or money (she remembers having a glass of chocolate milk as a huge treat) and the girls had to wait on the boys hand and foot. There were definitely favorites of the parents...and she wasn't one.

Then, about 7 years ago...we find out that there were two more full-blooded siblings...twins, that were conceived out of wedlock...but born into it. There was a lot of pressure from people (the Church included) to give them up, and nobody knew.

Chaos is not a strong enough word.

I guess my verdict is: Large, stable, families: cool. Large families with tyrannical mothers and deep dark skeletons in the closet: bad.[/quote]

Well I can see why you feel the way you do!

I have a great aunt who had to wait on her 7 brothers! That isn't right!

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote]My husband has 50 first cousins. He doesn't even attempt to know or remember all their names, let alone their spouses or children. One of the questions that Immigration asks is for you to name your spouse's siblings and cousins. It's a way of proving the relationship is real, and not just so you can immigrate. I told the officer that my husband didn't know all of them, so there was no way I was even going to try.[/quote]

personally i have well over 100 first cousins. so i'm not just pulling this out of nowhere.
you can rant and rave all ya want about 'if you try, you'll be close', but i'm going to argue it's just posturing, ignorance, or someone just trying to brag about their family unit that isn't the same as an extensively large unit at a later stage of growth i'm talking about. there's no way someone in good judgment can say that they all can be close, it's bound to be superficial even if it's somewhat "close" (whatever that means when it's at the edges of 'close'. in some sneses even this large family is close). aunts and uncles, the counsins kids, their kids, christmass as gma, great gma, mom, (times two for the other side of the family) etc. hundreds of people.
there's no middle ground on this issue, except those who don't know what they are talking about. there's just an inherent line that is drawn.
but, this isn't sayig anything about large families at younger growth, or large but not so massive as this, or that this situation is inhereitly bad, or that effort generally equals meaningful interaction and lackof not, and there's a lot to be said about defining what one means by "close", etc.

Edited March 28, 2009 by dairygirl4u2c

[elizabeth09]

Cool

[thessalonian]

Having grown up in a family of 17 and having 8 kids myself I will say that lots of kids is a trial in many ways. But those trials are a blessing in the end. (There are of course many blessings as well, such as my youngest daughter who always makes me laugh). Large familes I think bring about our sanctification more quickly. As an example, when I first got married to my wife she had 3 kids. We had 1 right away so there were 4. We went to this fair each year and I remember the first year the three boys drove me NUTZ. But as the years went by I found that I had learned patience and they didn't bother me nearly as bad. Had she not had the three boys this metamorphasis would not have taken place as soon. Now I am not always patient but trial brings about virtue. People see trial as a negative. It's not.

[txdinghysailor]

I think that large families are not often good, in some cases they are necessary. For instance, when I get married, I [b]need[/b] to have 7-8 kids.