Big family vs. small

[Sarcelle]

I grew up with this girl who had 7 younger siblings.

She didn’t have time to have a normal childhood. She would be the one who would do laundry, clean the house, cook and babysit while her mother was taking care of the baby.

She told me she didn’t want a large family.

 

[blackforest]

It really depends. I’m happy with three.

But this is a sensitive topic for me. I’m surrounded by many Catholic peers who see each new family member as some sort of virtue-trophy. If, heaven forbid, my children somehow end up traumatized from their childhood, it won’t be due to our family’s smaller size.

I ask because I heard from a psychologist that a couple cannot raise say 10 kids on their own and so often what happens is too much responsibility is put on the older kids and/or some kids get lost or forgotten and that sometimes it can cause resentment or other issues for people psychologically. I was wondering other perspectives

Now I’m going to speak in defense of large families. I think the psychologist may be a wee bit ethno-centric.

I have no doubt that raising large families is extremely difficult in OUR culture, (I’m in the U.S.) because families live in isolation, and larger families face stigma for their size. But in most of the world, large families have a community of aunties, uncles, grand-parents, and villagers assisting in the child-rearing. Kids don’t get “lost” or “forgotten.” They grow up with people who love them all the while not being overly doted upon.

 

[blackforest]

This was my sister. My mom became a widow at a young age, and a lot got dumped on my sister, the eldest. After my mom remarried, my sister became super immature, almost as if to make up for a lost childhood. My oldest is also a girl, so I try really hard to give the younger siblings an equal share of responsibilities.

Family roles sort of develop quietly under our noses, and it’s OK to question them or “shake them up” sometimes. If my daughter could set the table at age 7, so can her little brother.

 

[rosejmj]

Nothing wrong with wanting help, but it’s not a great idea to expect your older kids to help with the younger ones. It’s nice if they do butit can be a lot of responsibility for a young adolescent and that isn’t their job or their duty to their parents.

Some kids need more attention and parental involvement is very important and crucial to a child’s emotional and psychological development.

 

[PetraG]

I ask because I heard from a psychologist that a couple cannot raise say 10 kids on their own and so often what happens is too much responsibility is put on the older kids and/or some kids get lost or forgotten and that sometimes it can cause resentment or other issues for people psychologically. I was wondering other perspectives

I went to a high school with students who came from familes of 10, 12 and even 16. Our family was 8; I thought of 6-8 as averaged-sized and 3-5 as on the small side. Only couples afflicted with infertility had two children or less. It did make a difference that we were in a community with lots of peers from big families and we came from large extended families (that is, our grandparents sometimes had 30-50 grandchildren). We had different expectations of what parental attention should look like.

I would not say it harms children to give them more responsibility than children get now. It is hard when children have more responsibility when parents aren’t at home to supervise. We came from farm families, where the children had lots of responsibilities but the parents didn’t spend a lot of time working away from home.

 

[redbetta]

No one here is suggesting that older siblings should be expected to raise their younger siblings. Being expected to babysit every now and then is not going to damage anyone psychologically. In fact, being gradually introduced to more and more responsibilities as one gets older by taking on more or more complicated roles in the household could make transitioning into adult life easier.

 

[PetraG]

No one here is suggesting that older siblings should be expected to raise their younger siblings. Being expected to babysit every now and then is not going to damage anyone psychologically. In fact, being gradually introduced to more and more responsibilities as one gets older by taking on more or more complicated roles in the household could make transitioning into adult life easier.

Most of the time, children come one at a time and parents can make a prudential decision on whether to avoid another pregnancy at a particular juncture in their marriage. Yes, it would make a difference if one of your oldest has a serious disability or not.

 

[Anicette]

So yea, large families are fun although my ideal would be a large extended family rather than me giving birth to 8 kids.

to have a large extented family it needed to have large families.
I have a large extended family only because my mother has 7 siblings.
But we could not offer the same thing to my children.

I don’t even think my narrow hips allow me to birth even one!

It is largely a myth that the apparent size of the hips conditionned the birth.

Unless an identified physical defect, or a scan during late pregnancy confirmed that the baby cannot go through them, you don’t have to worry…

 

[Anicette]

In fact, being gradually introduced to more and more responsibilities as one gets older by taking on more or more complicated roles in the household could make transitioning into adult life easier.

That was the point of Pope Pius XII!

Of course, an other time in history…

@rosejmj
Of course it is not the duty of the adolescent kids to raise their youngs siblings. Except them to babysit while the parents are outside for eg, is wrong, unless no other choice.

That being said, the youngers generations (such as me) now come to adulthood with less maturity because they had usually never been in charge of anything, whereas in the household, with younger siblings or in workforce.

It doesn’t need a large family for the attention of parents is divided or that one child have is needs go after the second.
I have only 2 children, and often I shave to privildge the need of one over the other. I try to take care of the two at the same time, but it is not easy. At 3 year old, my child is learning that she must stay quiet alone in the room for a few minutes, when her mother is trying to make the baby sleep.

Never easy, but if we can multiply love, we cannot multiply time.

 

[St.Bede]

I’ve just watched the video footage below earlier, and I want to share it with you:

GOD bless all of you! Shalom!

 

[redbetta]

I don’t get how talk of spacing children relates to the point I made.

 

[PetraG]

I don’t get how talk of spacing children relates to the point I made.

I meant it as an addition, not an objection.

If you know your four year old is on the autism spectrum or your 7 year old has an ADHD diagnosis, you don’t make the same assumptions about the benefits of responsibility. The same expectations that usually would benefit a child of typical abilities can easily be a detriment to a child without those abilities or who can naturally be expected to mature much later than his or her peers.

In other words, I meant that is doesn’t need to be and should not be a decision made when you get married and not revisited as you meet the actual children the Lord sends to you. The decision is instead based on how your growing family is doing.

Again: that is an addition to your comments, not an objection to them. On the whole, your comment is in keeping with my experience growing up. We even found that the youngest children in the family were often given care responsibilites over nieces and nephews: the children of their oldest siblings.

 

[Sarcelle]

I think a lot of the older kids are saddled with the responsibility of making sure that their younger siblings behave but in turn have no authority.

The younger siblings know this and often times show defiance and misbehave anyway. Guess who gets punished for their misbehavior? If you guessed the older children, you guessed right.

Of course, not all large families have this dynamic, but it’s a lot more common than you think.

 

[PetraG]

I think a lot of the older kids are saddled with the responsibility of making sure that their younger siblings behave but in turn have no authority.

The younger siblings know this and often times show defiance and misbehave anyway. Guess who gets punished for their misbehavior? If you guessed the older children, you guessed right.

Of course, not all large families have this dynamic, but it’s a lot more common than you think.

That can happen with just two kids; that is the parents being a bit clueless. There is no way of training children to have a sense of responsibility that can’t be ruined with unrealistic expectations. The child has to be set up to succeed, not set up to fail, even if it is an only child learning to be responsible.

 

[redbetta]

I am not saying that there is nothing that can go wrong when older siblings watch their younger ones. I am just defending larger families because the way the OP has been talking about them, it is as if having a large family automatically means children will be neglected and the older siblings will resent their parents and younger siblings. It reminds me so much of the people who react to other’s decisions to homeschool by saying that their kids will never be properly socialized.

The point is is that, when things go wrong in a family, there is not one thing that can be blamed. Having a large family won’t automatically doom your kids. Neither will having a small one. Both can work. I think it is important that couples come up with a game plan with how they would tackle these potential issues. Sure, they cannot account for all variables, but it would help.

 

[Sarcelle]

Yes

You have a good point.

 

[Emeraldlady]

It really depends. I’m happy with three.

But this is a sensitive topic for me. I’m surrounded by many Catholic peers who see each new family member as some sort of virtue-trophy. If, heaven forbid, my children somehow end up traumatized from their childhood, it won’t be due to our family’s smaller size.

That was the particular issue that Pope Francis addressed when he got people hot under the collar years ago. It’s interference from ideologues in a matter that should be very private to a couple. In tribal Africa for example Niger, girls are married off at a very young age and expected to have large families. Children representing a commodity in the culture. The problem is now the large population under 15 presents further social and economic problems. Then of course the opposite end of the scale in China with the one child policy which has devastated the social and economic balance. (How did they not predict this). Of course then some Christians have adopted a ‘quiverful’ attitude and regard family size as equating to the quality of their faith and look down on small families as bad Christians.

We have to resist ideologues trying to put undue pressure on a dynamic that is naturally ordered to the good of the whole of society without unnecessary interference.

 

[PetraG]

I think the question, too, is what is being done instead of having children. When St. Paul said it was better to remain unmarried than to marry, he was assuming a single person entirely devoted to the Gospel, as he was.

 

[JMMJ]

Here are a couple of things I don’t like to hear parents say when they have big families:

1. When they refer to the child by number. As in “#4 is getting old enough to help with chores, now.”
2. When they talk about “training” children. In smaller families, children seem to be mentored and guided. “Training” is something that is done to animals, in my opinion. Yes, it is a matter of semantics. And yet, sometimes (not always), it is also a matter of how children are viewed. It just doesn’t sound very nice, too me.

 

[PetraG]

Here are a couple of things I don’t like to hear parents say when they have big families:

1. When they refer to the child by number. As in “#4 is getting old enough to help with chores, now.”
2. When they talk about “training” children. In smaller families, children seem to be “mentored and guided”. “Training” is something that is done with animals, in my opinion. Yes, it is a matter of semantics. And yet, sometimes (not always), it is also a matter of how children are viewed.

I think the reference to “training” comes from Michael and Debi Pearl’s book, “To Train Up a Child.” The Pearls wrote the book in reference to training children as one would a horse, because although both the small child and the horse are eager to please, neither can really understand what it is they’re trying to learn while they’re learning it. The problem is that people trying to put this theory into use end up using cruelties that no reputable horseman would ever consider using on a horse! Several children have actually been killed and their parents convicted of murder. I don’t know what the Pearls wrote, but a sensible person should know that a person with no experience around horses cannot be taught to train any and every horse that comes their way by reading a book. Likewise, learning how to parent requires that someone be willing to accept the guidance of sensible and compassionate parents who have some experience with the challenges that come up.

Yes, I think that referring to raising children as being “trained” like they were a pet is a huge mistake and likely to lead to disaster. A child cannot be trained like a dog. Good grief, a horse can’t even be trained like a dog. A cat can’t be trained like a dog. A chimpanzee certainly can’t be trained like a dog! People just don’t use the common sense they should have mastered before ever marrying, let alone becoming parents.