Family Size

[jusduckymom]

I am the middle of 3 girls. I have a sister 2 years older (literally she got me for her birthday, I don’t think she was thrilled!) and a sister 8 years younger, born when my parents were in their mid 40’s. Truly, my sisters are the best gifts my parents every gave me. My mom was an only child. My father the oldest of 4 boys. I have 10 cousins, all of whom I am close to…another great gift from my folks. My older sister has 3 children, my younger 1 living and my niece (now being loved and adored by my parents, who are with her in Heaven) who was stillborn. None of the cuz’s including my 2 are married…although they are all in their 20’s, they are all very close. One niece is getting married in Sept.
My ex was one of 7, with a brother who died shortly after birth. All of his sibs are married except 1. My children have 12 cousins ranging in age from 31 to 4. They have 6 second cousins…age 6 and under. I have remained very close to my ex’s sibs so my son and daughter are close with their cousins…my gift to them!

 

[EarthSoujourner]

I am an only child. I currently am unmarried and have no children. My mom is 1st of 4 and my dad 1st of 2 (he has an older half-sister, but they didn’t grow up together). I have only 6 first cousins.3 of my 4 grandparents came from larger families: my maternal grandma is 1st of 8, maternal grandpa was 8th of 9, and my paternal grandma was 7th of 9. Mom’s great aunt and great uncle (Mom’s father’s brother) had 13 children. My paternal grandpa was 5th of 5. I haven’t counted all the cousins, but considering only 2 of the 31 children in all four families died before reaching adulthood, I’m sure there are dozens.

One effect I see of larger families from back then were how spread out children were: my great-grandmother had two granddaughters older than her youngest child!

All this is to say I would love to have a big family, however, as it is unlikely I’ll be married before 30, it’s probably not in the cards.

 

[Sierrah]

Not married yet but plan to adopt at least 1 or 2 if the Lord wills it. Now is not a good time as I’m too busy. If I did get married in the next couple years I’d take as many as GOD chose to grant me which wouldn’t be too many as I’m bordering 40. I think 2 or 3 is a nice number and having siblings is important. I wouldn’t want a child to miss out on that.

 

[JKS]

I’m 3rd of 5, DH is 2nd of 3. Both my parents and my MIL are from families of 3 boys, 4 girls. FIL is one of 3 boys. When we married, I wanted 4, DH said 2, so we compromised at 3. Had the yard sale, gave away the clothes, and two miscarriages and four years later, I was pregnant with #4.

Child #4 was (and still is) such a beautiful sweet gift that we realized that since our plan didn’t involve Annie, it was a really dumb plan. Soon after our fifth child was born (and 11 yrs of marriage) we heard our first sermon against ABC and said “It’s still a sin, AND IT’S NOT WORKING. How dumb is that?” Now I’m 44 and #8 is almost a year and a half, so if we’re going to have any more, I guess we’d better start soon because I hear this fertility stuff stops eventually!

One of my dad’s sisters had 9, but other than my sister and a few cousins with four each, no one else has more than 3 (with stepkids, my youngest brother has 5 though). They all used to think we were nuts, but it’s hard to tell us we shouldn’t have had so many kids when they would then have to tell us which one we should have done without! And they’re darn cute, too.

 

[MomaMary8]

I’m 3rd of 5, DH is 2nd of 3. Both my parents and my MIL are from families of 3 boys, 4 girls. FIL is one of 3 boys. When we married, I wanted 4, DH said 2, so we compromised at 3. Had the yard sale, gave away the clothes, and two miscarriages and four years later, I was pregnant with #4.

Child #4 was (and still is) such a beautiful sweet gift that we realized that since our plan didn’t involve Annie, it was a really dumb plan. Soon after our fifth child was born (and 11 yrs of marriage) we heard our first sermon against ABC and said “It’s still a sin, AND IT’S NOT WORKING. How dumb is that?” Now I’m 44 and #8 is almost a year and a half, so if we’re going to have any more, I guess we’d better start soon because I hear this fertility stuff stops eventually!

One of my dad’s sisters had 9, but other than my sister and a few cousins with four each, no one else has more than 3 (with stepkids, my youngest brother has 5 though). They all used to think we were nuts, but it’s hard to tell us we shouldn’t have had so many kids when they would then have to tell us which one we should have done without! And they’re darn cute, too.

Best response yet!!

I love the “dumb plan” comment

I have 8 on earth (one in heaven - miscarriage), 4 of whom were born after I turned 30. I keep hearing my fertility will end sometime…I’m 38 so I better hurry if I want to get to that nice even dozen. Think how easy it would be to split a dozen donuts??!

 

[RWMorris]

DH and I are both oldest of two children. I wish I’d had more siblings.
We decided when we got married to take what we could have, and promptly had four children, three boys and a girl. At the time, we were not Catholic. After our youngest child’s birth, which was very unpleasant, I decided to get my tubes tied. BIG mistake. I have regretted it ever since. I wish I would have had more encouragement from my extended family to not have the procedure done, but they were all like, “You have enough children, don’t you want to give them the best of everything?” type of stuff.
I wish we’d had lots more children. Turned out we loved every minute of parenting, even the difficult times, and we could have easily incorporated more children into our family.