How many members are necessary for you to consider a family large?

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I took this idea from another person…i know we all come from different backgrounds, and i’m curious what you all think. 🙂
 
I have 5 brothers and 2 sisters. I like having a large family, I couldn’t see having a smaller family. My dad had 11 brothers and sisters. I think that is a large family.
I also have 56 first cousins that becomes a huge family. 49 of those are from my dads side. I have not met anyone with a family that large.

I would say 5 brothers and sisters constitutes a large family. If you include first cousins, I would say 30 is large.
 
As many as the branches of a tree, stars of the Sky, grains of sand on the beaches…

Seriously, I think 7 or more. We hope to have more.
 
I am the oldest of five and we consider ourselves “mid sized”. I think more than six (children) is probably large. I have aunts with 7 and 9 and had neighbors growing up with 12 and 14. My husband thinks more than 2 is large. 😦
 
We have 5 children and everyone else seems to be so astonished by this. I don’t see us as a large family at all. Both my parents came from families with 4 children and back then (40’s & 50’s) it was so normal. I came from 3 and my husband 4, so I never thought 5 was so many, but society has deemed it that way. You should see (outside of church) the dirty looks we can get when out in public! Personally, I would agree that more than six would be a large family. However, society has put a different spin on this matter.
 
More than three would be large to me. My mom only had two in her family and my father, the Catholic one, was an only child. I have only one cousin. My husband and I have two children.

I wish I came from a larger family, but we were warm and loving even if we were very small. I don’t want any more children at my age, but if I had started younger, I would have one or two more. I love kids.

I can’t believe people give large families dirty looks. Maybe it is because you are very noisy. I could imagine that five kids could be. My two can be plenty noisy.
 
I am one of six, and we were one of the smaller families in the parish, 8 or 9 was the norm, over 10 was considered larger than average.
 
I was the oldest of 7, there is 22 years between me and the youngest. I, myself have only 3, I would have love to have more but unable to. In today’s world people seem to think more than two is to much. I don’t think so.
 
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jimmy:
I have 5 brothers and 2 sisters. I like having a large family, I couldn’t see having a smaller family.
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I grew up in the reverse- there were 5 girls and 2 boys. Actually since you weren’t counting yourself, you actually have one more sibling. However, when I was having children it did influence me to have at least a medium size family. I know how much fun we have had over the years being a large family. We are now ranging from 47 to 62 and we are all very close and I can’t imagine not having all of them. I ended up with 4 children and they are happy to have each other. It is a comfort in many circumstances. I don’t consider 4 a large family, my children do.
 
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. (or beer holder) I have 4 children. My wife is one of 6 siblings and I am one of 8 siblings. My in-laws think 4 was waaaaaaaaaaaay too much, whereas my family think 4 is nice, more would be better. I wish I had more, but that is something we (my wife and myself) continue to pray about. I have been to family retreats where the average family size is 8-9 children. We actually brought the average down when we attended the retreat. Pretty cool to see fathers my age with 14 kids. He has more free time with 14 kids than I have with 4. God is great.
 
For me, 5 or more is big. I must say…i do remember people saying to my mom that she had a big family, with the 4 of us kids. i’m always kind of surprised when people think 4 is big.

my fiance and i hope to have at least 4. we both have 3 siblings.
 
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Niece:
We have 5 children and everyone else seems to be so astonished by this. I don’t see us as a large family at all. Both my parents came from families with 4 children and back then (40’s & 50’s) it was so normal. I came from 3 and my husband 4, so I never thought 5 was so many, but society has deemed it that way. You should see (outside of church) the dirty looks we can get when out in public! Personally, I would agree that more than six would be a large family. However, society has put a different spin on this matter.
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Yeh I see what your saying. I have a brother who has four children and when his wife was pregnant with the 4th people would give her dirty looks, like “haven’t you had enough?”
 
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kaymart:
I was the oldest of 7, there is 22 years between me and the youngest. I, myself have only 3, I would have love to have more but unable to. In today’s world people seem to think more than two is to much. I don’t think so.
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Thats about the difference between the oldest and youngest in my dads family. My dad is 21 years older than his sister. It would feel weird graduating college when your sister is born.

I forgot this but I am 5th out of the 8 in my family. The oldest is 34 youngest is 18.
 
Both of my parents are from families of seven children, and I have 29 first cousins. I guess that’s large, but since I’m one of the youngest cousins (both of my parents are the second-youngest in their families), I’m used to it.

I’m an only child (and yes, my parents tried for years to have another one, no luck), but seven kids doesn’t seem absurdly large to me. It’s large by today’s standards, but I figure if all of my grandparents could raise such families on one income and little education, my husband and I could certainly manage with our college degrees. We already have a house and very little debt, so we’re starting out better than our parents did.

My husband is a bit scared by the idea of more than three kids- but I figure I have plenty of time to work on him (God willing that we will be able to have children at all). At least he’s open to the idea. Our neighbors across the street are having their second, and the husband refuses to consider a third. 😦
 
In my mind, anyone with more then 4 children has a large family.
 
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