I bet unloading grocieries is awesome. My husband used to work on a boat and he says they would have a line of people from the van to the boat just throwing groceries at each other until they were all unloaded. I thought to myself, if only we have enough kids, we can make that happen right here!
The other fellow went buying a TV set.I have to say, it is wonderful to see them help unload groceries! They all come running, and some will carry things from the car, and others will start getting everything put away in cupboards and the freezer.
One benefit I see to a large family is that everybody must work. I don’t think they work as hard as kids of a century ago, by any means, and they have plenty of free time, but I think they work harder than many of their friends and simply expect to pitch in with dishes, laundry, etc. in a way that many kids don’t these days. (I didn’t as a kid. My mother found it easier to complain and do it herself than to teach us that this was right, to help out.)
But of course…I also believe that any size family God gives has its benefits. I really think the key is in being open and accepting, in not setting the number we ‘want,’ as if we’re going to the store to set up our home just the way we always envisioned it.
I am the middle child, with 2 sisters, 9 aunties and 5 great aunties, and several almost aunties cousins.I think it’s dangerous at best to suggest that there is a “one size fits all” ideal for family size. People have more or less kids for revy good and very bad reasons. And some reasons in between.
On a population level, I DO worry about the cultural impacts of the vanishing middle child. Historically, those tend to be the peacemakers, and we’ve largely stopped raising them.
I’m allowed to say this because I was an only child for my first 7 years. I do think there is a significant tendency of parents with only one child to spoil them and turn them into narcissists. Tendency, not guarantee.