Reasons to have a larger family

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Here are some reasons why I choose to have a larger family and not contracept:
  1. My next child could be a genius, a Mozart or a Marie Curie.
  2. I could lose a child by bereavement, illness, separation or estrangement. I might not have a good relationship with every child. Be prepared for the best and the worst.
  3. If you have a large family there are more children to look after you when you are old. If you have a small family the burden of looking after elderly parents is left on a few children.
  4. I won’t live for ever. When I’m dead and gone, my children’s siblings will be more important than me. I’m leaving my children a support network.
  5. My mum always said that some people are given goods and others are given people. You are giving your children family and relationships. If you come from a small family you might suffer from loneliness.
Any comments for and against contraception?
 
for a long time I did not know what to think about contraceptives when I had enough information I decided against using them though I was still living in sin. I wanted any child I might get pregnant with to live.

7 pregnancies and 5 children later I was forced to stop because to get pregnant again meant an extreme high chance of rupture by the fifth month (all my children were c-section) by this time I have decided to live by what God wanted out of me and be obediant to him.

I thought after my first that I couldn’t love my second as much as my first. I thought after my second I couldn’t love my third as much as the first two. when I was pregnant with my fourth I knew I would love her as much as the last three knowing I was done having kids then oops here comes the fifth. I found that a mothers love grows geometricaly:rolleyes:D

My house does not have all the new stuff. Most of the time I struggle to put shoes on thier feet and keep a roof over thier heads so I asked my kids if they thought there were to many kids in our house and it made me laugh through my tears when the answer was "nope, not enough!
 
budgie2 said:
Here are some reasons why I choose to have a larger family and not contracept:
  1. My next child could be a genius, a Mozart or a Marie Curie.
  2. I could lose a child by bereavement, illness, separation or estrangement. I might not have a good relationship with every child. Be prepared for the best and the worst.
  3. If you have a large family there are more children to look after you when you are old. If you have a small family the burden of looking after elderly parents is left on a few children.
  4. I won’t live for ever. When I’m dead and gone, my children’s siblings will be more important than me. I’m leaving my children a support network.
  5. My mum always said that some people are given goods and others are given people. You are giving your children family and relationships. If you come from a small family you might suffer from loneliness.
Any comments for and against contraception?
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All the reasons you posted for having a large family are good. I think as long as we raise them to become good Catholic children, then we will be pleasing to God. We help our community by bringing good people into the world. Of course, there will be those who grow up to be not so pleasing to God, but that’s out of our control. As for contraception, there is no good argument for using it. I remember the “dark” times of my life. Love is not possible when contraception is involved. Furthermore, sex is profaned.
 
budgie2 said:
Here are some reasons why I choose to have a larger family and not contracept:

Any comments for and against contraception?
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First comment: Sometimes not contracepting does not equal large family. And sometimes not contracepting equals a large family but not necessarily visible to us humans on earth. We should try and remember not to succomb to the sin of pride.

Second comment: Sometimes having a larger family is not necessarily a choice in the forefront…but acceptance of God’s Will…which is just as worthy as those who willingly go forward to have a large family.

Finally, The blessings of removing contraception from my marriage 8 years ago are enormous…not just in the four children we have, but in the way DH and I share our marriage with God as an equal part. I believe Archbishop Fulton Sheen wrote a book called “Marriage Takes Three” (or something like that…). I haven’t had the pleasure of reading it yet…but I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment of the title.
 
budgie2 said:
Any comments for and against contraception?
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Not for or against contraception, but as a woman who does not have a choice as to whether or not to have more children (I have only one) your post hits at my many fears about my small family.

My son will not have any brothers or sisters, but he has cousins and aunts and uncles who adore him, and I pray they will always be close. It weighs on my mind that the burden of coping with my husband’s and/or my own old age, death and funeral may fall mainly on my son’s shoulders. I suppose I can only hope that he is married or can rely heavily on his extended family and friends when the time comes.

As for losing him “by bereavement, illness, separation or estrangement,” I do not have any control over the first two, but I can take actions to prevent him from distancing himself from us by honoring and accepting him as an individual and teaching him to value, love and honor his mother and father.

Finally, by raising my son in the Catholic church I am giving him the framework for building his relationships with God and the Church which will protect him, nurture him, and love him all the days of his life - and beyond.
 
That was a beautiful post. I am not of the mindset that bigger families are better. Each family is a blessing no matter the size, and there are pros and cons to both larger and smaller families.
 
if my house is a mess, people will cut me some slack “she’s got 8 kids, whadya expect? give her a break”
if I am a little porky, people will say “hey she had 8 babies, whadya expect? give her a break”
I don’t need to go out to work at a day job to prove myself, people just assume I am already working hard enough if I am taking care of 8 kids, one or two, they think you are a slacker or parasite if you are not bringing home a paycheck

I don’t have to round up more kids for a brownie troop or cub scout pack, or neighborhood sandlot team, we got everybody we need for most fun activities.

the big ones take care of the little ones, and the middle ones take care of themselves. I take care of me, the baby, and my husband. If I only have 2-3 kids I am supposed to take care of everybody 24/7

economic sense too. the per person cost of everything drops the more kids I have. divide a 2000 sf house among 4 people, each needs 500 sf, so you assign 1/4 of the total housing cost to each person. With 8 people, it is 250 sf, and 1/8 the housing cost per head, and so forth. My parent’s generation raised families of 6-8 kids in 600 sf homes in the years right after WW2. The family of 4 buys a van for 40M, 10M per person, plus 1/4 of the cost to insure and drive it. for a family of 8 who fit in the same van, the cost is correspondingly lower per person.
 
I think this is great to say that you love the blessing of a big family. For some of us though, we also feel blessed because of our small family and that is what we chose to have. I know you are not knocking small families. I believe that you are just counting your blessings for the big family you do have. I want to point out though that some people can’t have children. I don’t believe that their happiness and joy cannot be together as husband and wife. I couldn’t imagine my life without the two I have but I also wouldn’t want to add one more either. As far as losing one to bereavement, illness or etc. There was only my brother and I growing up. My brother died at 26. I can tell you now that it wouldn’t have mattered if my mom would have had 20 more kids, it would not have took the place or loss of her losing that one child. I cannot replace him either or be a substitute for that loss. I think you would have to have such loss in your family to understand. I agree with you about it making it easier on taking care of your parents when they get older. I will say though that my mom has four siblings and when my grandparents passed away, most didn’t help at all and so I (the grandchild) ended up doing alot of the helping. It was just us 4 in the house growing up, my parents and my brother. I NEVER wanted anymore siblings. I loved my brother and he is all I wanted. I think if there had been more it would just have took away from us being so close, something that now that he is gone, I miss terribly. I think the matter of family size, depends on the individuals as a family and one size doesn’t fit all, we all have different things in mind of what makes a family. Of course God will chose to give us what he wants and I think if that is 0 or 50, we will be happy with that. Great post though. Sounds like you have many blessings.
 
What does having a large family have to do with contraception? Nothing. And frankly, the reasons you gave are not good ones (to me.)

1.) Or your child could be severely disabled or the next Adolf Hitler.

2.) Another child does not replace the one who is lost or make the grief any less. Sometimes living children may become resentful of the dead one if the parents spend more time grieving the lost child than interacting with the live ones.

3.) Or more children to neglect when you are old. Having a large family does not guarantee that somebody will look after you and frankly I do not find the idea of having somebody to look after you when you are old a valid one. What often happens in large families when mom and dad gets old is one or two siblings do the brunt of the work and end up getting resentful of the others. I see it all the time.

4.) Siblings can have falling outs, especially if what I posted in number 3 happens. Siblings are not the only support network out there, and once they are grown your children may not live close to each other.

5.) Children in large families can also suffer from loneliness, particularly middle children. It is not uncommon for children to feel like they are the oddball in the family, a disappointment, that the parents have one “golden child” ,etc.

I am an only child and resent the implication that my family is not as good as yours because of it. I could address any one of your points:

1.) I am highly intelligent. I am not trying to sound conceited, it is simply a fact. I skipped high school and started college when I was 15. I have already been published multiple times in poetry publications and Chicken Soup for the Soul and will hopefully soon be publishing my own novel. My parents got this with one child.

2.) A brother or sister would not have lessened my parents’ grief over losing me, nor would I have lessened their grief over losing another child.

3.) I have already told my parents that I will never put them in a nursing home, they will move in with me and I will take care of them. Again, they have this with one child.

4.) I have a wonderful support network of cousins and friends from around the world. I have been blessed with many unique experiences that have allowed me to make friends with people from a variety of countries, cultures, and walks of life. I have never felt that I am missing out on support, nor would having siblings guarantee me a support network.

5.) I have never felt lonely because I was an only child. I think being an only child has given me a closer relationship with my parents than most. I have been able to talk to them about anything. They have been there to love and support me. I have been involved in enoguh after school activities and made enough friends that loneliness was never an issue for me.

None of this has anything to do with contraception, that is an entirely different discussion. Nobody is saying that a small family is only achievable through the use of contraceptoin, or that all families fail to use it. The Cathoic Church does not say that we must have large families, only that we must be open to it and has no problem with people using NFP, a method designed to help control the number of children a couple has.
 
puzzleannie said:
if my house is a mess, people will cut me some slack “she’s got 8 kids, whadya expect? give her a break” or they may say that she has 8 kids who can help pick up and clean and is home all day, she is obviously not teaching them responsibility (I am not saying that is what I think, but I certainly would not think that just because a person has 8 kids they can’t keep a clean house)
if I am a little porky, people will say “hey she had 8 babies, whadya expect? give her a break” Or they will still be judgmental and not care why you are overweight, just that you are.
I don’t need to go out to work at a day job to prove myself, people just assume I am already working hard enough if I am taking care of 8 kids, one or two, they think you are a slacker or parasite if you are not bringing home a paycheck ** I have never heard anybody say that a stay at home mom to one or two is a slacker or a parasite and frankly your statement is very offensive and shows a lack of respect for women with smaller families. I will continue to work no matter how many kids I have because I love my job and know that there are not enough people out there willing to do my job. It is perfectly possible for a woman to be a good mother and wife and still work outside the home, just as it is perfectly possible for a woman to be a stay at home wife/mother with one, two, or no kids.**

I don’t have to round up more kids for a brownie troop or cub scout pack, or neighborhood sandlot team, we got everybody we need for most fun activities.I grew up with no siblings and had just as much fun with my parents as kids from large families. I also think that kids need to socialize (brownie troop, scout packs, etc.) with people outside of their families to be well rounded individuals. Kids should also be allowed to puruse what interests them, which will be different for every child.

the big ones take care of the little ones, and the middle ones take care of themselves. I take care of me, the baby, and my husband. If I only have 2-3 kids I am supposed to take care of everybody 24/7 This makes it seem like you are not raising your children. I hope I am reading this wrong. This kind of mindset is what leads to “middle child syndrome”. I teach special ed and had a case of a student who in kindergarten was raising her little brother because her parents couldn’t be bothered. She was more mom than sister. I’m not saying that is what is happening in your family, but seeing what my students went through I find statements like these very scary. Not to mention that older children can become resentful of younger children.

economic sense too. the per person cost of everything drops the more kids I have. divide a 2000 sf house among 4 people, each needs 500 sf, so you assign 1/4 of the total housing cost to each person. With 8 people, it is 250 sf, and 1/8 the housing cost per head, and so forth. My parent’s generation raised families of 6-8 kids in 600 sf homes in the years right after WW2. The family of 4 buys a van for 40M, 10M per person, plus 1/4 of the cost to insure and drive it. for a family of 8 who fit in the same van, the cost is correspondingly lower per person. But the majority of your children are not of age to contribute financially to your household. Sure, the per person cost of everything goes down ,but your cost of living goes up exponentially. A family with one child can easily get by with a small sedan, a two bedroom house, etc. Just because the cost per person goes down does not mean that there is more money coming into the household or that it makes it easier to feed and clothe everybody, often the opposite happens. at the formulas used for free and reduced lunch, a lot of them are based on the number of children for this reason.
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I also do not agree with this post. (see bolded)

A large family is a beautiful thing, but it is certainly not for everybody. Many parents do not have the psychological or physical/fiscal resources to care for a large family. A large family is not any better or worse than a small family, it is merely different. A large family works for you, but it would not work for everybody. Small families can be just as much of a blessing as large families. For any reason you can come up with for having a large family, somebody could come up with a counter argument. The same is true for small families. The important thing is to recognize the blessings God has given us and not fall into the trap of pride believing our family is better or worse than anybody else’s, or presume that a small family automatically means taht there has been the sin of contraception.
 
Some of my thoughts only in regard to my own circumstances, temperament, and spiritual weaknesses/vices.

Having a larger family has made me a better mother
  1. It has made me less likely to spoil my kids. If I could, I would buy them a lot of stuff–I love to see them smile. I would take them places all over. I would run them around indulging them. Other moms have more self control, I know. But, I don’t spoil my kids because I can’t–the money I would spend on the lego collection or new clothes is going to bread and milk.
  2. It’s made them more independent. If I could, I would do all the housework and chores because I like watching them play. But, I can’t do it all, so they have do housework and chores.
It’s also made me a more servant minded Catholic
  1. Naturally, I’m not servant minded. But, having lots of kids has made more compassionate, esp towards other mothers. When my own family needs me less, I want to give to new moms–helping them with practical and emotional support.
It’s made my children more social and more kind.
  1. They know how to give to others. The older share in the care of the younger. The younger know they must yield at times to the needs of the older.
  2. They have learned to deal with the personality quirks of their siblings on a daily basis.
It’s made my children more pro-life.
  1. They are so excited at the birth of each sibling. And, they are excited at the births of their friends’ siblings. My dd gets angry about pro-choice. “They could be talking about my little sister!!” she says angrily.
It’s made me more prayerful
  1. I’m not naturally a prayerful person. But, the details and difficulties of my children’s lives has prompted me to pray more. The delightful little consolations of interacting with them has made me give more prayers of praise and thanksgiving.
I could go on, but the baby is fussing.

I know that these virtues are achieveable by other means, esp. for a more self-disciplined and wiser person. But, I am so grateful to God for the gift of my seven children. They are trully training me for heaven. 🙂
 
I am not assuming that everybody who has a small family has used contraception and do not judge on family size. Fertility varies and some people have adopted children or perhaps could only have a small family. If I had the choice then I would choose a larger family rather than a smaller family although no matter how many children God has given you then that is a blessing. If you have only had one child naturally then you are like Mary and Jesus but Mary couldn’t have more because she was a virgin. Sorry to have offended anybody. Nice to hear your stories about large families.
 
EeyoresButerfly said:
…I am an only child and resent the implication that my family is not as good as yours because of it. …
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Growing up, my family was small and yet very Catholic. You’ll get no judgement from me of small families as long as the husband and wife are open to God’s will for their family. That said, there is an enormous amount of pressure from American society to use contraception and limit family size.

A large family gives strong witness against the Culture of Death. One opposite of contraception is conception. The opposite of abortion is live birth.

Well run large families make it easier for other couples to accept more children from God. Couples see that it can be done, and if God gives us more children they won’t be the only ones with a large family. I’m grateful to some of the large families I have known throughout my life.

While every child is different, experience as parents helps us become more confident and comfortable with raising children. Parenting requires some skill, and most skills improve through experience.
 
I don’t know that I fully agree with the assumption that a well run large family makes others more open to it. There have been many shows on TV with large families (Jon and Kate Plus 8, Table for 12, the Duggars) and if you ever read what is written about these families. Now, Jon and Kate used fertility treatments so they are not pertinent to this discussion. I dont’ knwo about the family in Table for 12, but the Duggars did it the old fashioned way.

People beleve that having a large family in todays’ world is naive and sometimes borderline irresponsible based on what I have seen written about these families. They also believe that there is no way a parent of a large family can be a good parent. I’ll give you a great example: on this very thread there is a post that the person said one of the benefits is that the older children raise the younger ones and she gets to worry just about herself, husband, and the youngest one. Do you have any idea of how that kind of statement would go over in most circles?

The other issue here is that you seem to assume that everybody sees a large family and assumes that no contraception was used or is aware of the stance of the Catholic Church on contraception. I know when I was SBC I had never heard of it. I could have cared less about what the Catholic Church thought about contraception, it was not my religion so why on Earth would I let what the women in another religion do affect me? I mean, I think it’s cute when I see Mennonite women in their modest clothes, but it doesn’t make me run out and by a cap and knee ankle length dress.

The point is, I don’t think that most people are going to look at your family and think that “oh she ahd a large family! Let’s chuck the birth control out of the window and get busy!”

Large families are a beautiful thing if that is what God is calling you to do, but it should be because it is what God is calling you to do.
 
EeyoresButerfly said:
1.) Or your child could be severely disabled
.
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So what if s/he is? Does that make his/her life any less valuable? That comment bothered me. What if your parents decided not to have any children because one could be “defective”?

What if is not a way to plan your life. What if you get in a car accident? Better not go to work. What if you slip and hit your head? Better not take showers. What if you twist your ankle? Better not ever work out.

No one is saying small families are bad. Some people don’t get a choice. The point is that we should be open to God’s blessings in our lives. I am limited in how many kids I can have, and you better believe I am so thankfull for each one I get. No matter what.

Sorry to get riled up, I don’t mean to offend.
 
I apologize, I did not mean that the way it came out. I am a special ed teacher and have no problem with disability. The comment that I was responding to bothered me because the person said that one reason to keep having babies was that they could be the next Einstein or Marie Curie which to me made it sound like any child who was not a genius was not worht it and you should just try again. That may not be the way they meant it, but it is certainly how it came across to me.

I see so many of my students who feel like they are disposable to their parents because they have disabilities. I have taught several where there are two or more siblings in my classroom and one “golden” sibling in regular ed. You know the kind- wins every award, very smart. My kids end up feeling like they are not good enough or do not measure up, and in many ways I see this kind of attitude in their families. So many people go in wanting the perfect family, wanting their kid to be the next Einstein. What’s wrong with having a perfectly average kid, or one who is disabled? For many parents it is the letdown of a dream, and I can understand that nobody wnats their children to know the pain and frustration of a disability ,but comments like the one I responded to make it sound like that is the only kind of child that is desirable. That was all I meant in my response.
 
I don’t think she meant that one should be having more kids in the hopes of perfection, but more of a you never know who will be the next person to really change the world, and if that child is not allowed to be born we will really never know! I know people who contrcept because they feel we should only be “allowed” two kids and women who have aborted because there was something “wrong” with the baby. One was simply because the child’s father was black and her parents would be mad! I have struggled with infertility and miscariage, so this mentality gets under my skin. I didn’t mean to jump all over you. I’m sorry.
 
No need to apologize. It’s hard to understand on the internet what people mean sometimes.

The other thing i should say is that I was also pointing out the counterarguments to their argument to have a big family (which is not the same as arguing against contraception- two completely separate issues). I’m a fairly logical person and was merely pointing out that for every point somebody came up with there is a logical counterargument for it, not that I necessarily believe it.
 
EeyoresB, I think your comment that it’s beautiful thing to have a large family if it is because that is what God is calling you to do, hits the nail on the head. Prayerful discernment of what responsible parenthood means for a couple at a particular point in time is, I think, what we are called to. What are our obligations to God, to each other, to our existing family, and to society? Although I do think that if there is a serious reason to postpone pregnancy, the couple should be working on a plan to address that reason, within the context of the reason to postpone.

We have 3, two adopted, one on the way, ages 5, 4, 2, and about 13 weeks. Married nine years in a month, convert for ten.
 
EeyoresButerfly said:
…People beleve that having a large family in todays’ world is naive and sometimes borderline irresponsible based on what I have seen written about these families. They also believe that there is no way a parent of a large family can be a good parent. … Large families are a beautiful thing if that is what God is calling you to do, but it should be because it is what God is calling you to do.
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Most of us with large families are quite aware of how the rest of the culture views us. You need not remind us of many in the culture think.

And you need not dispute every minor point you disagree with in other people’s posts. I don’t neccesarily agree with everything everyone else writes either. I’ll give you an example of one point I disagreed with from another poster. I don’t want people excusing me for extra pudge. One of the things I hate is when people say “You look great for having 5,(6,7…) children.” Does the statement: “You look great” have to be qualified? Would they think I looked “dumpy” if I had fewer children, but since I don’t look like I’m falling completely apart like they expect moms of large families to look they tell me I look “great”??

If you do not feel God calling you to have a large family, maybe He’s not. Or maybe He’s doing what He’d done for many of us who do have a large family–calling us one step, one pregnancy at a time to be open to His will.

The best reason to have a large family is because one believe that is what God wants.

Some of us didn’t figure out that God wanted us to have a large family until He gave us one. We may have been too busy paying attention to a culture that tells us raising a large family today was naive and irresponsible and that our children might be neglected if we had too many of them.
 
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