Large Families

[princessgianna]

[quote name='takebacktonight' post='1797039' date='Mar 4 2009, 12:06 AM']My Mom is one of 11 (well, 13 actually but I'll get to that)..

I can't imagine not having so many aunts and uncles and cousins...it would just be weird...and my mom and all of her siblings (except for one) are close.

That being said, my mom does not have very fond memories of growing up. She was small, quiet and lost in the crowd I think. There wasn't a lot of food or money (she remembers having a glass of chocolate milk as a huge treat) and the girls had to wait on the boys hand and foot. There were definitely favorites of the parents...and she wasn't one.

Then, about 7 years ago...we find out that there were two more full-blooded siblings...twins, that were conceived out of wedlock...but born into it. There was a lot of pressure from people (the Church included) to give them up, and nobody knew.

Chaos is not a strong enough word.

I guess my verdict is: Large, stable, families: cool. Large families with tyrannical mothers and deep dark skeletons in the closet: bad.[/quote]

Well I can see why you feel the way you do!

I have a great aunt who had to wait on her 7 brothers! That isn't right!

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote]My husband has 50 first cousins. He doesn't even attempt to know or remember all their names, let alone their spouses or children. One of the questions that Immigration asks is for you to name your spouse's siblings and cousins. It's a way of proving the relationship is real, and not just so you can immigrate. I told the officer that my husband didn't know all of them, so there was no way I was even going to try.[/quote]

personally i have well over 100 first cousins. so i'm not just pulling this out of nowhere.
you can rant and rave all ya want about 'if you try, you'll be close', but i'm going to argue it's just posturing, ignorance, or someone just trying to brag about their family unit that isn't the same as an extensively large unit at a later stage of growth i'm talking about. there's no way someone in good judgment can say that they all can be close, it's bound to be superficial even if it's somewhat "close" (whatever that means when it's at the edges of 'close'. in some sneses even this large family is close). aunts and uncles, the counsins kids, their kids, christmass as gma, great gma, mom, (times two for the other side of the family) etc. hundreds of people.
there's no middle ground on this issue, except those who don't know what they are talking about. there's just an inherent line that is drawn.
but, this isn't sayig anything about large families at younger growth, or large but not so massive as this, or that this situation is inhereitly bad, or that effort generally equals meaningful interaction and lackof not, and there's a lot to be said about defining what one means by "close", etc.

Edited March 28, 2009 by dairygirl4u2c

[elizabeth09]

Cool

[thessalonian]

Having grown up in a family of 17 and having 8 kids myself I will say that lots of kids is a trial in many ways. But those trials are a blessing in the end. (There are of course many blessings as well, such as my youngest daughter who always makes me laugh). Large familes I think bring about our sanctification more quickly. As an example, when I first got married to my wife she had 3 kids. We had 1 right away so there were 4. We went to this fair each year and I remember the first year the three boys drove me NUTZ. But as the years went by I found that I had learned patience and they didn't bother me nearly as bad. Had she not had the three boys this metamorphasis would not have taken place as soon. Now I am not always patient but trial brings about virtue. People see trial as a negative. It's not.

[txdinghysailor]

I think that large families are not often good, in some cases they are necessary. For instance, when I get married, I [b]need[/b] to have 7-8 kids.

[elizabeth09]

Trying to save the world from becoming two family homes.



Boy, if I get married, I know that I want a lot of children, maybe like 12, like in Cheaper By the Dozen (1950).

[VoTeckam]

Wow. I thought I had a large family until I read this thread. I have 43 first cousins. I know all of their names and know all of them very well.

I think trying to say large families can't be close is a useless blanket statement. My family is split between two cities about 400 miles apart. We get together weekly with the families that are also residing int he city and we all make regualr trips to visit the rest of the family. I love each of my parents, aunts, uncles, siblings and cousins as intensely as people in small family love their parents and only sibling.

It is certianly much more work to remain close when in a big family but I can imagine it is much more rewarding as well. My fiance is the only child of an only child and he is sometimes overwhelmed by my enormous family but he has commented many times that we are the the big family he always wanted. We celebrate all holidays together, vacation together (we get a few houses that sleep 20-30 people close to eachother at a beach) every year. In fact, if any of you go to Nags Head in July, you have met someone related to me. haha. Between my family and the familes that have married into my family (gasp... I even know those 75+ names) I would imagine it is statistically impossible to go to the =Outer Banks the same weeks we are there without encountering us.

Anyway... after that long and rather pointless rant. large families are wonderful. They add so much richness to your life. There are so many people to learn from and love. I, for one, would not be as complete a person without each of them.

[Sojourner]

nm

Edited April 1, 2009 by Terra Firma

[lilCook009]

[quote name='eagle_eye222001' post='1781758' date='Feb 15 2009, 04:31 PM']Basically your opening the debate to overpopulation and aiming to justify how many kids you have. Although many countries are beginning or will soon be seeing a negative population curve if they are not careful.....France, China has a lot of guys...US gets immigriants which is really keeping our numbers up.




Je suis d'accord.

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Related to that I know in Japan, because they have negative population growth, people who have children get a big check.

[eagle_eye222001]

[quote name='lilCook009' post='1822535' date='Apr 2 2009, 01:26 AM']Related to that I know in Japan, because they have negative population growth, people who have children get a big check.[/quote]

Exactly. You don't hear much reporting being done on that though. You see a lot more reports and scare stuff on overpopulation and then you realize there are many governments providing financial incentives for kids......governments must be more scared of a negative population growth than overpopulation
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[Thomist-in-Training]

Another thing that people often don't think about is that [ignoring the octuplet case] people don't have a bunch of infants at one time. You do see some harassed mothers with three kids under five, but then after that the children start taking care of each other, even when they're quite small--I know, not always, but at least a little bit! And then much more so as they get older towards 10, 14 and so on.

[elizabeth09]

My mom is the only sister of four brother and sisters that had the most children. That will be true for my dad too (out of five, sister and brothers)