I think it is all relative. If you look at the average number of children per family over the last 100 years, it has stayed around two. Nearly 3 (2.63) in the 1960's and almost down to one in current times (1.13). Going by this figure, the answer is a definite yes, five kids is a lot of kids.
Then if you look at how many siblings each parent has, the answer looks quite different. I had 5 siblings growing up. My husband had 4 siblings. So when we planned for four kids, that seemed a little small to me. I ended up with five because twins. Going by family history, the answer is no way. Five kids is not a lot of kids.
Most people that grew up with many siblings still go on to have just 1-3, but they don't seem to think 4 -6 kids is too many because they grew up that way.
Most people that grew up with one or no siblings look at these families and think we are cray-cray a little bit. Maybe we are.
The point is yes, by societies standards, I suppose we do have a lot of kids, but not so many that it seems ridiculous.
By my own standards, I feel like we have just a normal sized family, because we are used to it.
There are advantages and disadvantages though.
Advantages:
- Built in friends
- Minimal boredom
- Hand-me-downs a plenty
- Parental experience
- Someone always available to help a sibling
- Learning responsibility at a young age
- Many helpers
- Never a dull moment
- Enough people for any game
- Lots and lots of love
Disadvantages:
- Food bill is ridiculous
- Noise
- Messes
- Never enough time
- Homework x 5
- Lots of running around
- Overlapping schedules
- Need to drive a minivan
- Never enough money
- School shopping adds debt
There are many more advantages and disadvantages, but the main point is that I do not ever feel put upon by my number of children and I never feel like it is a lot until someone says I have a lot. To me they are just five little blessings!
It's all relative people. Tell me, how many kids do you define as "a lot of kids"?
No comments:
Post a Comment