Hello! I am due with #4 in May. In our area and social milieu, having four or more kids is...not common.
We know one Orthodox Jewish family with 10, a Catholic family with 5 kids, and I have a couple of LDS friends who are from large families. But four or more is generally NOT the done thing around here.
Where I live, I find that one kid is common, two is the "norm," three is "oh how cute they like having kids and they can afford it" or "well you know those immigrants are so family-oriented," but four is "what is wrong with you are you insane?"
Sidebar rant: My parents are somewhere between irked and irate (they only had three, so that's their number). We are 41 and 42, married, happy, financially independent and have a paid-off home. Our kids are well-fed and well-educated. I need to lose weight but other than that none of us have any major health problems. My dad said we were being selfish and expressed a concern that we won't be able to take care of them in 10 years (which is totally unfair since we live two miles away, and are available at their beck and call, and heretofore they have always literally *laughed* at us if we asked if they needed any help with aging) and demanded that we find a birth control method. I was pretty much planning to get my tubes tied after this one, but I told him we do have a lot of ambivalence about birth control versus family building. Heck, just being told I *have* to do something makes me want to not do it and head in the opposite direction and do IVF to get pregnant with #5 & #6 as twins.
ANYWAY, I think we have entered the phase of our family building where we are statistically weird. Only 14 percent of American women have four or more children. I was wondering if any of you larger-family moms have any experiences or wisdom on how you manage responses to "you're nuts" or "you're being selfish" or other responses you get from people. Help?