cintinative Posted August 30, 2019 Share Posted August 30, 2019 (edited) There is a family at our church that has four natural born children and 17 adopted. A total of 21 children, 19 of which have special needs. My kids know of them but they have missed church more than they come due to medical issues and the need for quarantine. I think the largest natural familly (no adopted kids) they know has seven children. There was a family at co-op eight years ago that had nine children but I don't think my kids would remember them. Edited August 30, 2019 by cintinative 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KungFuPanda Posted August 30, 2019 Share Posted August 30, 2019 (edited) 8 is the largest number of kids in one family that my kids know. However, my kids are grown. I'm guessing it's rarer if your friends are younger and haven't had TIME to have that many kids. Add to that the the people having kids now are millennials and they don't seem to have enough financial wiggle room to consider it. Most large families we know began before the recession. ETA We actually know several large families. The number goes up significantly when I remember that we're calling 3-4 kids a large family these days. Edited August 30, 2019 by KungFuPanda Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rebcoola Posted August 30, 2019 Share Posted August 30, 2019 12, 5 or 6 is very normal for our circle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lawyer&Mom Posted August 30, 2019 Author Share Posted August 30, 2019 5 minutes ago, KungFuPanda said: 8 is the largest number of kids in one family that my kids know. However, my kids are grown. I'm guessing it's rarer if your friends are younger and haven't had TIME to have that many kids. Add to that the the people having kids now are millennials and they don't seem to have enough financial wiggle room to consider it. Most large families we know began before the recession. We really don’t know any younger parents. I had mine at 33 and 35, and that’s completely average in our circle. (I had classmates in law school in the Midwest who already had kids at 23 or 24 and I was completely taken aback. Average age of first kid in the CA county I was raised? 33.5, for moms with college.). Norms vary so much by region. This is a great article: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/04/upshot/up-birth-age-gap.html 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selkie Posted August 30, 2019 Share Posted August 30, 2019 Probably six or seven. We do know a family with nineteen kids, all from the same mom and dad, but they are all adults now. I would say that two to three kids is the norm where we live. Four or five is not unheard of, but less common. I have three, and this thread reminded me of a funny/weird incident. About 10 years ago, I was running errands and bumped into the mom of a guy I had gone to high school with - I hadn't seen her for years. She said to me, "I understand you have an ENORMOUS number of children!" I said, "No, I just have three..." and she said, "Yes, three is so many! I can't even imagine!" It was very odd! She herself had two kids, but no grandkids yet at that point, so I guess she thought three kids was a outrageously large number.🤷♀️ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alisoncooks Posted August 30, 2019 Share Posted August 30, 2019 I don't personally know anyone now with more than 4. (Though my grandmother was 1 of 8, and my granddad was 1 of 10.) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maize Posted August 30, 2019 Share Posted August 30, 2019 (edited) 1 hour ago, Murphy101 said: I’m just saying having a 7 passenger van didn’t stop us from having sex after baby 5 was born. 😉 Granted we didn’t actually get a 12 passenger van until after baby 7 bc our dodge caravan at the time sat 8 with a modified middle bench and dh carpooled to work or took the van and I did without. There was a brief year or so between baby 7 and baby 8 where we didn’t go anywhere as a family in one vehicle. We transitioned directly from a five passenger sedan to a 15 passenger van around the time child #4 came along. The van was a hand me down from my parents or I probably wouldn't have gone with something quite so big, but it did take care of the "hard to find transportation that seats more than seven" issue when #6 came along a few years later. When that van reached the end of its useful life (it was over twenty years old at that point) we ended up with another 15 passenger. Because why not. Edited August 30, 2019 by maize Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
athena1277 Posted August 30, 2019 Share Posted August 30, 2019 My kids know several with 6-8 kids. Some of them I seriously can’t keep up with how many kids they have. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PrincessMommy Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 (edited) Well, my kids are mostly grown, so they may know other large families. But, when they were younger and we were still having kids the biggest family had 10 kids. Edited August 31, 2019 by PrincessMommy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bambam Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 We have a bunch of large families in our area. Some have 7, most have 5 or 6. Those of us with only two are treated like we are less-than parents and not-really-homeschoolers-'cause-it's-only-two. It is sorta amusing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TABmom Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 We know a couple with 8-10, but 6 is probably the biggest family where the kids know all the kids in the other family. We know lots of families with 4 kids. Even families that don't homeschool. In our homeschool circles, it's much more common to have 3+, than to have 1 or 2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScoutTN Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 We know several with 8 kids, and several with 7, and a couple with 6, and many with 5.... I am the oddball in my circles, with only two. But I am old and we got a late start and dealt with infertility. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wendyroo Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 My kids attend gym class with a family of 8 children and Spanish class with a different family of 8. I don't know if they realize in either case exactly how many kids belong to the same family. Around here, 3-4 seem to be the default numbers - way more common than 1 or 2. It is not unusual at all to see a family of 5-8 kids out and about, and I know indirectly of several even larger family nearby. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RootAnn Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 2 hours ago, athena1277 said: My kids know several with 6-8 kids. Some of them I seriously can’t keep up with how many kids they have. Ok, so this is my problem. I can't tell you how many kids are in the families of some of my kid's friends or who my kids have been known to babysit for. I think my girls regularly babysit for a mom who has 6 & is expecting #7. There's another family who have 7, I think. Both those moms are fairly young, and both have 15 passenger vans. My oldest is best friends with another oldest-child who has five siblings, I think. My kids are a group of 5 & they have cousin groups of 5, 3, 3, and 4. They don't blink at 4 kids in a family. That's totally normal/ expected. DH knows families from his work that are 5, 7 or more kids -- many are his/hers/ours. It is not unusual to have 4 around here though 3 is likely the most common. ("3 is the new 2" was a phrase I heard a lot 15ish years ago.) In homeschooling circles, some have 2 but I think the mode is either 3 or 4. (I can think of many for both those numbers.) When DH was at Wal-Mart after our #4, someone asked if he was stocking up or if he had a large family. Feeling the enormity of the recent addition, he reported the latter. Turns out the questioner had something like 12-15 kids. Since then, we've had a "small family." I can't believe the people who freak at just 3 kids. I have plenty of those stories & one humorous "are they all yours" tale. It just isn't that usual where I live to have a minimum of 3. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RootAnn Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 3 hours ago, Lawyer&Mom said: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/04/upshot/up-birth-age-gap.html Lol. My DH & I don't fit the neat little statistical boxes in this article at all & neither do most of the people I know - older people like me (who had my first baby young, after my B.S., but many years ago) or young moms. But I get that these are statistics & trends vs. anecdotes. Funny, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pen Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 10 for sure. there are a couple of families with lots of adopted kids that may be more than that, but I’m not sure the actual number. I assume we shouldn’t count foster family homes and foster kids counts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tap Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 10 kids (same set of parents). We have multiple friends who have 4-6 kids, so that seems fairly common in our area. In just my neighborhood of about 100 houses, we have 4 families with 4 kids and 2 families with 5 kids. Those are just the ones I can think of LOL. I can't think of a single family who has just one or two, the smallest amount I know is 3 kids. We are just outside Portland Oregon so definitely not a low cost of living area. I am one of 9 kids, but come from a blended family. I was raised with 5 kids/2 parents. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KungFuPanda Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 3 hours ago, Lawyer&Mom said: We really don’t know any younger parents. I had mine at 33 and 35, and that’s completely average in our circle. (I had classmates in law school in the Midwest who already had kids at 23 or 24 and I was completely taken aback. Average age of first kid in the CA county I was raised? 33.5, for moms with college.). Norms vary so much by region. This is a great article: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/04/upshot/up-birth-age-gap.html It was an interesting article, but I'm not sure it really applies to the subset of women who have large families. For most it's a conscious decision to have more than the average number. If that's important to you, then waiting too long and risking only having one or two kids might be something you avoid. I don't know ANY large families where they waiting until the mother was in her mid thirties to begin. I know lots of women who started in their mid-late thirties and relied on fertility treatments to ensure they could have their desired number of kids before calling it quits. I'm on a coast between two cities, so that seems to effect things a bit. It's just harder to afford everything in a HCOL region. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J-rap Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 My dh's best friend and his wife, 12 and 15, respectively. (Irish Catholic, of course! :)) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iamonlyone Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 They know as peers two families that each have nine children. They know the parents and some of the children of a couple families that have 10-12 (older children were on their own before we knew the families). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lulalu Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 A family with 8 is our biggest close relationship. But we do kind of know a family of 11. However, where we live families with 4 are the max and they struggle with transportation and housing needs. It is a big family when in a large city. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happypamama Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 (edited) Our own 😄 I know some families with 7 like we have, or more, but I don't think my kids do. Of course, we actually only have 6 that take up seats in the van, and we do know other families with 6. 4 or 5 is pretty common around here, and even 6 is. And as far as vehicle size, we had the minivan maxed out with 5 kids, and when it died, my 6'2" husband looked at 4 boys who will eventually be teenagers and really encouraged me to try a 12 passenger van. Turns out I loved it, and it certainly was convenient when baby number 7 came along. Edited August 31, 2019 by happypamama Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 Over half of the large families (over six kids) that I have known over the years did not homeschool. So I don’t think that large family = homeschooling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura Corin Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 My two brothers and I are the biggest non-blended family my kids know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gardenmom5 Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 (edited) we have a couple at church with 12. she's a chemical engineer - he's a patent attorney for a major corporation (with an undergrad in - engineering!). (we're in a very hcol area.) (the oldest has her undergrad, and the youngest is 2 1/2. they were over the other day - and all he wanted to do was play with the trains. for hours.) Edited August 31, 2019 by gardenmom5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frances Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 I think a family of four at the homeschool co-op we used to attend. Around here, one, two, or three are the most common. Even among the people in our neighborhood who are now grandparents, no one has more than three children, unless it is a blended family. It’s quite different from the very Catholic area where I grew up. There our family with three kids was considered unusually small. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carrie12345 Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 The biggest “friend” family my kids probably know has 7 kids, though several are now grown and out of the house. Same with a family of 6, though another family we know just had #6 and we see all their kids. We have 5, though people tend to forget about our young adult kid. That kid, when you include my ex’s family, is the oldest of 8. Dh’s aunt has 12, but my kids don’t know all of them. I *think 7 are her biological and the rest were blended in by marriage, but I’ve only known them as 12. Well, one passed away before I met them. They’re all older than dh, some by a lot. Just to share what I think is a funny story... A friend of mine has 2. She had her baby nephew with them when we got together with my 2 youngest, and she was a little frazzled. It occurred to me that our gang at the moment was age-spaced almost exactly the same as my 5 when they were younger; 12ish, 9ish, 8ish, 5ish, and baby. It shook me up a little bit (it’s been 9 years!) but it REALLY shook her, lol. In my sibling/step-sibling group, we have 5, 3, 3, 2, and 1. I have the biggest family in my family tree until you get back to my grandparents, who were one of 6, 5, 5, and an only. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LMD Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 9 and 8. We see them regularly and yes they homeschool. 😄 Heaps of families with 3 or 4. In non homeschool families, 3 is the max. Maybe a rare 4 or 5, usually blended or multiples. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DawnM Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 Our Coop had a family of 10 kids in it. We weren't close to them, but we knew them. Most of our friends have between 2-4. One of my close friends has 6, but they are spread out (oldest is currently 25 and youngest is 7) so it kind of doesn't seem like she has that many because they weren't all together much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DawnM Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 18 hours ago, sassenach said: We have close friends with 10, but they don't live in our uber high COL area. The biggest local family we know is 5. When we moved from FL to CA, I was amazed how many comments and looks we got about our 4. In FL we were very average. Thinking about it more, we are tied for the most kids in our church. Almost everyone has 2. Really? I have lots of friends in CA with 3-4 kids. We had 3, no one made comments, in fact, several asked if we were going to try for a girl. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bethben Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 Before we moved, the largest family we knew had 10. We have four and in my former homeschool group, we were one of the smaller families. Now that we've moved to a more metro area, we have one of the larger families. There's a couple of families that we know who have 5, but most people have three or less. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maize Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 2 hours ago, DawnM said: Really? I have lots of friends in CA with 3-4 kids. We had 3, no one made comments, in fact, several asked if we were going to try for a girl. I started getting comments in CA when I was pregnant with my third. Maybe partly because my first two were a boy and a girl--people's attitude seemed to be "you got the full set, why would you want more?!" 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sassenach Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 2 hours ago, DawnM said: Really? I have lots of friends in CA with 3-4 kids. We had 3, no one made comments, in fact, several asked if we were going to try for a girl. It probably depends on specifically where in CA. In Santa Cruz and Marin, the 2 places I’ve lived since moving back, yes, tons of comments. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DawnM Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 5 minutes ago, maize said: I started getting comments in CA when I was pregnant with my third. Maybe partly because my first two were a boy and a girl--people's attitude seemed to be "you got the full set, why would you want more?!" That's really strange to me. We had a family in our church in CA with six kids. People sometimes made comments, but they weren't horribly rude comments, just inquisitive type comments. (like, "Wonder what their grocery bill is each month!") And many of our friends had multiple kids (more than 2.) One of my co-workers in LA came from a family of 8 kids and grew up in SoCal as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DawnM Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 2 minutes ago, sassenach said: It probably depends on specifically where in CA. In Santa Cruz and Marin, the 2 places I’ve lived since moving back, yes, tons of comments. Friends in San Fran proper have 4 kids and say they haven't gotten many comments. They moved from SoCal, but didn't have kids when they were in SoCal. They moved before having kids. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sassenach Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 1 minute ago, DawnM said: Friends in San Fran proper have 4 kids and say they haven't gotten many comments. They moved from SoCal, but didn't have kids when they were in SoCal. They moved before having kids. That surprises me but good for them! Half my friends live in the city and only one has more than 2 kids (3). I don’t know if they get comments. I’ve never asked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junie Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 I think the largest family my kids know has 9 kids. The largest that I know has 14. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junie Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 We live on a cul-de-sac. When we moved here, House A -- 5 children House B -- 1 + 1 on the way House C -- 0 House D -- us with 5 children + 1 on the way House E -- 0 House A added 2 more children, and then moved when they were expecting again. They were out of room. All of these houses are roughly the same size. I am wondering what the childless couples on either side of us do with all of their space. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unsinkable Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 My kids know a family with 9. tangentially...I dated 4 guys from families of 7...and married the last one! And they were all either the 3rd or 4th child in birth order. LOL 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 17 hours ago, Selkie said: Probably six or seven. We do know a family with nineteen kids, all from the same mom and dad, but they are all adults now. I would say that two to three kids is the norm where we live. Four or five is not unheard of, but less common. I have three, and this thread reminded me of a funny/weird incident. About 10 years ago, I was running errands and bumped into the mom of a guy I had gone to high school with - I hadn't seen her for years. She said to me, "I understand you have an ENORMOUS number of children!" I said, "No, I just have three..." and she said, "Yes, three is so many! I can't even imagine!" It was very odd! She herself had two kids, but no grandkids yet at that point, so I guess she thought three kids was a outrageously large number.🤷♀️ My sister has five kids and, although I grant you that is more than average, one lady who knew her constantly kept saying she has “like, nine kids”. So, this lady would introduce her and say, “...and this is N——; she has like, nine kids.” My sister would always say, “I have FIVE. 😑” I don’t know if this was meant to be some little jab or if she just couldnt remember how many kids, but it was aparantly very annoying. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theelfqueen Posted August 31, 2019 Share Posted August 31, 2019 Through our co-OP I know a family with 16 children. But only their youngest two are still participating in the co-OP. I am sure my kids have met the mother, I am also sure they have no idea. LoL I think the biggest families they actually know are about 6 kids. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AFwife Claire Posted September 3, 2019 Share Posted September 3, 2019 We have 10 ourselves, but we are good friends with a few other families who also have 10. We know quite a few families with at least 7. Most of them homeschool, and most of them are military, like us. I think having medical care often means military families feel free to have more children, especially Christian families. I think 10 is a pretty common number to stop at, for big families. We have a 17 year spread, so our oldest was starting his senior year when we had our youngest. It was getting harder for me to stretch at both ends of the age spectrum, so it made sense to be done. I was 41 at the time and knew there probably wouldn't be too many more. I didn't really want to have more once my oldest went to college. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ktgrok Posted September 3, 2019 Share Posted September 3, 2019 On 8/30/2019 at 1:46 PM, Arctic Mama said: Uh... I think it’s us. I know moms with more kids, but not in day to day life. We have like two more moms at church with six but since I’m expecting another that makes us the only family with seven, I believe. One of the older ladies had six or seven, but her youngest is 16 and only two are at home and unmarried anymore. There are tons of families with four or five children that we know well, but very few bigger than that for some reason. Wait - did I know this? I swear I'm losing my mind. Either way - Congratulations! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sneezyone Posted September 3, 2019 Share Posted September 3, 2019 The biggest family I know is my cousin’s. They have four and are the only ones I know that big. I know a handful of families (seriously, five) that have three. Most have one or two. These families are both Christian and secular. My circle includes a lot of sub/infertile couples. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Familia Posted September 3, 2019 Share Posted September 3, 2019 They are close with a family of eight. Know 9 a little. Lots of 5-6 child families. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ktgrok Posted September 3, 2019 Share Posted September 3, 2019 so...are we just all pretending @Arctic Mama didn't just say she's expecting another baby, or did everyone but me already know and it is old news and not worth commenting on? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ktgrok Posted September 3, 2019 Share Posted September 3, 2019 As for the poll, we are somewhat friends with a family of 7, but never really see all 7 kids at once, and the mom is a bit...intense...so we don't spend much time with them. We know a few people with 5, 3-4 seems to be the norm in our world regarding homeschoolers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selkie Posted September 3, 2019 Share Posted September 3, 2019 3 minutes ago, Ktgrok said: so...are we just all pretending @Arctic Mama didn't just say she's expecting another baby, or did everyone but me already know and it is old news and not worth commenting on? She mentioned it a few weeks ago on a thread started by Moonflower, in which we found out there are lots and lots of boardies expecting right now! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mumto2 Posted September 3, 2019 Share Posted September 3, 2019 I think 6 was the biggest they ever saw on a regular basis. There was a family of 12 or so we saw very occasionally and never in total because they needed to bring two cars to move everyone......Dd had a pen pal with 8. One of my friend’s had 21 back in my school days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ktgrok Posted September 3, 2019 Share Posted September 3, 2019 44 minutes ago, Selkie said: She mentioned it a few weeks ago on a thread started by Moonflower, in which we found out there are lots and lots of boardies expecting right now! Ah! I must have missed it! Going to search now, lol. Last I remembered she was posting about opinions on IUDs. How exciting! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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