Large religious families

[carrotsinthepan]

I was watching something on YouTube and it struck me how many large families are religious families (especially Christian in the US and orthodox jewish in various places) I was just thinking that they seem to attract less criticism for the number of children they have opposed to non religious families .
I was also wondering why various religions promote large families as what I watched didn’t go into that ? I find it fascinating but have nobody in rl to discuss it with !

I have a large family and often get criticised and I was thinking - can this now be shut down if I say ‘it our religion ‘ when questioned even if it’s not !

Both Christians and Jews have the Bible as their holy book. There are various verses that promote large families.

An example is " Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate. " psalm 127.

The Jews are explicitly trying to replace all those lost in the holocaust which is fair enough.

Its about keeping the faith going. Obviously not all Christians and Jews do this or believe this though.

It’s not an our religion say this so that’s why we have multiple children. It’s more to do with not believing in contraception rather than promoting large families. The followers of orthodox faiths tend to have a traditional outlook of life as well.

Your size of family is your choice. Why would you make the "excuse" of religion? I teach a lot of Muslim students who come from large families, all of whom seem cared for and looked after well, work hard and are delightful young people.
It's controversial because of resources etc, but ultimately if you are good parents, stand by your choice and don't look to minority/religious groups for any kind of justification.

Who is criticising you for have a large family ? Whose business is it except your

Can I just ask, out of curiosity, how many children do you think make a large family nowadays? I am one of five and when I was growing up in the 50's and 60's this wasn't at all unusual but I think it probably is now?

I'd say 5 children+ is large. My DH is one of 9, and his family were 'religious large' but obviously a generation ago. One of his (religious) sisters has 5, and that definitely feels 'large' to me (plenty of logistical challenges, for a start!).

From what I've seen of large Christian families, I think it's a combination of

• some groups shunning contraception
• influence of some bible texts that are very positive about the blessing of children, like the quiver full quote above
• active lifestyle choice. There's an element of the conservative/traditional role of women as home-makers, plus it becomes more normalised if others around you are doing it.

There is also a big trend as well for white ultra religious Americans to adopt lots of non-white children and create these large “gathered” families. ”Look at how wonderful we are saving these poor children”. The children are often brought up with no knowledge of their own heritage or culture. They tend to home school as well. White saviour complex. I find the whole thing really uncomfortable. They love to splash their “rainbow” families all over social media as well.

There are quite a few examples of religious doctrine being used to spice up what is otherwise quite pragmatic advice - don’t eat pork or shellfish back in the day because they’re much more likely to have parasites that will kill you if prepared incorrectly springs to mind.

For this, i can only assume that it’s in part due to the fact that before modern medicine the infant mortality rate was horrendous, and the more you had the more likely at least a few would survive. Grim.

I find most very religious people (note, not all religious people, but the extremes) tend not to think all that deeply about the reality or history of their faith - or much else - so frankly a lot of them are having large families because that’s what they are told to do, and that’s that.

They get criticism too! Fair enough if you can afford and meet the physical needs of your many children but if you need benefits/tax breaks/older children to help with younger ones to a greater extent then you use contraception/don't have sex!

Used to watch that huge family on tv and they got loads of criticism

Perhaps then they are better placed to ignore the criticism or shut it down as their faith gives them confidence? Personally the few times I’ve had criticism I’ve felt really offended maybe I need to change my mindset rather than considering lying to say I’m religious !

For goodness sake I know of plenty of non religious families which are large too. Why suddenly dump the ‘religious’ tag on them?

I think most people who make those sort of facile remarks have not thought very deeply either, tbh. Sorry!

I think in the UK large family=feckless and irresponsible and living "off the state" . This is reflected in governmental policy too, ie. that the bigger the family the more intervention/assistance they will need.

You only need to read a Radford thread to see that most people think having more than 2 dc is utterly mad, so at least being religious might 'explain' why they have so many, rather than the woman trying to fill some psychological deficiency she has (this is often the explanation given out by the public).

If you have a big family OP just own it and enjoy it! No need to excuse it.

Catholicism teaches that (except in certain circumstances - poverty, illness etc) the spouses should be open to life. That means no contraception other than abstinence). That’s the theory

I didn’t mean in general I just felt tempted to say it for myself as had a fair amount of criticism over it and thought it may just stop people in their tracks! I think actually though I just need to be more confident in my decisions

Both Islam and Christianity are proselytizing religions as I understand it, and therefore you are meant to convert or create as many followers as you can. As such, it makes sense to teach large families, no contraception etc to get as many followers as possible. All of the teachings of religions like this are basically created to serve the purpose of those who “run” the religion - so the teachings ensure men with power, low educated women, lots of followers, donate your money to make the organisers rich etc.

I agree. The biggest liberation for women has been reliable contraception and safe, legal abortion. You can look after your health, minimise your dependents, increase your earning capacity and be more self reliant.
If you choose to have a large number of children, that's your choice - or should be. If it's right for you, that's fine. Not all women have that choice, sadly.

Weirdly I was thinking this too yesterday- school harvest festival and the message was that the Earth belongs to God so we must respect it and take care of it, heavy eco message (slightly different take from when I was at school and Earth was a "gift" to make use of). Anyway, I was wondering how that squared with having more than, say, 2 kids as that will cause far more environmental damage (in Western countries) than any amount of recycling, energy conservation etc. Not something that I can ask in real life without offending! I don't mean to be offensive, just curious about the philosophical position.

BTW religious families do get a lot of stick, there are forums dedicated to the Duggar and Bates' where their lives are picked apart. I think the orthodox Jews in the UK are much less out there, hence no one really talks about them. I do know in Israel they receive a lot of criticism as the ultra orthodox are often living in poverty and rely on charity hand outs to get by.

Curious which large American family?
Quiver for is a movement within Christian fundamentalists and aims to enlarge Christian fundamentalists by having very large families( 15-20 kids not unusual) as others say to promote the religion. And power.

if it’s one of the very large religious American families they sanitise themselves for social media and to hook in followers. It’s very handmaiden tale behind the scenes. They also heavily align with trumpian republicanism . The latest US abortion laws were seen as a victory for them.

it’s a fascinating rabbit hole to go down op but I really would not be jumping on their bandwagon without a lot of critical thinking first.

Quiverful*

I was also wondering why various religions promote large families as what I watched didn’t go into that ? I find it fascinating but have nobody in rl to discuss it with !
Look-up 'Quiverfull'. Certain religious movements are trying to out-number each other (in this life and the next).

Oh my gosh I've seen this so much on social media lately and I think it's awful! One in particular, two parents plus five kids, all white and blond, have adopted a black baby and all these posts crowing about what a wonderful life she will have now. No doubt that baby will be loved but I just feel sad for her, completely unconnected to her cultural heritage.
To the OP's question, I do think it's more common for religious families to go for a larger number of kids. However, to me, regardless of religion, I think it's irresponsible these days to have too many and burden the planet in the state it's already in.

Well Catholicism (and some other religions) is anti-abortion and anti-contraception, although most middle aged and younger Catholic women no longer live by this philosophy. A few more fundamental Catholics do.

They believe children are a gift from God and life should be cherished. Most Catholic women I know have used contraception at some point, but very few would consider termination for themselves. Few have especially large families.

Those that do (by birth or fostering/adoption) are both the more fundamental believers who are celebrated and cherished by the community. They tend to be families where children are raised within a stable marriage, are more affluent Catholics and with one father. They tend not to be state dependent. That leads to less criticism because there can be no suggestion they are ‘a burden’ and because their lives revolve very much around their own communities. Plymouth Brethren families would be likewise- very Brethren centric. I imagine orthodox Jewish families would tend to stay close to their Jewish communities too.

I also believe there is a bit of a conspiracy theory in the US about white people being replaced by non whites, and thus they need to have a lot of white babies to make sure this does not happen.