People from ‘big’ families

[Gggggggg2]

Do you like it? Just a curious question as it’s Christmas too so a family time

im from a small family. Married with 2 kids and would love a 3rd in the future I think?? As I’ve always been from a smaller family I’d ideally like 4 but I’ve had 2 c sections so want to be realistic and also I think 3 would be enough chaos haha!

But I just wondered those who are one of 3+ kids and have cousins aunties uncles etc - do you enjoy it? Are family gatherings nice?

I am one of five and didn’t mind when I was younger as we had a big enough house and suitable age gaps. However I really find family get togethers too much, now that we all have kids and partners. Wish I just had one or two siblings, although obviously would never say this out loud.

I'm one of 6 siblings and I love being part of a big family. We are all close though and hang out. I didn't like it as a child. 8 people in a 3 bed council house was no ideal. I really appreciate my family now though as an adult. I've 2 kids. I maybe would have had a third if I was younger but I had my two later in life.

4 siblings, a dozen cousins.

Don't speak to any of them including parents. I keep contact with grandmother only.

Hated it, I now have an only child.

I have wondered about money. I have 2 and they are pretty low-stress in terms of gifts but the expense of Christmas wears me out. I have a friend who not only has 4 kids, but they are all at an Independent school. (And have expensive hobbies like horses and sailing). She is posting mounds of presents on facebook, and I assume they can afford it but it makes me feel all shaky at how much it must cost! I feel happy with our comparatively humble life!

DH and I both are from families that had 4 children. I actually didn't like it at all growing up. We were always skint, my parents were overwhelmed and stressed and I felt I never got any one on one time with my parents. My feelings about my own childhood are why we stopped at 2 children, much to my mum's disappointment but I felt I could give DDs more (both financially and in time) if we stopped after 2.

However, I do love our big family gatherings. We have 20 coming over today for Boxing Day and that's only some of DH's side. It is busy and chaotic but the cousins all get on so well together and everyone is pretty laid back. The most difficult thing now is we struggle fitting in seeing everyone and now some siblings are spread around the country (and my brother is in New Zealand) it can feel like a bit of an obligation travelling to visit people although we enjoy seeing each other.

Overall I appreciate it now as an adult more than I did as a child.

My mom is one of 13 (!!) and I have 40+ cousins on her side. We're among the youngest cousins. Honestly I struggle to remember everyone's names, especially because my oldest cousins have kids similar ages to me. I enjoy it but it's also chaos. Some of the aunts/uncles/cousins have various arguments and grudges between them and it's hard to keep up with.

I’m from a large family. I hated it, I’m the youngest and by the time I was a teenager my parents had completely burned out of being parents and were spending their time building their careers, seeking new relationships and traveling. My big sister was my mum growing up and I feel intense guilt that she lost her childhood. Then when she moved out I essentially had to fend for myself.
The oldest children in my family have a very sunny view of our childhood and recreated their own version of it with large families. So I think birth order does have an impact on how you perceive your experience.

I think that is true. My mother was the youngest of a large family. She always says that there are literally no photos of her as a baby or a child. Her parents simply could not be arsed by the time she was born. (They were pretty appalling in a number of ways though- alot of familial abuse).

The village where she grew up there was a chap who was very vulnerable in a number of ways and who loved weddings and would go along to every wedding there was. He would take photos, all shaky and a bit blurred. But when he died about 20 years ago his relatives found all the photos and mounted an exhibition at the village hall. There is one of my mother aged 18 as a bridesmaid for her friend. We bought it and had it framed. That is the first ever photo of her she has.

I have one sister. She has four kids I have two (one with SN). Her house always feels more fun than ours lots of chat and banter. My DS struggles to get a word in edgeways. He finds them really loud!

DH has two siblings. Neither of them have kids.

That’s so sad but very similar to my experience. I was born because my mum wanted another baby (not my dad!!). I wish people would think about whether they can handle having teenagers in the house for decades while planning their families. My teenage years were pretty rough and I could have done with parents. People only seem to think about the baby not the whole childhood.

I was one of three (with big age gaps) but think that my parents would have been far better to stop at two children.

There was certainly not enough money and times when each of us was significantly overlooked because too much was going on with another child. By that I mean medical problems not treated or not intervening with serious problems at school, because another child’s needs were taking up all their bandwidth. Plus their attention was widely divided: for example, they had one child learning to read at the same time as another child was needing to visit universities. And this was with a SAHP!

Also, life happened along the way. One of my parents had a life-threatening illness when two of us were still in primary school. There was a major world financial crisis that eroded their savings. The system of university financing changed completely during the time that they were raising their children, so they couldn’t afford to give two of us any support (we were not eligible for funding). Yes, these unexpected changes could happen to anyone, but my point is that by having a larger family, they were stretching their capacity to cope.

By the time I was in my mid teens my parents seemed worn out with parenting, but they still had nearly another decade to go for my younger sibling!

Family gatherings? Not really, apart from weddings and funerals, as we have been scattered across the country by circumstances.

My mum is one of 4. There are 10 cousins, but the generation after that is my 2 kids and my cousins two kids. I do feel a bit sad about that, as I grew up with loads of cousins. Clearly my cousins and my brothers didn't feel the same way though!

exH was an only child, I am one of 2 children, DH is the eldest of 3. I only met his dad a few months ago and we've been together 14 years so it's fair to say they're not close!

I love the idea of a big family - I used to work with a colleague who was the youngest of 11 and I was kind of envious. My grandmother was one of eight but because my parents moved nearly 300 miles away when I was child I never had the experience of growing up with grandparents, aunties, cousins etc around me. I have always made an effort with my mum's sister and her family though - she's 82 now.

I only had 3, but dh one of 4 so there were 12 cousins growing up together.
They have real fond memories of getting together at grandparents, playing in their massive garden etc.
Distance though means they are not close as adults.

I'm one of 3, we grew up with no extended family in our city. Occasionally we'd travel and spend Christmas at one side of the family (other side was abroad). We have only one aunt and uncle and 2 cousins on that side but there were still quite a lot of people around at Christmas there because of the 2 GPs, and my cousin's GPs and sometimes uncle from their other side were also invited, and sometimes one or more great aunts and second cousins etc. We all absolutely loved these Christmases. So much fun.

DH only has 1 sibling but 4 cousins and it was a close family. Xmas day there would be the 5 kids at someone's house, plus up to around 10 other adults. Likewise he loved these gatherings.

Now that 'our generation' are all adults, our families are growing and growing. This year at my DPs was our biggest yet - 8 adults and 4 kids. And I'm sure it's just going to get bigger as more children arrive, and same with DH's family too. I love it and I love that our kids can have these types of gatherings every year and a lot more frequently than I did as a child now that they have a lot of local extended family in the way that I didn't.

I loved my childhood but we had a very big house, so plenty of space, and money wasn't tight - we went to private school and had plenty of hobbies. We all get on well as adults although we are scattered across Europe .

My mum didn't work so was able to spend time with all of us and my dad was a very engaged parent at the weekends and we lived reasonably near our grandparents too

(Although we had less "stuff" than our friends with smaller families and parents in more ordinary jobs, eg. A small TV and no game boys etc but I think that was more different values than "can't afford")

I think it would have felt different if we were squeezed into a small house and sharing bedrooms or missing out on hobbies and attention

I'm 3rd of 4.
Hated it as a child, love it as an adult. It's made me a very good negotiator!

We have 2, 2, 0 and 2 children each.

Haha yes same, I said to my parents when it's all kicking off at a board meeting at work I feel like I am back at home with my siblings

My family used to be small - two siblings, two cousins, one aunt and uncle. They were the best christmasses, we were all so close, did some holidays together too.

Now our children are mostly older with partners of their own, there are so many people that it’s much harder to meet up and at family gatherings there is never enough time to properly catch up and have a laugh.

My husband was one of four, I think they were all born before their parents were 25. He describes their household as chaotic and stressful, MIL was always shouting and resentful of having no time or space for herself. It was tough on the elder two (he was one of them) as they were expected to look after the younger two. Apparently you had to hurriedly eat/ use your share of anything fast or one of the others would swipe it. I went to a couple of Christmas dinners when they were all there and it was indeed chaos, everyone talking/yelling across each other, no real conversation. (I'm one of two and my dad was an only so I only have 3 cousins, so I found it totally overwhelming).

The siblings were all really close though and H has lots of happy memories about adventures and escapades they got up to together. Like another poster mentioned, MIL was adamant they were a big happy family "like the Waltons" though that wasn't my perception.

Interestingly, none of them chose to have big families. His elder sister had one child, the two younger brothers had no kids. We have two (though I think H would have been happy enough with no kids, it was instigated by me!) None of them married except H either. That's quite funny as MIL (RIP) used to tell me she felt sorry for my mum (WTF) as she wouldn't have many grandchildren. Though as things have worked out my mum ended up with more!

I'm one of 6. I hated it. Never enough of anything growing up and parents had/have favourites. I was expected to look after the youngest.

Only two of us have got children, one each, and another two don't have anything to do with the rest and we never see them at Christmas.

Both our parents were only children so there's no cousins and all the grandparents died a long time ago.

Those of us who do talk and get along have all had a very nice Christmas though! But we don't live near each other so there's been a lot of travelling to get together.

I know four people from big families (8+). Two loved it, and two didn't. None of them have gone on to have more than four children though.

Look the truth is it depends on the family!

if the family isn’t a great one then a bigger version just contains more arseholes!
but that is true if it’s a smaller family too.

every family contains individuals who are all different so lots of siblings doesn’t actually mean lots of lifelong best friends it just means lots of lifelong adult relationships (unless someone goes no contact) that you are stuck navigating because society tells us we should be and there is something fundamentally wrong with us if we don’t continuously try. Even when that means getting treated badly over and over.

when it works though I suppose its great having your own gang forever.

My dad was the 9th child out of 14! My mum was the fifth of 7. Together they had 5 children (I'm the eldest), so growing up was 'busy' in our tiny 2 bedroom terrace (no bathroom or even a hot water tap! We had one tap in the kitchen which only ran cold water 😬) Laundry days were 'fun' for my mum, boiling pans of water to fill an old Dolly Tub!

We did have lots of cousins (I didn't know many of them though, as nobody I knew had cars in the 60s and only a few lived close by enough for visits).

Now, as a 60 year old, I think how sad that I have/had all these relatives that I never knew. I'd love to meet them, or at least know what became of them.

I suspect it's easier nowadays to build and maintain family connections, which would be amazing.

In my case though, having a big family didn't equal 'close knit' unfortunately.

I'm really surprised to read your view - I'm the eldest of six. My mum is oldest of 7. I have dozens of cousins- lots of big groupings. And I would say the eldest kids in each family by far have the least good experience- its something that honds us. My youngest sisters remember nothing but being looked after by a big group of people. I remember being one of the people that did the looking after. I definitely fended for myself more than the younger ones - I was climbing up on the sideboard at 5 to make toast while my mum was tending to yet another baby. By the time the younger ones came along she didn't have babies and had more capacity to actually be present.
It is family lore than the younger cousins in the family have far less life skills and often need rescuing!
It's obviously very individual but being the oldest in a big family isn't always amazing - I hated it and feel quite a lot of resentment towards my mother about it. None of the older ones are close - we got out the minute we could for some space. I avoid gatherings as I end up having to be a parent while my late 20s siblings act like kids. It's awful and I have zero desire to be around that much noise and chaos.
My advice to OP is only have the kids you have the mental and financial capacity for!