To wonder if you're one of the older members of a large family you ever stop and think

[PlayOnWurtz]

No more kids please mum and dad!

How much were you expected to do to support them?

My mum and dad each have seven siblings. I am one of four and I want at least four kids. I have a really close relationship with my siblings and love my nieces and nephews to bits. Wouldn't trade it for the world.

Both my parents were from very large families, both had siblings who died as children, but during the twenties, when they were born that wasn't so uncommon. My mother tells me of sleeping in 'the girls' room' with four sisters all in together and of nine people crammed into a three bedroomed house. Contraception and choice meant that she could limit her family and give us a good standard of living, our own rooms etc.

My mother is one of 13. Interestingly it is the older siblings who are more stable and successful. The younger ones are somewhat flighty.

Only one of them had a large family (7) and the next biggest is 4, then the others had 1-3 each.

Neighbours had 11 in a three bedroom house. My friend was in the middle and largely left to her own devices. She has one child now. It was chaos in her house, mum did a lot of shouting.

I have one and according to popular opinion he'll be a loner weirdo left with a massive burden when DH and I get old.
DH is one of five, three live in Australia and won't be coming back and the remaining sibling is as useful as a chocolate teapot so the massive burden falls on DH. Even with four siblings.

I'm one of 5 myself and can honestly say my siblings are my best friends. I have three and would love another, might plan for next year. I love big families, I think my maximum would be six though just because I know that's the most I could handle x

I'm the eldest of 5 and I have 5 dc. My mum is 1 of 4 and my dad 1 of 5.

I never felt put upon when I was growing up, but I did 'mother' my younger siblings. I think it made me more responsible and caring. I love my family.

My eldest is 16 and has told me that lots of his friends tell him they are quite envious of him. He has said that although he would prefer his own bedroom, he loves having 4 siblings.

Our home is not chaotic. Everyone chips in. I would expect the same if we had 2 dc.

All of my dc say that they want their own children. They say that they probably won't have 5 unless they win the lottery!

It's interesting that the majority (not all!) of posts from the perspective of the DC involved are that having lots of siblings was a negative thing, whilst the posts from parents are super-defensive and claiming their DC love it. I'd love to hear from those DC when they're older!

Clearly it works well for some DC, but as others have said, if you're shy or just quieter it must be very easy to be overlooked in favour of louder, more troublesome DC. It's not just the babysitting and housework, I just don't see how parents can give more than 4 or 5 kids the one-to-one attention they need (unless neither of them work).

I have 5, and my eldest says I should have stopped at 1. Sometimes he says 2 - my second is the one he argues with the least.

It's a bit late now though!

I do get time on my own with them (not that my eldest wants to ever spend time with his embarrassing mother) and though we haven't got loads of money they get stuff, pocket money and new clothes as well as hand me downs.

I do ask the eldest to look after the youngest (9 years old) occasionally, or DS2, as he has ASD & MLD, so even though he's 14 he can't be left at home alone. Sometimes he picks him up from school for me if he's not at college.

I think we've only left him to properly babysit (as opposed to popping down the shop for 15 minutes) a handful of times - and I always pay him for those times. He likes getting extra money so he doesn't mind.

They'd love their own bedrooms but unless we win the lottery it ain't happening.

As one of the quiet ones in my family of 7 children, Hedgehog, I think in some ways I got more one-to-one time with my mother because I liked the quiet things she did. We gardened together and cooked together and played Scrabble together, and spent a lot of time talking while we did those things.

My parents were pretty good at making sure they gave us all attention at different times, and supported whatever extra curriculars we wanted to do if they could afford it. We all played sport, we all learned musical instruments, and those of us who wanted to did things like Brownies and Scouts.

IME it's not the number of children that matters it's the parents.

I'm fascinated by 'all these people say they come from very large (by which I mean seven eight and more, all the way up to 15 and 16) families. In RL I have rarely met anyone who is one of more than seven and even that has been extremely rare.

Can I ask what nationalities/cultures/religions some of you are, as I am sure that must have a huge bearing on this. As someone from a bog standard lapsed C of E / atheist nuclear English family I find the idea of very large families bewildering and impossible to imagine.

I am one of two as were both my parents. I can only think of one person in my living extended family who has had four children, the rest have all had two.

I have to go back to my great grandparents on both sides of my family to find anyone who had four or more and that was in the early 1900s when there was no BC and not all those children made it past early childhood.

Four and over is considered a big family where I live, even when I was younger. I'm one of four and we had a lovely childhood although at times money was tight. I babysat my little sister in the school holidays from when I was old enough too but I got paid for it so win win really! We weren't expected to do much around the house though so I never felt resentful that I was having to do loads of extra work as both my parents had had childhoods where they had to do a lot of cleaning and cooking, one from a 2 child fam and one from a 5 child fam so it can happen in any size family! We also all had our own rooms.

It's also fun being one of four now I'm older but I'm close to my siblings and their partners and as we are all relatively close in age, we've always moved in similar social circles as well.

We probably won't have four as we can't afford it but hope to have three :)

I had a lovely elderly neighbour with 5dcs and she joked that she'd had so many so she'd be looked after in her old age, when she did become very ill there would always be a dc popping in with a meal or clean washing. After she died I was bringing dc4 back from the hospital and was stopped by neighbours eldest ds he commented how I was catching his mum up and I told him what she'd said and complimented them on how well they had looked after their dm and he snorted and said if only she'd stopped at 4 we'd all have been better off I laughed and he fixed me with a steely gaze and said seriously don't do it! However after watching frozen dd has asked for a sister, two eldest ds looked at one another then gave me a nod of permission (pretty sure they just want her off their backs) when I mentioned it to dp he held a kitchen knife to his groan and said I'll cut it off myself If have to. Think that's a no

I'm one of 8. My parents were not religious at all. I think my mum wanted lots of children and my dad went along with it. I didn't want it for myself and none us have more than two. Apart from one teenage pregnancy we have all so far had children relatively late age 35+.

I am slightly envious of all the large families on here. I feel sad for DD that I couldn't have any more children. I am one of two and so is OH, and we don't live near either family, so DD sees her cousins about two or three times a year. They are all much older than her so she hasn't been able to build up a close relationship with them either.

I don't judge people for the size of family they have, but I do lose patience when people with loads of children who complain about the expense of things like school uniform and other costs related to bringing up a large family. Surely they factor that in when deciding to have their children?

Just to reply to question about where large families are from. We are from lreland and all my friends had large families. We were born in the 60s. I genuinely never felt neglected but my parents were very hard working and had a good routine. I loved going to my friends houses where there were always lots of people around. I suppose it was normal to us. I didn't have lots of children because l hated coming from a big family but because l had dreadful pregnancies, wanted to work outside the home, am a bit lazy and hate housework and because it's not really done any more as we have more choices. l never once thought l'm not having a big family because l came from a big family. That was my norm and l loved it. Still do.

I do lose patience when people with loads of children who complain about the expense of things like school uniform and other costs related to bringing up a large family. Surely they factor that in when deciding to have their children?

I know of someone online with 9 children. They made the choice not to prevent any pregnancies, but constantly complains about their lack of lifestyle choices due to money shortage. They both work part time so are in need of CTC top up just to feed the family really, she is always complaining about not being able to afford extra curricular activities for the younger ones

If you have two you can say you are tired or the kids are driving you mad or you would love a night out etc.

Do that if you have more than the average number of kids and you get 'well you should have thought about that shouldn't you'

I expect we all know someone who complains about the price of things and the lack of lifestyle choices. Do they all have 9 kids?

Of course they don't all have nine kids, it is hardly a common number However it isn't exactly rocket science that a large family is going to cost a reasonable amount of money, especially when both parents only work PT. Many couples now can't go beyond 1 child, let alone 2 because they are aware of future costs.

DH is youngest of 5 (in 5 years), Im youngest of 6. We have 4.

My eldest sister had 2, (no baby sitting ever) my eldest sil only has 1 for fertility reasons but would have liked more and they were v poor as kids so everyone did everything on the farm and in the house, and with only 5 years between the youngest and eldest I think that helped.

Yeah that always makes me laugh. People with only 2 or 3 kids can moan all they like about how tired they are, how much uniform/food/holidays etc cost BUT you dare have a large family and all of a sudden you lose your right to have a moan! We'll leave that to the less able to mananage families then

*manage

What's being a bit missed is that people are having fewer children partly because of freely available contraceptives. Manhole of the families quoted are from a time when the pill either wasn't available or was less socially acceptable to take. Having loads of siblings may have been a put off but being able to ensure you can stop at 2 is the real stop on larger families. Many of the bad experiences may have been because that number wasn't a choice and the mother couldn't cope so relied on the older ones.