HOW many kids did you say?

Thanks to Rebekah for her post "Six" on a blog I read frequently (see CSPPon the right). It's short, so I'm shamelessly reprinting the entire thing here.

Here is how I understand family size (with the caveat that among Christians who have given no indication to the contrary, I am so mired in my own reality as to consider non-contraception to be the default practice. Terribly naive of me, I know, though I mean for it to be charitable):

1=small (may indicate fertility problems)

2=Normal! Way to go!

3=trying for a boy or girl, or a "mistake"

4-5=bigger than normal (indicates mild or moderate parental zaniness, or twins)

But six is where it gets serious. Six kids doesn't happen by accident. Six kids is beyond zany. Six is full-on crazy. Six kids very likely means a weird vehicle. Six is Big.

Six is also where some people (not all) seem to begin considering themselves major parenting experts and get real annoying. I promise I'll try not to do that. (It would be hard to come off as a parenting expert when my oldest kid is eight, anyway--lots of critical stages still not even touched.)

I think six will have some advantages, though. No odd box of raisins left to fossilize in the cabinet. That's been a huge problem with five.

I don't know about you, but fossilized raisins are definitely my motivation for having more kids.  :)

C'mon! What more reason--raisin?--do you need?

I've been ruminating lately on the differing attitudes between people on "appropriate" numbers of children. It never ceases to surprise me when I hear people ask about non-relatives' reproductive intentions. Pregnancy just seems to bring out the tell-all in people, doesn't it?

That aside, I think most people probably accept the norms they're surrounded with. My great-grandparents were in the "crazy" category; several of them had ten and twelve siblings. My grandparents were in much smaller families, either from family disruption or fertility problems or the Depression or any number of things, even a combination. My paternal grandparents were only children. My maternal grandparents had two other siblings (three total). That being said, my dad has three siblings, my mom has four; my father-in-law was an only child, and my mother-in-law has two sisters. Maybe the slightly higher numbers of kids in my small example reflect the post-WWII boom. Who knows?

My parents had three (twins first--that's me and my sister) and then my brother; my in-laws had two (Papa and his sister). In my very unofficial opinion, I think these numbers probably reflect the norm for the times. Of all the hundreds of kids I knew growing up, I only knew a handful who came from families with more than three kids. I was always fascinated by families with four kids or more. As I've gotten older, I've noticed that most of those families that have more kids are mixed; that is, the parents were married before and their children aren't biologically related. Maybe that phenomenon partly fuels the fascination of families with more than three biological children. One mom! One dad! Many babies! (+ a little reproductive technology) = Perfect Recipe for Reality Show Success!  

In our rural area, people in my generation seem to be having, on average, three or four biological kids. In fact, I read in a recent novel that "four is the new two" with kids. I don't know if this is true, but it seems to be, at least with those younger-ish people I know who are old enough to have been married and procreated quatro times. At any rate, there's several people in our congregation who came from or have had families of six, eight, nine, twelve children. When there's a lot of examples of "big" families around, it doesn't seem so weird to have more than three.

No one's asked us--yet--if we're "planning" on having more kids. I'm thinking that day is coming...soon. Especially because now we know we're expecting a girl.

But doesn't a girl need a sister? :)