Large Catholic families: they still exist

Last updated on: December 16, 2013 at 10:29 am by Jane the Actuary

Large Catholic families: they still exist 2013-12-16T10:29:00-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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A decade or so ago, I would have said that large Catholic families are in the past, a product of another time and place, and that large families these days are fundamentalist (e.g., the famous Duggars) or just plain poor. But as my kids have gotten older and we’ve met more people at church and at (the parrochial) school, I’m learing that’s not the case. True, two or three is probably the norm, but four is still quite common, and then there are the L’s, with five and the G’s with six (and they may not be done yet), and the M’s with seven or eight (I’m not sure), and the B’s with nine — and my husband had a conversation with Mr. B this weekend at a Scout outing, and they are definitely not done yet.

Or, rather, as with the Duggars, their approach is to simply not make any effort to control how many children they have — not because they believe it’s scripturally forbidden, but just because (so far as we understand) they enjoy having lots of kids.

Now, they don’t have all the extra income from a TV show. And they own a typical suburban house, not a mansion. They don’t homeschool. I have no idea how much time she spends on “homemaking” activities in the way that some mommy bloggers talk about making everything from scratch; I also have no idea how much or how little money they have for “luxuries” like eating out, vacations, etc. I have the impression that his parents help out with the kids a fair amount, and she tends to have a mother’s helper with her at the pool during the summer. But is this a case of “the older kids have to raise the younger ones?” — not so far as I can tell; she’s a Cub Scout den leader, he’s a soccer coach. From what I can tell, the time that, in many a upperish-middle-class household Dad spends on golf and Mom spends on mani-pedis, is devoted to the kids instead. Let’s say that having lots of kids is their hobby.

Is it an injustice to the kids? our world is filled with things kids “need” from their parents: extensive one-on-one time, transport to and from a myriad of enriching activities (sports are really big around here), and, of course, a fat college fund. Of course, the last of these is a very recent expectation, that parents have a moral obligation to provide sufficient college money for all their kids, and refrain from having more than one or two if they can’t, and I assume they just reject this expecatation.

It feels like a fairly risky thing to do, in terms of the financial strain they’d be under if, for instance, he lost his job, or if they lost his parents or some other part of their support network — but, on the other hand, it could be that their level of involvement means that their support network is wide enough that it’s not particularly fragile.

Are they contributing to overpopulation? Given the small number of large American families these days, their impact is statistically insignificant. And their per-person carbon footprint is much smaller than five two-child families in equally-sized houses, with new clothes instead of hand-me-downs, with the constant transport to travel baseball, etc.

Am I planning on joining them in the large-family world? No — some people are born parents and others just muddle through.

What’s my point? Nothing, really. It’s just interesting. Do you know any large families?

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