In a society where artificial birth control is widely available and accepted, having a large family is increasingly seen as a choice taken primarily by people outside the mainstream, often for religious reasons.
It’s interesting how even among practicing Catholics, what constitutes a “large family” varies significantly from parish to parish and diocese to diocese. Growing up in the diocese of Columbus, my family was considered one of the biggest families in the parish and we had 4 kids.
Now as an adult I live in the Diocese of Arlington in Northern VA, and 4 kids is more like average. Nobody would really talk about you having a large family until you’re at 6+ or so.
So anecdotally, Sunday Mass attendance I would say is poorly correlated with having a large family, because I think it is also poorly correlated with whether one actually follows the church’s teaching on birth control. Large families are more correlated with how well catechized people are, which has vast discrepancies across various parishes and dioceses. I grew up going to Mass every Sunday, but I didn’t really think of the Church’s teachings as much more than suggestions because I didn’t really grow up with anyone actually living them, whereas growing up around large faithful families begets more large faithful families. Large families being around makes it seem like a realistic option, instead of something weird. The witness of other people in our communities is very important.
(I don’t know for sure that people weren’t following the Church’s teachings were I grew up, but as a married father I am EXTREMELY skeptical that anyone with normal fertility following the Church’s teachings on birth control could only have 2 kids.)
IMO speculating on whether others follow the Church's teachings on birth control etc is inappropriate.
For one thing, fertility issues are not that uncommon, including temporary ones. I know more than one couple who got to the point of adopting and then later conceived.
Secondly, NFP is effective for many couples and is consistent with Church teaching. Many of my fellow conservatives may feel that people should choose to have more kids out of "generosity" - nevertheless, such decisions are up to the couple based on their perception of their resources - not just financial but considering emotional, familial and other factors as well.
Having many children can certainly be an expression of generosity, and I know large Catholic families who are just amazing ... but I'm also aware of eight-child families where things didn't turn out well on any level and where I think it would likely have been more prudent to have fewer - under the discipline of NFP - and do a better job on the marriage and the parenting. Bottom line is it's up to each married couple to figure it out, and the rest of us nearby to be helpful rather than being the Catholic peanut gallery.
I specifically carved out people with fertility issues in my original statement, I was only referring to people with normal fertility.
I am not anti-NFP, I am extremely pro, but it is not perfect, and it is difficult to practice it perfectly. All it takes is one mistake in using it to produce an unplanned child, and that discipline must be maintained for decades (again assuming normal fertility and marriage at the average age). I find the notion that people who are practicing NFP are majority of the time landing at the exact typical desired American family size (2-3 planned kids) highly suspect. No mistakes? Ever? Not to mention that most dioceses’ offered NFP classes are usually the less precise methods like Creighton.
That being said, I did not mean to come off with any kind of judgement or moral superiority towards smaller families. Obviously some have fertility issues, or get married later. I just struggle to believe that for the majority of fertile couples who get married before their 30s that it is very likely that they could practice NFP so successfully as to come away with average American numbers of children. I do think it is also improper to speculate that large families were imprudent with the number of children they have, without knowing the full details of their personal life and potential struggles with high fertility, irregular cycles, or any of the other things that can interfere in the precise application of NFP. The only way to 100% cap your family size is abstinence, and that is a cross all its own.
There is a lot of cruelty in the NFP space, particularly directed at women who are struggling with frequent repeated pregnancies, who are frequently dismissed as if they are just too stupid to use it right.
"I do think it is also improper to speculate that large families were imprudent with the number of children they have."
I expect to encounter this attitude in non-Catholic circles, though it's still disheartening. It is really difficult, though, to encounter it in the Church. School tuition rates, sacramental prep, family event scheduling, all presume small family size norms (not to mention the default assumption that any given family is not really practicing). At least in our parish and area, this seems to be improving over time, perhaps because there are more of us.
I think there may be some room for Catholic encouragement that doesn’t buy into the secular norm on family size.
I felt better after moving to a parish where a larger family isn’t seen as something shocking. It’s just hard not to speculate on why people would think that. Or maybe I just need to try harder to be charitable. 😂
I certainly don’t think Jacob was saying something that isn’t thought by a lot of people with larger families, and I think it could be better to have the discussion openly rather than have it continue as suspicions and sotto voice. I don’t think suppression of it as “inappropriate” (what a freighted word these days) is the key as much as conversations in good will.
Your point about local norms is spot on, I think. One of my children recently referenced a "small family" we know that has four children. No, my dude, that is actually not small, demographically speaking, we just hang out with a lot of people who are weird like us.
(I was one of four, and while we knew more than a couple other families with four, growing up I only knew one other family who had five, and none with more than that. But we weren't churchgoers.)
I suspect that the number of children per couple depends significantly more on cultural/relational factors then on strict dogma adherence/service attendance. Few wish to feel as an outlier or a pioneer; the "norm" is the desire to not stick-out, and remain "normal."
I attended a couple's group about a two years ago, and one of the couples announced that they were pregnant. It was not a surprise that within a year, every single couple from the group announced a pregnancy (for every couple except the initial couple, it was a first pregnancy for everyone else). It was "normalized."
Several of my relatives have 4-5 children, despite the fact that many of them are secular and not particularly religious; it's just the norm in the family (and hence why it does not really register to me that 5 children constitutes a "large family," it seems average to me. My nuclear family of 3 children when I was a child always seemed very small to me growing up compared to my relatives). Likewise, I can envision a family with three adult children of which one child is very religiously Catholic and the other two are secular. If the two secular adult children have no children, it would be incredibly psychologically difficult for the one Catholic adherent to have 5 children, as it is countercultural in said family, and it would be difficult to relate with other family members.
Regarding multiple relationships: in secular world, a lot of people are shocked that I'm having baby #8, but even more people are shocked that they all have the same father. Strangely, this almost makes it *less* socially permissible, or at least much more odd. Almost a "does not compute."
I highly recommend the book Hannah's Children which is a survey of mothers of large families (here 5+) in the US. Most are religious, but not are all the same, and it features mothers of varying income levels and locales, and religious traditions. I thought it had some really interesting things to say about how religion and family influence each other, rather than it being one way.
It’s interesting how even among practicing Catholics, what constitutes a “large family” varies significantly from parish to parish and diocese to diocese. Growing up in the diocese of Columbus, my family was considered one of the biggest families in the parish and we had 4 kids.
Now as an adult I live in the Diocese of Arlington in Northern VA, and 4 kids is more like average. Nobody would really talk about you having a large family until you’re at 6+ or so.
So anecdotally, Sunday Mass attendance I would say is poorly correlated with having a large family, because I think it is also poorly correlated with whether one actually follows the church’s teaching on birth control. Large families are more correlated with how well catechized people are, which has vast discrepancies across various parishes and dioceses. I grew up going to Mass every Sunday, but I didn’t really think of the Church’s teachings as much more than suggestions because I didn’t really grow up with anyone actually living them, whereas growing up around large faithful families begets more large faithful families. Large families being around makes it seem like a realistic option, instead of something weird. The witness of other people in our communities is very important.
(I don’t know for sure that people weren’t following the Church’s teachings were I grew up, but as a married father I am EXTREMELY skeptical that anyone with normal fertility following the Church’s teachings on birth control could only have 2 kids.)
IMO speculating on whether others follow the Church's teachings on birth control etc is inappropriate.
For one thing, fertility issues are not that uncommon, including temporary ones. I know more than one couple who got to the point of adopting and then later conceived.
Secondly, NFP is effective for many couples and is consistent with Church teaching. Many of my fellow conservatives may feel that people should choose to have more kids out of "generosity" - nevertheless, such decisions are up to the couple based on their perception of their resources - not just financial but considering emotional, familial and other factors as well.
Having many children can certainly be an expression of generosity, and I know large Catholic families who are just amazing ... but I'm also aware of eight-child families where things didn't turn out well on any level and where I think it would likely have been more prudent to have fewer - under the discipline of NFP - and do a better job on the marriage and the parenting. Bottom line is it's up to each married couple to figure it out, and the rest of us nearby to be helpful rather than being the Catholic peanut gallery.
I specifically carved out people with fertility issues in my original statement, I was only referring to people with normal fertility.
I am not anti-NFP, I am extremely pro, but it is not perfect, and it is difficult to practice it perfectly. All it takes is one mistake in using it to produce an unplanned child, and that discipline must be maintained for decades (again assuming normal fertility and marriage at the average age). I find the notion that people who are practicing NFP are majority of the time landing at the exact typical desired American family size (2-3 planned kids) highly suspect. No mistakes? Ever? Not to mention that most dioceses’ offered NFP classes are usually the less precise methods like Creighton.
That being said, I did not mean to come off with any kind of judgement or moral superiority towards smaller families. Obviously some have fertility issues, or get married later. I just struggle to believe that for the majority of fertile couples who get married before their 30s that it is very likely that they could practice NFP so successfully as to come away with average American numbers of children. I do think it is also improper to speculate that large families were imprudent with the number of children they have, without knowing the full details of their personal life and potential struggles with high fertility, irregular cycles, or any of the other things that can interfere in the precise application of NFP. The only way to 100% cap your family size is abstinence, and that is a cross all its own.
There is a lot of cruelty in the NFP space, particularly directed at women who are struggling with frequent repeated pregnancies, who are frequently dismissed as if they are just too stupid to use it right.
"I do think it is also improper to speculate that large families were imprudent with the number of children they have."
I expect to encounter this attitude in non-Catholic circles, though it's still disheartening. It is really difficult, though, to encounter it in the Church. School tuition rates, sacramental prep, family event scheduling, all presume small family size norms (not to mention the default assumption that any given family is not really practicing). At least in our parish and area, this seems to be improving over time, perhaps because there are more of us.
I think there may be some room for Catholic encouragement that doesn’t buy into the secular norm on family size.
I felt better after moving to a parish where a larger family isn’t seen as something shocking. It’s just hard not to speculate on why people would think that. Or maybe I just need to try harder to be charitable. 😂
I certainly don’t think Jacob was saying something that isn’t thought by a lot of people with larger families, and I think it could be better to have the discussion openly rather than have it continue as suspicions and sotto voice. I don’t think suppression of it as “inappropriate” (what a freighted word these days) is the key as much as conversations in good will.
Your point about local norms is spot on, I think. One of my children recently referenced a "small family" we know that has four children. No, my dude, that is actually not small, demographically speaking, we just hang out with a lot of people who are weird like us.
(I was one of four, and while we knew more than a couple other families with four, growing up I only knew one other family who had five, and none with more than that. But we weren't churchgoers.)
I suspect that the number of children per couple depends significantly more on cultural/relational factors then on strict dogma adherence/service attendance. Few wish to feel as an outlier or a pioneer; the "norm" is the desire to not stick-out, and remain "normal."
I attended a couple's group about a two years ago, and one of the couples announced that they were pregnant. It was not a surprise that within a year, every single couple from the group announced a pregnancy (for every couple except the initial couple, it was a first pregnancy for everyone else). It was "normalized."
Several of my relatives have 4-5 children, despite the fact that many of them are secular and not particularly religious; it's just the norm in the family (and hence why it does not really register to me that 5 children constitutes a "large family," it seems average to me. My nuclear family of 3 children when I was a child always seemed very small to me growing up compared to my relatives). Likewise, I can envision a family with three adult children of which one child is very religiously Catholic and the other two are secular. If the two secular adult children have no children, it would be incredibly psychologically difficult for the one Catholic adherent to have 5 children, as it is countercultural in said family, and it would be difficult to relate with other family members.
Regarding multiple relationships: in secular world, a lot of people are shocked that I'm having baby #8, but even more people are shocked that they all have the same father. Strangely, this almost makes it *less* socially permissible, or at least much more odd. Almost a "does not compute."
I highly recommend the book Hannah's Children which is a survey of mothers of large families (here 5+) in the US. Most are religious, but not are all the same, and it features mothers of varying income levels and locales, and religious traditions. I thought it had some really interesting things to say about how religion and family influence each other, rather than it being one way.