The Benefits of a Big Family

Sharing life stories can be interesting, especially if you are from a big family!  Marc and I are both one of 6 kids, but I have friends and relatives who are only children in their family.  We truly had very different experiences growing up!  

The average number of children in families today are slightly less than 2. There were some positive and negative aspects to growing up with 5 siblings.

Tough things were:

There was only one car for our whole family.  We definitely had to be organized and share!  Nobody wore seatbelts, we just piled in the car.  That is when the best fights started, but our Mom always got us under control.  Our first house had just 1 bathroom, but soon after I was born, we moved to a larger house with 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.  That surly decreased the amount of arguments! Money was tight in our family, our Dad was the sole breadwinner.  We did not have any air conditioning in the house while us kids were there, but as soon as I moved out (I was the baby of the family in more ways than one) my parents put in central air!  That really hurt my feelings!!

The great things were:

Our Mom was an exceptional cook, most dishes were restaurant quality! We were very close to our siblings, we made each other laugh a lot!  We lived in a great school district, so we all had a great education. There was always someone to hang out with, even if you were in a squabble. We had a great Sunday dinner, with everyone in attendance.  Even my older siblings that were already married came home for the feast.  Our Dad loved games of any kind.  There were many card games, scrabble championships and ping pong in the garage.  We loved the "friendly" competition!

I do hope that our children didn't miss out on too much fun without having all the siblings that Marc and I did.  I know they still have some interesting stories to tell about spending time all together!