This struggling family has 6 kids. In most dopers experience what is it that motivates people to have huge families? Is it typcially religious faith or something else? Do some women just love being pregnant?
They like fucking.
Yes.
My father’s family had 9, 8 sons, 1 daughter. My mother’s family had 6, 4 girls 2 boys. My family (me being a kid) had seven children (by two different mothers) 3 boys 4 girls. I myself had 7 kids, 3 boys 4 girls. My wife was married before, and had a boy, so I guess we had eight, though I didn’t adopt him.
You could say it runs in the family, in the jeans (blue in this case), or in the genes, or it’s the religious thing, or the times.
My dad was born in 1891, myself in 1937 and I married in 1963. Of my 7 kids, 5 of them have kids, with no more than 4 in any family. I have a total of 17 grandchildren.
Yes, I’m Catholic, so that’s part of it. I’m also Irish and French and that’s part of it. The great thing about large families is there’s always someone around to help, then there’s the not so good side, there’s always someone around, i.e., no privacy.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. 
[on preview, DigitalC has it!]
It varies. What **DigitalC **said, or religious prohibitions against birth control, or religious exhortations to go forth and multiply, or a conviction that God Will Provide, or it being what you’re used to and like (like **PhiloVance **said), or poor planning, or poor understanding of finance, or fatalism, or wanting to make sure there will be someone to take care of you in your old age or to help you get the harvest in or continue your family business, or to finally get the gender of kid you’ve longed for after a long string of the other gender, or really really liking babies or liking being pregnant, or one-upmanship of one’s fecund peers, or a general sense that *just one more *won’t cost all that much more than the kids you’ve got already, or a belief that there really should be more people like you in the world, or…
I’d vote on PhiloVance’s explanation being most common in the US, with a dose of religion thrown in for many folks.
ETA: and of course the folks in the link have much more modest means all of a sudden than they used to. The recession caught a lot of us by surprise.
The only people I know anymore who are poor with huge families are all Amish (my step-grandma is ex-Amish and still lives in the area, so I do know a lot of Amish families).
It’s obvious in their case that having lots of kids helps with all of the farm work, and also helps propagate their religion.
Another reason for families with boucoup kids: yours, mine, ours.
John and Jane get together. John has two kids from a previous relationship, Jane has two from her first marriage and they have one together. Ta-da! Family of seven.
A lot of Orthodox Jews in New York have huge families and are far from wealthy. Some people assume that all Jews have the magic gift of moneymaking or something, but it isn’t true. There are a lot of Orthodox Jews in Queens and in other places in NY who basically do nothing but study the Torah, and they work whatever lousy jobs they can get to pay the bills. Plenty of them are on welfare. And they typically have giant families.
Channelling Darwin, the more children you have, the more successful you are. Those people who, like me, are childless are evolutionary dead ends (but we can still contribute to the evolutionary success of the species).
Further, if you’re already poor, the more children you have, the more chance there is of one being a success. And even if none of your children are successes, each one will have to contribute less individually to support you in your old age.
Also the status of women in the culture, the lower the position in their group the more childern they will have.
Some people value children more than money, which is a little less baffling when you put it into words like that. We all only get one life. For some people, having a large family is their greatest joy, and they could care less about dinners out and second cars when they have the love of their family surrounding them.
It also depends how you define “modest means” and “huge” families.
I’m the oldest of 4 boys. My Dad was a public school teacher, and my Mom stayed at home to take care of us. Did WE have “modest means”? Well, we sure weren’t rich. Were we a “huge” family? Well, toss in my grandparents, and we had 8 people living in about 1400 square feet.
Things look VERY different to many people now than they did when I was a kid. In the blue collar neighborhood I grew up in, 3-4 kids per family was average. A Mom & Dad with 4 kids and two grandparents in one small Archie Bunkerish house sure didn’t seem “huge.” It seemed pretty natural and ordinary.
Today, of course, a couple with just 3-4 kids is likely to get funny looks in some circles, and to hear quips like, “What are you, Mormons/Catholics”
They love having children it’s that simple. I don’t know a single large family whose parents that didn’t have that desire. It’s really nice when you grow up and have all those siblings and cousins. All the large families I know of were from farmer roots though.
3-4 childern isn’t a large family to me it’s modest. A large family is 6 or more. often more.
I know one guy “of modest means” who counted on at least one of his five children to hit it big and support him in his old age. Didn’t work out that way, though.
I’m one of 7 kids born within 6 years of each other, although one set of twins died at birth. My mother said she always expected to have kids right up to the last minute, she just didn’t expect the last minute to be 29. She delivered me and uterine cancer at the same time. Potentially there could’ve been a lot more, give my mother’s propensity for twins. I have 42 first cousins.
My father worked as a construction supervisor - not exactly a high-paying gig, and eventually movced up to contrstuction VP for a large retail chain. The pay there was a lot better, but many of us were grwon by then. As far as money was concerned, were didn’t always have everything we wanted, but we had what we needed. Hand-me-down clothes weren’t seen as a horrible stigma in the '60’s and '70’s. We went to Catholic schools. My parents bought used cars. I don’t think they looked at a child as something that took resources from a family, but as something that added to a family.
StG
If an unwed mother spaces her children right, she can live off of welfare for years. We’ve had people come into our office, eight to ten children, looking for houses to rent that will take Section 8 Housing & welfare.
Are hand-me-down clothes seen as a stigma today? I never would have guessed.
I think you are right, at least in this area of the world (Wisconsin). I have three brothers, and we were all born in a span of six years. We grew up very close to each other and to our cousins. Growing up on a farm, we never lacked for things to do. As teenagers our social group was my siblings and I, our cousins, and all of our extended group of friends. We did everything together. Today, we are in our late 40’s and early 50’s, and we are still close.
Now, in today’s terms, four kids constitutes a large family. I know a few in my community, but that size is considered a bit unusual.
I’m the oldest of 5 (might have been 6 if my mom’s second child hadn’t died hours after he was born). I have 3 younger sisters (1 set of twins) and the youngest is my brother. I think they kept trying for a boy till little bro came along.
Both my parents worked outside the home, and later started their own business. While we weren’t rich, we always had food and a place to live - my mom was proud of never having applied for public assistance. I spent a lot of time wishing I could afford clothes from the mall like my classmates had instead of Kmart clothes that got handed down to my sisters later, and we were all eligible for the free school lunches. Somehow, we all grew up to be productive citizens. Of all of us, only one of the twins and I have kids, one daughter each, plus a stepson for my sister as of last year. We still talk to each other and hang out together once in a while, since my sisters and I all live within a couple of miles of each other. My brother moved across the country last year, but he calls us regularly and is planning to visit in a few weeks.
What’s modest? My grandparents had 12 kids–my grandfather was an engineer who started his own business around the time #4 was born. They weren’t rich, but they were never hungry or in debt. My parents had 6 kids–my dad is an defense contractor, and while my mom makes very good money now, she didn’t finish college until #6 was in 2nd grade. We could have been upper-ish middle class, but 6 kids took a lot out of that–we always had a house, and they paid for college for all of us, but there were a lot of things we didn’t have that other kids might have. Is that a decision that seems odd to you? Is that what you are talking about? This is an honest question.
Slacker! I have over 100. I can’t remember the exact count.
My mom was one of 12 and my dad one of 11. I’m one of 6.
Religious belief seems to play a large role for all the big families I’ve ever encountered.