Is bigger better?

Family size as the solution to many a parenting problem

I’m from a relatively large family by today’s standards. I’m one of four and have forty-six cousins and eighteen aunts and uncles on my dad’s side. I grew up around most of my family, an aunt next door with her husband and five children, another across the street, grandma down the street, an uncle and his family next door to her, another uncle and his family one street over - you get the gist. We jokingly call my childhood neighborhood our commune.

As I’ve read parenting books throughout the past year, many of them attempt to solve similar problems: increased selfishness, loneliness, and isolation among children, decreased independence, and the loss of the “village.” I’ve noticed these themes in Jonathan Haidt’s Anxious Generation, Pamela Druckerman’s Bringing Up Bebe, and most recently, Michaeleen Doucliff’s Hunt, Gather, Parent. Each author seeks solutions to widespread problems for today’s parents and their children, attributing these problems to various cultural shifts. For Haidt it’s the rise of technology, for Druckerman and Doucliff it’s the failure of American culture to maintain the wisdom of parenting practices that other cultures have managed to keep.

There is a tendency to view the past or other practices through rose-colored glasses, as these authors do, and what I am about to say may just play into that dynamic further, but I believe this tendency is well founded. Genuine growth requires push and pull, progress and conservation. When it comes to parenting, it does no good to throw the baby out with the bathwater (metaphorically or otherwise), and many attempts to correct the misgivings of previous generations results in an overcorrection that fails to preserve what that generation had right.

I think that in recognizing many of the problems that come along with a larger family structure, we’ve failed to recognize the many goods that exist within the dynamic of a large family. As society has rapidly gone from 4-8 children families being the norm to being an anomaly (as Catherine Pakaluk observes in Hannah’s Children), we are scrambling to fill the gaps left by the collapse of a large family ecosystem. As I’ve read one parenting book after another, I’ve thought several times that the problems they’re addressing simply don’t exist in most large family structures. There are other problems sure, but I’ve thought more than once that many of these authors are attempting to preserve the goods that are packaged up with a large immediate and extended family to be accessible for the much smaller, more socially acceptable 1-2 child model of the modern world.

Of course, there will always be inadequacies within any model, but I do believe that parenting is easier within a larger family model. Then, parents of larger families are tasked with identifying and addressing the potentially problematic aspects of this dynamic (parentification, lack of adequate attention, burnt-out parents etc.) which strikes me as a far easier task than artificially creating the many benefits of a large family within a small one - some of which simply cannot be replicated.

So what are these irreplaceable phenomena that are extraordinarily difficult to artificially replicate, despite many of these author’s attempts to do so?

The Village

As we all know, it takes a village. As many cultural commentators have observed, the village is endangered. I believe that the collapse of the large family model has directly and indirectly influenced the collapse of the village, in obvious and discreet ways.

Immediate Family

When people discuss the village, they aren’t typically referring to the immediate family (parents and children), but rather the support system that exists outside of the immediate nuclear family. However, when it comes to family size, immediate families are the foundation of the extended family. Without multiple siblings, there will be no aunts, uncles, and cousins in the future. The large immediate family is the necessary foundation for the village. This sounds dramatic, and yes, there are ways to create a village without having 4+ children, but a broader cultural dynamic that not only tolerates but values a larger immediate family segues into a more supportive village as a whole.

Additionally, more children for the parents foster a certain laidbackedness that is fundamentally beneficial for a village dynamic. And more siblings for the children means there is more child-to-child teaching, something the parenting styles of today, particularly the Montessori method, laud. Plus that independence problem I mentioned? Seth Meyers humorously addresses the correlation between that and family size better than I can here.

Might I mention that more kiddos often means more outdoor and independent playtime? If there’s one computer and one TV but five children, you don’t have the same 1:1 technology problem that can lead to extreme amounts of screen and online time for children - at least until smartphones enter the picture. Children also enjoy playing together. In my experience, it’s far easier to supervise three children than be the personal entertainer of one. You enter the role of referee rather than teammate - which, let’s face it, is far less exhausting for our old grown up bodies and minds.

Extended Family

When I imagine the metaphorical village it takes to raise a child, it begins with the extended family. It’s grandma helping out when a new baby arrives, aunts and uncles swapping childcare, cousins to run around with and play. I suppose there is a point of diminishing return in this aspect (there is only one grandma to go around) but in general, when it comes to extended family, the more the merrier.

In Hunt, Gather, Parent, Michaeleen Doucliff launches an investigation into several indigenous culture’s parenting styles. She wants to know how they raise such patient, calm, emotionally healthy, and resilient children. During her journey she observes a trend of what she calls “alloparents”. This term refers to those who care for children who are not their biological offspring. Older siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents are all examples of this. The benefit of a large extended family is that you don’t have to search too far for trusted alloparents. Chances are, your parents and siblings share many of your values, and if they live in close proximity, can be hugely helpful as part of your village.

Beyond the element of trust and shared values that is more likely to exist within family as opposed to an extended community, many people are more comfortable asking more of family members. For example… it takes a really close friend to tell you that your breath stinks - but family? They’ll do that anytime. Likewise, you can call them at 3am for help with tasks that would be considered a bit gauche to ask a friend, neighbor, or community member to perform. As much as we may hate to admit it, extended family is not easily replaced, and we are remiss to pretend they are.

Extended Community

That being said, an extended community is an incredibly valuable tool, and one that is aided by a culture that respects the large family rather than tolerates it. In cultures where people have large families, people tend to be more sensitive to the ways in which large families need help, and appropriate ways friends and neighbors can lend it.

Growing up, many of my friends grandmothers called me “mija” or “mijita” - which translates to “daughter” or “little daughter”. These women weren’t my mom. They weren’t my grandma. But, in Mexican-American culture, the word is applicable far beyond people’s literal children. I think this indicates a culture that embraces a village mentality in a way that much of American culture does not. The characters in Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels also come to mind. It isn’t uncommon for them to leave their children with a neighbor for the day. The neighbor already has children, and childcare is viewed as a common, everyday task, so it’s a smaller ask.

Additionally, when you’re from a large family, or live in a community with many large families, more distinct generational divides emerge. There are enough kids running around that suddenly it isn’t strange for every kid to be a mija or mijo to the neighborhood abuelas. There are the grandparents, the parents, and the children - and all of these groups develop their own social dynamics. This can’t really happen when there are only 2-4 members of each generation.

Can she say that?

I am hesitant of this reading as a “everyone needs to have 4+ children and their children need to have 4+ children if we’re going to solve our parenting problems” type of post. It isn’t that. What I do mean to do, is make an observation that many of the parenting troubleshooters of our day and age seem to me to be troubleshooting issues that are less likely to arise in a community that embraces large families.

We can build awareness of these issues, and come up with complex ways to address them, or, we can prevent these problems arising by combatting them in a different way - embracing and recognizing the strengths of large families rather than simply tolerating them. We should probably do a little bit of both. We should also be aware that every “solution” will present its own problems. We need to be aware of those potential problems - whether they’re from too many children, not enough, or completely unrelated to family size - and find thoughtful ways to combat them.