Err, yeah I'm a little skeptical of parents who want lots of children. I'm in my twenties now, but I was raised Catholic, I have twelve siblings, and I was homeschooled until my senior year. There were several issues:
- Me and my siblings all feel like our parents loved the "identity" of being parents and having lots of children, but when it came down to the brass tax of actually caring for our emotional needs, they were entirely absent. This was such a large rift that almost all of us intentionally don't have close relationships with our parents.
- On top of emotional neglect, there was inevitable physical neglect. One brother clearly had autism but our parents never had the time or finances to get him treated appropriately. Two siblings weren't able to get the braces they needed for their teeth as kids and had to get jaw surgery as adults. Two of my siblings were injured in severe accidents growing up that would've been avoided if a parent had been watching out.
- The parents of these families go around narcissistically glowing with all the social credit for being "superhero parents" when realistically the majority of the labor falls upon the oldest siblings. Me and my two sisters effectively raised all of our younger siblings with our mother being pregnant so often, and father working full-time. Our parents never recognized how much work we put in, and as we transitioned to adulthood it took a lot of work to establish healthy relationships with our younger siblings where we didn't feel taken advantage of (the younger siblings had parental expectations of us for years afterward).
- The lack of socialization from being homeschooled really came back to bite us in the ass. Some of my siblings got (cyber) bullied after transitioning to the real world. Some simply never were able to make the adjustment to talking to normal people, and some are still really struggling. I was able to get "socialized" and now appear like a normal SWE at a large tech company but I'm very lucky.
So....be very careful around these families and their values. A lot of times having lots of kids are a narcisstic vision from the parents, rather than a true desire to take care of a lot of people.
- Me and my siblings all feel like our parents loved the "identity" of being parents and having lots of children, but when it came down to the brass tax of actually caring for our emotional needs, they were entirely absent. This was such a large rift that almost all of us intentionally don't have close relationships with our parents.
- On top of emotional neglect, there was inevitable physical neglect. One brother clearly had autism but our parents never had the time or finances to get him treated appropriately. Two siblings weren't able to get the braces they needed for their teeth as kids and had to get jaw surgery as adults. Two of my siblings were injured in severe accidents growing up that would've been avoided if a parent had been watching out.
- The parents of these families go around narcissistically glowing with all the social credit for being "superhero parents" when realistically the majority of the labor falls upon the oldest siblings. Me and my two sisters effectively raised all of our younger siblings with our mother being pregnant so often, and father working full-time. Our parents never recognized how much work we put in, and as we transitioned to adulthood it took a lot of work to establish healthy relationships with our younger siblings where we didn't feel taken advantage of (the younger siblings had parental expectations of us for years afterward).
- The lack of socialization from being homeschooled really came back to bite us in the ass. Some of my siblings got (cyber) bullied after transitioning to the real world. Some simply never were able to make the adjustment to talking to normal people, and some are still really struggling. I was able to get "socialized" and now appear like a normal SWE at a large tech company but I'm very lucky.
So....be very careful around these families and their values. A lot of times having lots of kids are a narcisstic vision from the parents, rather than a true desire to take care of a lot of people.