NEW YORK, Mar. 12, 2001 (LSN.ca) – Today’s Parent, a popular magazine not known for conservative views recently published an article extolling the benefits of big families, written by Dorothy Nixon, mother of two children born two-and-a-half years apart. Nixon relates, “I though it would be easy, relatively speaking, raising just two kids, a comfortable two years apart. But now, . maybe Mother Nature, who equipped me to have many more children that that, has had the last laugh.”
Reflecting on her brother-in-law who raised seven boys, she says, “I’m beginning to think having small families, period, is highly impractical. A large family is like a complex organism, designed by nature to produce human beings who are responsible and cooperative, not to mention good at negotiating, alliance building and protecting themselves. Large families produce children for the real world, children with survival skills.”
Beyond benefits for children, Nixon writes that parents of large families benefit having siblings entertain one another. While her brother-in-law’s children play outside for hours together Nixon relates her children refuse to go out saying, “There’s no one to play with outside!” Nixon writes, “True, with all these small families and huge houses with home theaters and cable modems, no one plays outside any more.” Parents also benefit from large families by way of experience, writes Nixon. “The problem is, with just two kids there’s no real opportunity to learn from experience. The minute you’ve figured out one phase of the game, you are on to the next.”
(Today’s Parent, December/January, 2001, pp 114-118)