I'm glad the New York Times published this, even if it was in the cheesy Sunday Styles section.

There's a bit of stigma attached to larger-than-average families in the USA. And at the same time, we bemoan the low fertility rate and worry about Social Security going bankrupt.

That figure for 1976 seems pretty odd, though. I was in kindergarten then and we had maybe two families in our immediate neighborhood with three or more kids. (Just to clarify -- we were not one of them.) Two children per family was pretty much the neighborhood norm.

I was in sixth grade in '76 and the norm in our neighborhood was three or more. We had three in our family and we were almost the smallest family I knew. I knew more than a couple of families with more than 7 siblings. It did mean that there was always someone to play with.

Oh, there were a bunch of 4, 5- and 7- and more-kid families in my town when I grew up. It was New Jersey - lotsa Catholics!

I was in New Jersey too and 99% of our neighborhood was Catholic, it's gotten much more Anglo-yuppie since I left though.

I find this interesting. (Mostly because I was the accident baby. My brother was planned and my mom thought she was too old to have another baby. Guess not.)

I know that I don't really think much about having a huge family. Or any family at all. Babies/children scare the shit out of me. (Srsly, my best friend had a baby shortly after graduating from college and whenever I go visit her, I get freaked out because I don't know what to do with this little person who wants to play with my glasses.)

The reason my mom had 4 kids had nothing to do with religion, society nor the availability of abortion. Her first 3 were boys, and she wanted a daughter, dammit.

I'm one of five (all born before 1976). There was one family down the street who had six and the family across the street had four. Everyone else had two or three. This was in Southern California in a racially mixed neighbourhood (I have no idea about the religions of the neighbours).

When making these comparisons I think it's worthwhile to consider the costs of child-rearing. What was my parents' healthcare bill in the 70s? What did a college education cost? Child care? Those costs are through the roof and they're involved in family planning. Median incomes have fallen, and though there are now many more two-income households, the outsourced services you need to maintain two or more jobs per family generally take up a huge chunk of that increased income share per household. I have a hard time envisioning providing the basics for even one child, let alone three or four.

Yeah. My husband and I have always wanted one child, but even if we changed our minds, I doubt we could afford it and stay living in NYC. And we like living here.

I'm one of three (we were all born in the 80s). Didn't realize that put me in the minority. I definitely want at least three children; can't imagine life with less.

When making these comparisons I think it's worthwhile to consider the costs of child-rearing. What was my parents' healthcare bill in the 70s? What did a college education cost? Child care? Those costs are through the roof and they're involved in family planning.

These are definitely factors, especially since we've made a college degree mandatory for all jobs that don't require wearing a nametag and saying the word "value meal."

[On preview: the insane cost of housing in many cities is another factor.]

We've also changed our standard of living. I think that, to a lot of people, it seems cruel to make children share rooms or wear unfashionable, hand-me-down clothing.

What both Miko and J_P said. During the early 70s, my sister paid for her tuition, books, and the dorm Rutgers by working at a summer job as an information operator at NJ Bell. She graduated without significant debt never got any financial help from my parents. Can't do that now. Even when I went to college in the '80, tuition was still only $2500 a year at a public university. There's no way that you could send five kids to college these days without having that $500,000/yr salary that NYC bankers can't live on.

think that, to a lot of people, it seems cruel to make children share rooms or wear unfashionable, hand-me-down clothing.

That's totally true, and those things were so common not that long ago.

And yeah, I can't imagine being able to pay for a year's college based on summer job earnings!

I paid for my first two years of college with summer job earnings and I'm only 33.

Of course, this was NZ. But even so.
We already have more money in my daughter's 529 account than my first year of college fees.

Yeah, I'm very sorry that Americans have to pay absolutely exorbitant amounts for their education, and that too many of them think that university is something to which they're entitled - it seems absolutely ridiculous to me. My BA and first Masters were fully government funded (and cost me $0) - I wouldn't have been able to afford them if they weren't - and I started my career with $0 debt. And I still have $0 debt.

the insane cost of housing in many cities is another factor

And yet the average square footage of American homes has never been higher. Builders have actually been wondering why for a few years now.

And yet the average square footage of American homes has never been higher.

But isn't this largely the result of the proliferation of recently built 3,- and 4,000-sq-ft homes of the affluent upper middle class in recently developed tracts of the suburbs and exurbs? Though the "average" house size per person may have been going up, isn't it a small percentage of individuals using vastly more space rather than an overall increase per household in available space? Most people I know live in old houses. Some have put on additions. But in general, most people I know have more space per person because the number of individuals in the household is smaller, not because the available space has gotten larger.

The housing in my city is ridiculously high, and yet the apartments and houses are pretty damn small - 800sf is generous, 600 more the norm. I don't think the expanding households, generally, are within traditional (dense-core) city limits.

I was a kid in the Sixties, and two children seemed to be a minimum. Many people had three or four, which seemed about average. I think it's good for children to have a number of siblings, actually: though my son is an only child, I tried to provide a sibling substitute group for him by moving into a housing cooperative were there were a number of kids around his age. They would move in a group around the building from apartment to apartment, being fed lunch and dinner along the way; 18 years later they are still friends, and still in touch.

On the other hand, my cousin, who married into a Catholic family, has eight kids, and this has caused a few WTH moments...

Ugh, anyone else notice it was only women who were interviewed about the positives of larger families? The one man quoted critised the use of resources by more people.