Why did families used to have 6 or more children?

Question

My grandparents had 6 children. I also know that many of my friends grandparents had 6 or more children. Nowadays, it is seems like parents only have two or three children.

Why did they used to have so many? Cost of living was cheaper? Did they used to not believe in birth control? What is the reason?

Answer 1

because they need help around the farm(southerners), and taking care of the other kids(LOL), and because most of the kids didn't live long..... my grandma had like 7 brothers/sisters.. there's only 3 counting her left so yeah! hope i answered your question well!

Answer 2

it was much cheaper then and the mothers where happy to stay at home and care for their kids nowadays most want to work and pay childcare costs

Answer 3

I think its because they didnt really have the birth control methods we have today. They also didnt have the technology we have so what else did they do besides have s*x

Answer 4

My mom had 10 siblings and my father had 5.

Originally it stemmed from the fact that more kids were needed to tend the farm.   As people migrated toward urban areas, the 1st generation or two kept up the large families until we got to where we are today.

Answer 5

When my grandparents were a live on my mother's side.  They had 11 kids.  They were country people.  They didn't have a television.  Television was for rich people.  They didn't have a car.  They walked 3 or 4 miles to a store.  Or rode a horse.  They didn't have a refrigerator.   They cooled  their butter and milk in what you call a spring house.  They had a spring way up on the side of a mountain.  And they piped water down the mountain in to a small rock made house.  And it cooled their milk and butter.  They raised their own food.  The didn't have a tiller to plow their garden with.  They used a  horse to pull a plow.  Everything they had was home made.  And all of the 11 kids worked in the fields.  Raising  the crops.  They had a cow.   That is were they got their butter and  milk.  The only time they went  to the store was to buy sugar or flour.  They used the flour sacks to make clothes out of.  They had chickens and pigs. All of the men would go hunting on holidays.  Then  on Sunday's we would eat squirrels or  rabbits for dinner.

Birth control!  Nobody didn't no what that was back then.

Answer 6

At one time, it was easy to have a house full of kids. There was no reliable form of birth control so pregnancy was a lot more common. Women stayed home, and caring for the children was not an extra expense.

That was a time long gone by.

Answer 7

Reliable birth control wasn't available and abortion was illegal.

Also, the infant and child mortality rates were higher, so people expected to lose one or more children before they reached adulthood.  And, especially in families that farmed for a living or had family trades, the children were assets as far as helping with chores.

Answer 8

They used to use children kind of as family slaves to help do work in the fields or at home. And they didn't really have birth control or even much to do.

Answer 9

I think in those day they did not used birth control and also cost of living was less, also those days ladies were usually homemakers now we hv so many working women..

Priorities changed...

My grandparents had 8 kids.. while my parents had 4.. now we are came down to 2... who knows my kids wl hv one or no kids at all..

Those days more kids the merrier.. now thinking is changed

Answer 10

Where I'm from older people had larger families because they farmed and the larger family was extra helpers eventually.

Answer 11

They were devoted to many godly children.

Answer 12

cheaper times back then. alot of them needed help on farms and back then the children would work to help support the family. alot of husbands died in the wars, so the children would help provide for the mother. back then, women didn't work as much as they do now, so they would be housewives with no income. about birth control-the kind out now isn't that old. back then it was a diaphram and a condom. the condoms were even made of a different material. alot of reasons.

Answer 13

Families were closer, and also for helping hands working on the farms.  My grandma was the oldest of 12 kids, growing up in southern Illinois.

Answer 14

Because having a family meant something back then. Now a days people believe in "well if it doesn't work out we can get divorced". Families were still valued.

Answer 15

I need someone to run my farm...

Answer 16

Cheaper cost of living, higher mortality rate (having more children gives greater odds that one or more will survive to adulthood), no birth control, and needed farm labour.

Answer 17

High rate of childhood mortality, (about 1: 3 to 1:4 children did not survive infancy) combined with lack of available birthcontrol/  the knowledge to obtain it.

Answer 18

Back before the pill was made available for women to buy on their own when they had to have their husband's permission [can you believe that!!?], women had to resort to some pretty weird ways to avoid pregnancy, such as vinegar soaked sponges inserted in their vaginas etc. I suppose these methods were not all that reliable.

The Victorian women would never have admitted out loud to anyone that s*x was for any other purpose than procreating; therefore, it would have been a huge insult to their husbands if they decided that they were done having kids. Most husbands ended up moving to another bedroom and taking a mistress.

Another theory would be that without the benefit of reliable medical care, children may not have made it out of childhood, so in order to ensure the family line were to continue, they would have wanted to have plenty of kids.

In modern times, women are able to choose from all kinds of methods to prevent pregnancy and still enjoy s*x, which we're now allowed to admit to, thank god. As well, since it pretty much has become a necessity for two incomes in most families, women are having difficulty managing a lot of kids and still working outside the house.

Answer 19

Where I live farm familys still have many children.  They need tehm to help with the farm work.  Also we have a large Catholic population and many of them do not believe in birth control.

Answer 20

The cost of living was much less, you could kick kids out of the house for the whole day and let them play outside without worrying. Also there's sometimes a religious tone to it because in the bible god says to "go forth and multiply"

The no birth control thing is bogus though. Condoms have been around for centuries. They used to be made out of animal intestines.

Answer 21

My grandparents had like 12 kids! So I have a ton of uncles, aunts, and cousins! Anyways I think back in the days people were not educated about s*x and had no birth control. The men didnt really care about the women as long as they were pleased and like you mentioned everything was much cheaper making it easier to support a family.

Answer 22

In the past, survival rate for children was extremely low, and labour opportunities for children were extremely high. Also, in many countries, having children was seen as an obligation. By having more children, it increased the nation's industrial and scientific output. However, generally, having more children ensured more children survived to adulthood.

Answer 23

Birth control was not as available as it is now.

There were fewer options.

Lots of children seemed to be the "norm".

Because of a high rate of child mortality, families had numerous offspring to ensure the survival of some.

Women were expected to fulfill their role of mothers.

There were many cultural, religious, social factors related to big families.