Ever wondered what the large family definition is? Get stats on American families these days and how many kids you need to reach large family status.
What’s the magic number of kids a family needs to meet the large family definition?
Is it when people make comments about you having your hands full? (Or remarks too rude to put into print?)
Or when your grocery bill doubles? Maybe it’s the point where you have to buy a bigger car?
Could it be when networks contact you with a pitch for a reality tv show?
If you have big family goals, you might wonder what makes a family “big”.
There’s no definitive answer to what number of children makes a family reach “large family status”. But that doesn’t stop people from making an educated guess.
Let’s look at some stats, some facts, and some real world experiences of large families.
What’s the Elusive Large Family Definition?
A Look at the Ideal American Family
It’s no secret that family sizes have been shrinking in recent years.
That’s been blamed on birth control, more women choosing to work, changing preferences, and more. Whatever the cause, you can see the numbers changing.
According to the Pew Research Center, there’s been a big change in the American ideal family size.
In the 1930s and ’40s, most people felt that 4 or more kids made the ideal family. Today, that number has dropped to 2 children.
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Actual Family Size
Because the percentage of households without any children at all is so high, it’s important to compare apples to apples.
If we want to find out what a “large family” is, we’ll need to compare only households that have any children at all.
That number is harder to come up with than you might think!
For instance, this chart gives a nice breakdown of how many people live in a household. But it doesn’t tell you the breakdown of adults versus children.
Are two of these people parents, or just one? How many of these households have elderly family living with them?
It’s hard to say.
Other studies break down the number of children in a household, but they don’t give more detail than to lump together all families with 3 or more children.
Because studies take time to gather information and crunch it, all of these resources will lag behind at least a couple of years.
A Look at Some Better Studies
Census
This census data from 2012 shows a break down of family size from 1 child to 4 or more. If you compare only households with any children at all, here’s how the percentages come out.
- One child families make up 43%.
- Two child families make up 36%.
- Three child families make up 15%.
- And families that have 4 or more children come in at just 6%.
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Pew
This study from Pew is effective, because it’s a more apples to apples comparison.
It’s from 2014 and it shows the break down of children in mothers 40-44. Women of that age are more likely to have reached the end of their childbearing years.
According to this chart, a family size looks more like this:
- 1 child 22%
- 2 children 41%
- 3 children 24%
- 4 children 14%
An Interactive Resource
The most interesting resource I’ve found comes from the New York Times.
They put together an interactive chart that lets you select stick figures to represent your own family make up. Then it tells you how many other American families look like yours.
How to Determine If You Have a Large Family
To decide if you have a large family, read some clues.
Statistics
Based on these studies, it seems that just 6-14% of families have four or more children. That would make families with at least 4 kids a large family.
Feelings
No, it’s not scientific. But how you feel about your family size helps to determine whether you have a large family or not.
For instance, in some areas a large family isn’t uncommon.
We have six children, but in our small town we know several families that are larger than our own. If we lived in another area of the country, we’d likely be the largest family on the block.
Having a large family isn’t about feeling overwhelmed. Surprisingly, it’s common to have a calmer feeling when you have your fourth child.
This study shows that families with 4 kids are the happiest.
This post from Conserva Mom talks about enjoying motherhood at baby number four. And my own research talking to moms of many reveals that most of us felt like we finally knew what we were doing by our fourth baby.
It’s a matter of opinion by mothers of self proclaimed large families, but it feels like there is a natural shifting point at the fourth child that slides you into a different kind of family.
Get some great advice from these large family blogs!
What Do You Think?
In an unscientific (but fun!) study, I’ve asked for opinions on what magic number of children creates a large family. Check out the conversation on Facebook.
And leave your own vote below.
Create your own user feedback survey
Coming up with a large family definition is tricky, but many signs point to four children as the magic number.
It’s all in the way you read the statistics and how you feel about your own family size.
For more reading…
Be sure to check out How to Organize a Large Family in a Small House.
Do you have a large family?
I'm Jamie, and I want to help you afford a beautiful life with your family. 
I had to laugh when I first read the description of your blog. I was like, “5 kids? That’s not really medium-sized.” I would consider 3 kids more of a medium-sized family. We don’t have any kids yet, but both me and my husband came from (what I would call) very large families at 9 and 11 kids respectively.
One thing I am wondering is why the “large family” label matters at all. My husband and I brought many of our large family habits into our (small family) marriage and they work GREAT for two people. We enjoy all of the benefits of a small family (eating out more, less laundry etc.) with the efficiency and frugality that comes from living in a large family. I think small families have a ton to learn from large families in how to get stuff done faster and easier. But when you put a label on yourself (“I have a small family”), you miss out on learning all that large family blogs/books etc. have to offer.
Also, some people think there is shame in having a small family, or that a mom with 6 kids is a better mom than someone with just 5 kids. Or 4 is better than 3, or whatever. I have heard some parents talk about “those people with just one or two kids” as if “those people” were lazy or selfish because they did not birth as many babies. I believe this kind of thinking can be troublesome.
I think people are curious when it comes to large families, and that’s ok. The truth is, there are nasty comments no matter what size family you have. People who choose not to have any kids get comments and so do people who have 10 kids. It is what it is.
I agree that people of all family sizes can use tips designed for large families. I think Moms of many streamline things from necessity, and while you don’t have to do that with fewer kids, you can still benefit from it.
Good thoughts here!
We have a large family (7 children) and love it. It is busy, we get lots of comments and people notice from a distance. I am always delighted to meet other “large” families!
It is fun to meet other large families! I always love it.
I commented on this thread on facebook so I won’t do the poll but I wanted to share about my family’s family sizes. I have two children who have just begun having family in the last two years. One, of course, is my son, whose older son I kept these past two weeks while Bess delivered and stayed in NICU with the youngest. Interestingly, just hours after Bess had given birth my son was planning their third child…Yes Bess was aware if baby number two was a boy they would have a third in hopes of having a girl, but NO I don’t believe she was as eager for pre-planning at the moment as my son was, lol. My youngest daughter has one with plans to have another in a year or so. I don’t know what ‘number’ she has in her head. Her oldest son has three and my oldest daughter has four of her own (plus two step children she helped raise from early years).
I wonder how much our own large family has dictated how comfortable our children feel raising ‘bigger’ families?
haha! I don’t think too many women want to think about the next baby right after giving birth. Give us a little time to forget! In my own family there are 5 kids. I, of course, have 5 but all of my siblings have 3. (Not sure that all of them are “done” yet, though.) It is interesting. I don’t think living in a large family turned them off of it as much as trying to raise kids in these busy days. But now I’m curious…
I know what you mean by it is all relative. I live in the country and have 5 children, I feel that if I lived in the city my family would struggle big time on one income. I may feel pressured to work outside the home which I feel would influence me to reduce the number of children I have due to costs of day care etc. At 5 some may think I have a large family but I have 2 friends who have 10 children. For me I have always felt one more child than I currently have is a large family☺
Very interesting post. As the mother of one child (by choice), a family with three kids feels large to me, but I would say that I define large families as having four or more kids. (Both my husband and I have one sibling.)
I would agree with some of the comments above about parents in larger families being more organized and efficient in some ways. For them, I suppose, it’s more about for survival, whereas for me, if would be more of a luxury. (That’s not the best word, but what I mean is that I can get away with being less organized without things becoming chaotic in our house.) While I’m very happy with our decision to have only one child, I’m kind of fascinated by larger families – however they’re defined.
We have four young girls including twin toddlers and it feels large as all hell!
I have no doubt that I come from a small family. I am an only child and grew up just with my mom at home. My daughter will be an only child as well. Her dad has 4 sisters and that seems overwhelming to me. I enjoyed being an only child so it’s hard to imagine life any other way. Thanks for linking up to #FridayFrivolity! Xx
I voted 5. I know people with 4 kids and they manage. To me “large” means that I’d be in over my head. 5 would do that! #fridayfriviolity
So interesting! I have to say that since we have started homeschooling we have run into so many large families (5,6, or more kids) that I know feel like my 3 boys make us a rather small family. I didn’t have a magic number in my head of how many kids I wanted but once we had 3 boys in 4 years I knew I had all I felt I could reasonably handle and still keep most of my sanity.
Ack! Don’t tell me that 40-44 is past the childbearing years! That’s just when they’ve gotten started for me! 😉 I have a good friend who has 4 kids and they always get the rude comments about being a huge family. I’ve never really gotten that. I mean, anything seems big to me (only child), but whenever I think of friends I have with large families, it’s only the ones who fall into the 11-13 range that I think of. 🙂
I didn’t create the study, don’t shoot the messenger! haha! I do wonder if we’ll see different charts with women waiting later in life to begin families.
Hahaha! Definitely no shooting of the messenger around here, Jamie! And it wasn’t my plan to get the show on the road this late in life, but apparently it was God’s! 😉 Thanks for continuing to join us at #FridayFrivolity!
Can’t argue with Him! 🙂
I came from a family of eight children, and my husband from a family with 5 children. I wanted a big family, with big loud holidays and lots of rough and tumble boys. He was ready to be done after we had two kids (both nice quiet girls). I kept wanting more until daughter #2 reached about age 5 and I realized how nice it was to finally feel like my head was above water. Sleeping whenever I wanted, only wiping my own bottom…NICE! I told my husband to go ahead and get a vasectomy if he wanted. . .but it was too late. After our third girl, I was exhausted for a year, (perhaps something about being in my late thirties instead of my 20’s) and dead set against more. Now I feel like I could go either way. In for a penny, in for a pound. And for me the third kid (and becoming a stay home/homeschool mom) was the tipping point for getting better organized. I don’t personally feel like 3 kids is a large family, but I have noticed that the world is set up for 2 child families. (vacation packages, hotel rooms, family park passes etc…not that we do many of those things anyway)
Boy is that true. We often have to buy 2 sets (of tickets or whatever) to accommodate all of us. I had my first at 24 and our youngest at 34, so I know what you mean about a new kind of exhaustion!
I think 4 or more kids constitutes a “large family”, but that’s just my opinion. 🙂 I think I probably think that because I don’t think I could personally handle more than 3. lol Stopping by from the Homestead Blog Hop. 🙂
I think you’d be surprised to find that 4 is when you start to hit your stride. 🙂
Oddly even with four I don’t get many rude remarks. What is funny, though, is when we’re with another family we’re friends with, who have six. It’s pretty clear which kids belong to which mother but it can be funny to see people count the total of ten. The last time it wasn’t rude at all; rather everyone had a laugh.
That’s wonderful!
It’s all in your perspective!
When I lived in the Philippines, and asked an acquaintance how many siblings they had growing up, a very common answer was “We’re ONLY 7!” It never occurred to them to think of a family of 7 as “large!”
But, in modern America it can be quite tricky to count how many children are in a family. Do you count nieces and nephews that you raise as children in “your” family? Do you count step children that you raise as “yours?” What if you DIDN’T raise your children (say they were raised by a grandparent because you were ill during their childhood years) – do you still count them? What about foster children that you raised for a year, then returned to their birth family?
I’d be at a total loss to count the “number of kids” in many families that I know.
My metric?
You move up to medium sized family when you have to trade in your car for an SUV or minivan. You move up to large size family when you have to trade the minivan for a 12 passenger van.
We have a large family, and people keep asking what church I belong to. “What? Oh, no, that’s not a church bus, these are all mine.”
That is the best measure I have heard! I love it. Our 12 passanger van only has 8 bodies in it (for now). I feel like six kids is on the low end of large and ten is for sure a large family. The family I grew up in would have needed a fifteen passanger van if we had all been properly restrained in seatbelts.
I have 4 kiddos and I don’t feel like we are a large family until I get comments from others,(are they all yours?- um…all? There are only 4 of them) OR we try to plan outings and have to buy extra tickets because so much is geared toward a family with 2 kids. I think it helps that in our homeschool community, there are other families with 4 kids so we don’t look odd. (Even if people do say “oh, so an so has 4 kids like you haha)
BUT- I agree with Rob, We are medium because we still fit in our Suburban (with room for a cousin or two) since that is a “normal car.”
I have not quite decided we are a large family…even though all 6 of us live in a 1200 square foot home while homeschooling.
We are a family of 10 kids. However the most I have ever had at home is 8. When I was pregnant with #8, #1 got married. When I was pregnant with #9, #2 got married. After that 2 grandsons came. Then our #10, followed by 2 more grandkids. It is a challenge balancing the needs of babies, toddlers, teens, and marrieds all in one breath, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything! My younger ones are growing up with nieces/nephews that are more like cousins, which they don’t have any their age. It’s an adventure every day! <3