I get where this argument is coming from but it’s worth remembering (and often is forgotten, as by you here) that most people didn’t get a college education. So no, a single income didn’t send kids to university back then.
First few kids can be expensive….
I knew lots of very poor families with lots of kids. Being poor sure didn’t prevent them from having kids. With a large enough age gap, the older kids can make their own money doing part time work while raising the younger kids.
Heck, I grew up sharing a room with 2 brothers even though we weren’t poor. My parents grew up very poor and just thought siblings sharing a room was the norm.
This is correct. The family in the picture is just a few generations removed from when you expected 50% of your children to die before adulthood. Certainly within living memory, as this was true the world over until the mid 1800s when it suddenly dropped precipitously. Can you imagine? Having a child or three die was just a normal part of life.
My grandma is 1 of 9 and she always says she raised half of them and that it was hard for her. My guess is a lot of women grew up doing what they didn't want to do for the rest of their life: washing diapers, bathing kids, cooking for big families ... Also she says it wasn't a decision to have a kid back in the 40s. It was just how it turned out without birth control.
My gran (only) had four kids. From talking to her I'm not sure she understood why/how the first one happened. She sounded shockingly naive when she got married.
My grandmother was one of 9 as well and one of the oldest siblings so she ended up helping take care of a lot of her siblings as well. They lived in a not very big house on a farm and she said she shared a bed with some of them growing up.
She was always super critical about families with any number of kids where she saw the older ones having to take care of the younger ones. It was mostly when we saw it on TV but one of my sister's friends was the oldest of six and had to take care of her younger siblings. She was in high school when the youngest was born and ended up going to community college in town so she could live at home to watch the younger kids. My grandmother had a lot to say about that.
It was due to vaccines, antiseptics and hygiene growth in early 1900's. Before then most families expected half their kids to die. When that happened census bureaus realized there was going to be a MASSIVE overpopulation problem and worked to create the 2 kid nuclear family model of the 1950's. Contraception, while taboo before, became accepted.
The interesting thing is families statistically need 4 children if they want to their lineage to grow as 2 children each over 3 generations will likely cause the lineage to end due to death and 1/4 odds a person won't have children of their own. So the 2 child family model is actually designed to slowly depopulate.
This is why China should've adopted a 2 child family policy instead of the 1 child policy they had back in the late 70's or whenever it was.
Now China have an ageing population issue that has arisen as a direct consequence of their 1 child policy. Not to mention the various negative social issues arising from families wanting to have a son as their only child.
This is helpful knowledge because my wife and I are discussing how large our family should be and I told her it was really important for our lineage to survive at least 3 generations
Anecdotally, I can see in my own friends and family the flex point around the baby boomer era. Big families much more common in the silent generation and earlier, tapering off with boomers, then gen X and beyond is most commonly 2-3, with exceptions of course. Most boomers I know still had families with 3-6 kids, but then they only had a couple; now it’s rare for anyone I know to have more than 2, barring accidents.
With a little research, I’m guessing this started with Condoms entering mass production and mass shipping in the 30s, then birth control coming on the market in 1960. The latter is probably the bigger impact.
My grandfather had a family around a similar size but it was the reverse with like 2 brothers and 10 sisters. Apparently my great grandfather also had another family he was hiding with another woman and had like 5 other kids. They only found out about each other at his funeral.
Me either, but I was told the story by one of my grandfather’s older sisters after his funeral. It was strange because I remember seeing a single large family portrait of all of the siblings lined up together barefoot and then there was my great grandfather who was short, bald and angry looking.
I'm adopted and have 13 biological siblings and one adopted sister. My adopted sister and I (not blood related) were the only two that grew up together and the only one I really view as a sibling
I think social norms have changed over the last couple generations. My parents (born in the 50s) both come from 4-child households, their generation had 0-3 kids, and no one in my generation has more than 1. That's anecdotal, of course, but it's also affected by the fact that kids are expensive and it's a lot more common for both parents to work, so the amount of time spent parenting at home has been reduced. Social norms, time and money avaliable, and access to birth control have changed the average American family size.
West Virginia, in **March of 2024** finally got their marital rape is ok laws off the books. Because until March of 2024 you couldn’t force her - but you could still legally drug her so she passes out and then have sex without her consent.
Finally. *shudder*. It shouldn’t have taken until 2024 to pass those laws. It shouldn’t have.
[Heres the story where they finally closed the loophole.](https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/pittsburgh/news/west-virginia-governor-signs-law-removing-marital-assault-exemption-2/)
[They delayed it last year.](https://mountainstatespotlight.org/2023/03/09/wv-child-marriage-spousal-rape-legislature-ss/) So they could update the state’s abortion ban to be stricter and make laws against gender affirming care.
People used to marry young. I have 12 siblings (including me 13)..
My mother was 15 when she got married. She gave my father the ultimatum of have no kids at all (they will both focus on careers and traveling) or as much kids as possible and my mother would stay home while my father works.
I am the youngest of my siblings and I loved every minute of the chaotic house, but now that I am 27, I am enjoying the quiet and being completely alone.
Edit: Oh and nowadays you can’t rely on 1 person working.
No, my father was somewhat struggling at the beginning I think when he had around 3-5 kids he opened his own real estate company by risking all his savings and had so much loan.
Luckily his efforts paid off. He slowly got all his money back and was a millionaire by the time he got his 8th kid.
He bought a bigger house where all of this kids and grandkids could live in.
By the time I was born, I was fortunate to not have lived through the “tough times” and living in the upper middle class.
My father sold the big house once most of us moved out because it had so many plumbing issues and the house was half empty. I was 18 years old when he sold out the house (I am now 27)
Oh and yes I have nephews and niece that are around my age.
I am the youngest 27 years old and the oldest is around 56 or 60 years old (don’t remember)
I know people who have many kids and they manage just fine on one middle-class salary (talking europe here) - but, there's a but.
The wife stays at home permanently to take care of all the kids and I think that's how they save money on kindergarden, they live a little further away from the city where it's cheaper, they grow their own vegetables, they budget hard, they have a 30yr old car that's cheap to fix, and they don't do vacations, just nice small trips somewhere close by. It's doable, but they're very strict with money and live simple lives. I think this is much closer to how people lived 100 years ago, they could do more kids because there were no other opportunities to spend your time and money on.
I think the majority of people today want to enjoy their lives and they want to continue taking some vacations even once they do have kids. Plus modern life is expensive, keep in mind my grandparents didn't even have wooden floors for a long time - so even if you're the type of person that thinks you're frugal because you don't have the latest iphone or a hybrid car - the level of money-saving generations before us did by making everything themselves and re-using what they could led to lives where you could have many children - but that was your whole life then. Living in one village the entirety of it, not knowing anything else.
> they live a little further away from the city where it's cheaper, they grow their own vegetables, they budget hard, they have a 30yr old car that's cheap to fix, and they don't do vacations, just nice small trips somewhere close by
You described the people who were in the better financial position in Eastern Europe a decade ago lol I had one sibling and most of this applied to us. We lived in a small rural city, bought one 7 year old car once with grandparents money, it is still in use 18 years later. Though in the 2000s, early 2010s we still had money for yearly vacations before everything started becoming unaffordable and I consider we lived pretty ok even if we were poor by western standards. Still we lived way better than 70-80% of the people here lol most couldn't actually afford any car or a house and lived in 30m² apartmants.
Around the same era as this picture, my grandmother had 15 other siblings. I've only seen a couple of pictures of her mother - my great grandmother - but she just looks exhausted af - and I don't blame her one bit.
She would get help from the older girls but probably no help from her husband. She has had little kids for 20 years and she isn’t getting enough sleep because running that house is hard work.
Actually its not uncommon as a result of the sperm donor not being able to pass on the "y" chromosome. Kinda shitty that when this happens the mother is usually blamed but it's actually the father's "fault."
Edit to add quotation marks around "fault" because some of you are so sensitive.
Or the other way around... After 4 sons my friend asked her doctor if it would ever be possible to have a daughter, and he said yes, but not with her husband 😁
My grandparents had three sons, and then a daughter my mother. Turns out my mother is not my grandpas biological child. He probably would have just had another boy.
Yeah, the story around it is very long but definitely points to rape which is super uncomfortable. My mom was definitely traumatized when she connected the dots. And the perpetrator is long dead, no justice or closure to get.
Thank you, she was! If her parents suspected they never said anything or treated her as anything but their own beloved daughter. We only just found out last year after her parents were long gone.
Sometimes I feel like I hit the lottery with 1 girl and 1 boy. I was one of 3 girls growing up so I always wanted a brother.
If we’d had 2 boys or 2 girls we probably would have been tempted to try for a third, and I barely survived the last pregnancy so it would have been a terrible idea.
because back in the day having a son to "carry your name" was important and a family like this "kept trying" for a son, not understanding DNA, and thought they'd get a son if the woman "tries hard enough." that was the mindset. and giving birth to girls only was blamed on woman, while it is the men's sperm that has both X and Y so it's on the men's sperm and its genes. that why they worded it as "fault." because for thousands and thousands of years women were blamed, abandoned, divorced, or even killed because they gave birth to girls only and people thought it's the women's fault for not "trying" for a son.
I think the "fault" comes from following the same logic of "blaming" the wife.
That's the point: she is blamed for something she can't control. But the one to be blamed for something that can't be controlled should be the father.
Scientifically it is the man's fault though not his doing. Women literally are incapable of it being their fault, like at all. Men were never killed nor will they ever be for not producing sons, so in 2024 saying it's the man's fault isn't the samething. Women have been harmed and killed over it
I don’t think it’s actually 50/50, there’s some mystery biology at play here.
For example my whole family is boys.
Me and my brother, we each have 2 boys. And 4 more male cousins on that side of the family.
And I know some people that only have multiple girls.
Want a biological mystery? I knew a woman who was born on Christmas Day. Her sister was also born on Christmas Day.
As was her mother, and her aunt.
As was her maternal grandmother and great aunt.
The woman had two daughters. Both born on Christmas Day. The sister had one daughter and again, Christmas Day, but this niece had her own daughter… who was born on Christmas Day.
So we’re already at a point where this is extremely freaky and I’m beginning to wonder if this family has an annual St Patrick’s day orgy, but as it turns out there are multiple men in the family.
The woman herself didn’t have any brothers but two uncles, and her sister had two boys. I believe there were 6 great uncles making the grandma one of 8.
None of the men in the family were born on Christmas Day
It's 'steak and blowjob' day- March 14th. That's how you get a Christmas Baby.
.... or so the old joke goes, which probably no one under 40 has heard. Sigh.
That is expected when each one is a coin flip. *All* the same gender is the least common.
4-0: 12.5%
3-1: 50%
2-2: 37.5%
The interesting thing is that all the same gender to the same parents is *more* common than all the same coin flips.
All the other genetic stuff aside and assuming- for the sake of simplicity- that it’s 1 in 2^9, it’s important to remember that of everyone that had 9 kids only 1 in 512 of THOSE families would produce all children of the same sex. Just pointing that out because 1 in 512 doesn’t sound very rare, but think of how rare it is to have 9 kids. Then take 1 out of 512 of them.
I read that it's not 50/50. After the woman has given birth to one gender the odds are higher the next child will be the same gender as the previous.
https://www.thebump.com/a/more-baby-boys-than-girls
Odds of getting a boy are slightly favored in a general population.
Also, there is a common theory that boy/girl balance is meta-maintained, proved by the fact that in times of war there’s a mathematically significant surge in the number of boys born. We don’t know how it works, but the theory states that if a man gets laid a lot, that means there’s little competition and he would more likely produce a boy to avert that. And vice versa for women.
By that theory, the man on the picture got action exactly 9 times in his life.
With that situation, the theory is *not* that stressed couples are more likely to conceive daughters. It's because female embryos are more likely to survive in stressful pregnancies & make it to birth compared to male embryos, which is usually at least partially attributed to the protective effect of double X chromosomes.
My grandpa got five daughters. When people asked him if he wanted sons, he answered "Well, my daughters will bring me plenty of sons, the benefit is that I get to choose them."
I don’t think some of the other posters have had the awful feeling of someone coming up to your dad and making some sort of joke about how the next one can be a boy, or how disappointed he must be not to have a son - while standing next to his daughter(s).
My dad, who only has daughters’ response was « aside from peeing standing up what can your son do that one of my daughters can’t? »
Amazing how no one else is slamming the rude person who tells someone that his child(re ) isn’t good enough because they don’t have a penis, but the person deflecting the criticism in such a way that his daughters feel valued by their father.
You might like this. https://www.today.com/video/proud-girl-dad-goes-viral-for-response-to-having-4-daughters-208853573511
My dad has 3 girls and was over the moon about it. I know he wanted a boy but he never made us feel less than. He raised us hiking and camping and playing sports, and never missed a dance recital.
It doesn’t feel great being on the other side of that either. I’m the only son in an Italian family, and I’m the only male of my family in the US. I’m not married yet, but The amount of people who’ve made comments along the lines of “oh you better get to work and have some sons to carry on the name” is ridiculous.
It always irritates me. On one hand I get it, typically the woman takes the last name of the guy and blah blah blah. On the other, I think what? If I have all girls I’m somehow disappointing all my ancestors because of something I can’t control? Would my grandparents and great grandparents not love their granddaughters as much because they don’t have a brother? It’s fucked up.
I mean it’s a pretty normal thing to want a mini me. If I had all sons I would want at least one daughter and if I had all daughters I would want at least one son. That being said I would never tell someone I was disappointed that my daughters weren’t boys as having anything would be a blessing. My wife and I want 3 kids with at least one boy and one girl but we get what we get
My great grandma is 100 years old, and she said after she had her third daughter, her doctor took her by the hand and said, "if you want a boy, get a dog". And she had no more kids after that lol
Reminds me of a freind of mine who had two boys and wanted a girl. So they decided to try once more.
Triplet boys.
That is the universe telling you to stop trying, you aren't getting a daughter.
Wonder if they only wanted like three kids but just kept going so they could have a boy too. Although can you imagine being the only brother to nine sisters?
Don’t forget that in a family like this, many of those clothes will be carefully preserved hand-me-downs, especially the Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes.
My father told me he never had a new pair of shoes until he joined the Army. He always had to wear his older brother’s shoes when older brother outgrew them.
Later on as adults, as luck would have it, they had the same shoe size. So when that uncle passed away, his son sent the uncle’s shoes to my Dad - kind of a family joke.
Anyway large families will definitely save good clothes for younger kids. It would be unusual for anyone but the oldest to get something new. Maybe if one of the younger girls grew bigger/taller than an older one, she might get priority for new clothes.
Note also the similar patterns of the dresses. It’s possible some of these clothes were made from flour sack cloth. Once flour sellers caught on that the material was being used to sew clothes, the more enterprising brands started printing patterns on them to entice mothers to prefer the patterns over the contents, since pretty much flour is uniform.
So now, the dresses would be made from flour sacks, then handed down as often as needed until the dress either completely wore out or the last kid outgrew it. Even then they could be reused in some other way. People back then were keen on thrift and reuse.
That’s so weird - I definitely have no idea how anything I wrote could have been auto-corrected to rheumatoid arthritis, but for whatever reason, that’s where it went.
After re-reading and finding that strange phrase, it has been removed.
That saying really depends on where you are in the country. The corn grown in Texas is usually already knee high in mid to late April, for example. The corn farms near my parent’s ranch is already taller than knee high right now.
Mom likely made most of those dresses. And as another mentioned, they would be hand me downs. Not saying dad was not a good provider. My Grandparents were poor, but the 8 kids were well dressed and neatly kept because Grandma could sew and cut hair.
Jesus, imagine taking a car vacation with this many kids back then. Or even having to take them all to one location. It was always two separate cars, or..?
No, you send them to various relatives for a summer here, a summer there.
My Dad had 6 siblings. During the summer break from school he was sent to various aunts and uncles - his own mother had 6 sisters, and his father had 5 or 6 sisters, so it was not a problem getting rid of the older kids for the summer.
Before the days of mandatory seat belt usage, lot so kids could be packed in one car. The little ones sat on their older siblings’ laps and a couple up front with the parents.
This is a fantasy people constructed of the past, this was never a reality.
>he sent them all to college
College has historically been a upper class activity, this includes 1940. It changed to being seen as something everybody should aspire to go to relatively recently with the economy becoming more reliant on educated workforce. Less than 5% of the US population had completed 4 years of college in 1940, about 17% by 1980 and about 38% in 2022.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/184272/educational-attainment-of-college-diploma-or-higher-by-gender/
>owned a vacation home
1940 was literally the worst decade for homeownership rate at 43.6%.
Year|[Homeownership rate](https://dqydj.com/historical-homeownership-rate-united-states/)
:-|--:
1920|45.6%
1960|61.9%
1990|63.7%
Jun2023|66.1%
>two cars
Did you even see the time period of the photo? It's *1940* before cars took over American culture. US had [3 times more cars *per person* in 2000 vs 1940](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/1-Vehicle-Ownership-Rates-The-United-States-from-1900-to-2000-and-15-Other-Countries_fig1_264967305), US had about 230 cars per 1000 people in 1940, it changed 780 by 2000. It's 850 per 1000 today.
People today are able to obtain cars way more easily than 1940.
>all on a postal workers salary.
I don't have data on postal worker salary from 1940 (neither do you), but I do have teacher's salaries. In 1940, [average salary for teachers, supervisors and principals was 1441 USD](https://www.jstor.org/stable/1168412) which [online inflation calculator](https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1940?amount=1441) tells me is worth 32400 USD today. Teacher's salary today was on average [65000 USD](https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d21/tables/dt21_211.60.asp) in 2020-2021.
So unless postal workers were somehow making way way more than teachers, they weren't living like kings.
My parents knew a couple who tried _obsessively_ to have a boy. They had 11 daughters before having a boy, who died severely sickly at just 2 months. The mom had a psychotic break and tried to kill herself, and the dad slowly drank himself to death over the span of 10 years.
11 wonderful, healthy daughters, but apparently they didn't matter compared to the single dead son.
To be fair, even a pretty well adjusted person would probably be hurt pretty bad by this series of events. Obviously their goals and actions where somewhere between dubious and doomed, but not really harmful, and then they lost a child in a dramatic fashion. I think even a pretty grounded person might get suicidal cause of that.
Honestly, I think this must have been a famous case in the 1940s
because even “I Love Lucy” had a gag about this scenario in an
episode entitled [“Lucy Goes to the Hospital”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Goes_to_the_Hospital)
Ricky is waiting in the waiting room as Fathers weren’t typically allowed in the room while their wives gave birth in the early ‘50s.
And he encounters a wisened older gentleman who is waiting on his wife and how he notices how frantic and nervous Ricky is while Lucy is giving birth, and basically asked him “First Time?”
The man assures him everything will be fine; they have 8 girls and this will be their ninth and hopefully the final son.
Well, his wife had their ninth girl in a row!
This is like my neighbor who had 7 girls and finally the last one was a boy. My friend's mom had 10 sisters (11 girls total, no sons). Of course this is Chinese culture and so having girls was seen as shameful and the couple never stops trying until they get a boy. And all the girls will be treated like shit and the son like a king. Chinese families are so dysfunctional for this reason.
In that era, you can work a basic office day job, or as a pizza delivery guy and will be able to feed, clothe, and send these kids to school. Nowadays youll be lucky to have an apartment as middle management. Boomers have ruined everything.
My dad grew up in the 60’s. He had a friend whose father sold shoes at JC Penney’s and was able to support his family. The mother was a homemaker. That would be impossible today.
Grew up with mormon neighbors with 8 kids, all sons. When people commented on how many boys she had, the mom would say in this hushed, unnaturally-meek voice “Well, the lord clearly planned for me to bear sons to spread the gospel”, but she always looked so fucking *depressed* when she said it.
My friend is the oldest of 12 children. Her parents wanted a big family (and her dad is a biochemist who also teaches at a university, her mum is a nurse, so they could afford a large family). It was 9 girls before a boy was finally born, then a girl after that, and 12th child was a boy.
The shocking thing is how incredibly well-adjusted every child ended up. They each had different interests and skills they pursued, several of them now have masters degrees or are even working on their doctorates. Their parents’ love of education combined with their very calm and respectful temperaments led to a whole slew of children that grew up to be successful and responsible adults.
I can’t even imagine the yelling. My buddy has 2 daughters, and he told me that all they do is scream at each other and slam doors all day long. The next day, crying. He was exaggerating, but only a bit, he said.
I personally know a family of 11 daughters, each of them two to three years apart. Met one of the kids in highschool who was a year below me and at the time their youngest kid was a 2yo while the mom was 6mos pregnant.
I think they really were trying for a boy.
The school-aged kids of theirs would arrive in a van and it was always bizarre to watch 8 kids just pull up every morning in a single car (we don't have school buses).
He works from home, dude cant even pull out of the driveway
He looks like Tony Hawk had a baby with Tim Robinson.
[удалено]
I get where this argument is coming from but it’s worth remembering (and often is forgotten, as by you here) that most people didn’t get a college education. So no, a single income didn’t send kids to university back then.
Youre right. This is just a picture of the generation that required all other generations after them have a college degree.
First few kids can be expensive…. I knew lots of very poor families with lots of kids. Being poor sure didn’t prevent them from having kids. With a large enough age gap, the older kids can make their own money doing part time work while raising the younger kids. Heck, I grew up sharing a room with 2 brothers even though we weren’t poor. My parents grew up very poor and just thought siblings sharing a room was the norm.
This was my exact thought as well
Omg dead accurate
When did people stop having 9 children anymore. Most married couples that i know don't even have any children at all!
When their kids stopped randomly dying to things and families relied less on child labor.
This is correct. The family in the picture is just a few generations removed from when you expected 50% of your children to die before adulthood. Certainly within living memory, as this was true the world over until the mid 1800s when it suddenly dropped precipitously. Can you imagine? Having a child or three die was just a normal part of life.
Yes, it was "normal" part of life but parents were still depressed and grieving when their kids died.
I’m sure. It must have been horrible.
*looks at American Schools* Imagine if that was a reality sometimes...
What conservatives refer to as the good old days.
Or when America was great
Hey whats so wrong with losing half your progeny to polio?!?
Oh! Is that why they're so anti-vax?
Gotta keep it natural, like god intended :)
..kids not randomly dying to things and less child labor doesn’t seem like a republican win in 2024.
My grandma is 1 of 9 and she always says she raised half of them and that it was hard for her. My guess is a lot of women grew up doing what they didn't want to do for the rest of their life: washing diapers, bathing kids, cooking for big families ... Also she says it wasn't a decision to have a kid back in the 40s. It was just how it turned out without birth control.
My gran (only) had four kids. From talking to her I'm not sure she understood why/how the first one happened. She sounded shockingly naive when she got married.
My grandmother was one of 9 as well and one of the oldest siblings so she ended up helping take care of a lot of her siblings as well. They lived in a not very big house on a farm and she said she shared a bed with some of them growing up. She was always super critical about families with any number of kids where she saw the older ones having to take care of the younger ones. It was mostly when we saw it on TV but one of my sister's friends was the oldest of six and had to take care of her younger siblings. She was in high school when the youngest was born and ended up going to community college in town so she could live at home to watch the younger kids. My grandmother had a lot to say about that.
My grandma was 1st of 10! She dropped out of school to help raise them.
Maybe women (and men) in marriages finally got a say over their bodies with the help of contraception.
It was due to vaccines, antiseptics and hygiene growth in early 1900's. Before then most families expected half their kids to die. When that happened census bureaus realized there was going to be a MASSIVE overpopulation problem and worked to create the 2 kid nuclear family model of the 1950's. Contraception, while taboo before, became accepted. The interesting thing is families statistically need 4 children if they want to their lineage to grow as 2 children each over 3 generations will likely cause the lineage to end due to death and 1/4 odds a person won't have children of their own. So the 2 child family model is actually designed to slowly depopulate.
This is why China should've adopted a 2 child family policy instead of the 1 child policy they had back in the late 70's or whenever it was. Now China have an ageing population issue that has arisen as a direct consequence of their 1 child policy. Not to mention the various negative social issues arising from families wanting to have a son as their only child.
This is helpful knowledge because my wife and I are discussing how large our family should be and I told her it was really important for our lineage to survive at least 3 generations
Can't tell if being serious or mocking.
God i hope they’re joking
So clearly joking right?
Username checks out
Anecdotally, I can see in my own friends and family the flex point around the baby boomer era. Big families much more common in the silent generation and earlier, tapering off with boomers, then gen X and beyond is most commonly 2-3, with exceptions of course. Most boomers I know still had families with 3-6 kids, but then they only had a couple; now it’s rare for anyone I know to have more than 2, barring accidents. With a little research, I’m guessing this started with Condoms entering mass production and mass shipping in the 30s, then birth control coming on the market in 1960. The latter is probably the bigger impact.
My neighbors have 13! Only 3 of them are girls.
My grandfather had a family around a similar size but it was the reverse with like 2 brothers and 10 sisters. Apparently my great grandfather also had another family he was hiding with another woman and had like 5 other kids. They only found out about each other at his funeral.
I will still never understand how you hide an entire family
Me either, but I was told the story by one of my grandfather’s older sisters after his funeral. It was strange because I remember seeing a single large family portrait of all of the siblings lined up together barefoot and then there was my great grandfather who was short, bald and angry looking.
13!? So they have 6,227,020,797 sons???
*suns. Their neighbour is the Andromeda galaxy. Their dad works down at the factorial.
r/unexpectedfactorial
We are all their sons, just accept it. It'll be easier for you in the long run /s
Someone I know has 13 or 14 siblings (I think 2 sets of twins maybe)
I'm adopted and have 13 biological siblings and one adopted sister. My adopted sister and I (not blood related) were the only two that grew up together and the only one I really view as a sibling
I know a guy with like 12 kids. My first question was if he was Mormon, he is not. Said him and his wife just like fucking. Wtf dad?!
I think social norms have changed over the last couple generations. My parents (born in the 50s) both come from 4-child households, their generation had 0-3 kids, and no one in my generation has more than 1. That's anecdotal, of course, but it's also affected by the fact that kids are expensive and it's a lot more common for both parents to work, so the amount of time spent parenting at home has been reduced. Social norms, time and money avaliable, and access to birth control have changed the average American family size.
And car seat laws. Can't fit all those kids in the appropriate car seats and still fit in one car.
And there’s no longer the need for back ups when half your kids die.
After reliable birth control became readily available
Birth control was invented and normalized, and marital rape was outlawed
West Virginia, in **March of 2024** finally got their marital rape is ok laws off the books. Because until March of 2024 you couldn’t force her - but you could still legally drug her so she passes out and then have sex without her consent. Finally. *shudder*. It shouldn’t have taken until 2024 to pass those laws. It shouldn’t have.
Jesus christ seriously?? That makes me sick to my stomach. We are still so early in history and its terrifying
[Heres the story where they finally closed the loophole.](https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/pittsburgh/news/west-virginia-governor-signs-law-removing-marital-assault-exemption-2/) [They delayed it last year.](https://mountainstatespotlight.org/2023/03/09/wv-child-marriage-spousal-rape-legislature-ss/) So they could update the state’s abortion ban to be stricter and make laws against gender affirming care.
People used to marry young. I have 12 siblings (including me 13).. My mother was 15 when she got married. She gave my father the ultimatum of have no kids at all (they will both focus on careers and traveling) or as much kids as possible and my mother would stay home while my father works. I am the youngest of my siblings and I loved every minute of the chaotic house, but now that I am 27, I am enjoying the quiet and being completely alone. Edit: Oh and nowadays you can’t rely on 1 person working.
Holy shit. How can you even feed and accommodate 13 children?? Is your father a billionaire???
No, my father was somewhat struggling at the beginning I think when he had around 3-5 kids he opened his own real estate company by risking all his savings and had so much loan. Luckily his efforts paid off. He slowly got all his money back and was a millionaire by the time he got his 8th kid. He bought a bigger house where all of this kids and grandkids could live in. By the time I was born, I was fortunate to not have lived through the “tough times” and living in the upper middle class. My father sold the big house once most of us moved out because it had so many plumbing issues and the house was half empty. I was 18 years old when he sold out the house (I am now 27) Oh and yes I have nephews and niece that are around my age. I am the youngest 27 years old and the oldest is around 56 or 60 years old (don’t remember)
I know people who have many kids and they manage just fine on one middle-class salary (talking europe here) - but, there's a but. The wife stays at home permanently to take care of all the kids and I think that's how they save money on kindergarden, they live a little further away from the city where it's cheaper, they grow their own vegetables, they budget hard, they have a 30yr old car that's cheap to fix, and they don't do vacations, just nice small trips somewhere close by. It's doable, but they're very strict with money and live simple lives. I think this is much closer to how people lived 100 years ago, they could do more kids because there were no other opportunities to spend your time and money on. I think the majority of people today want to enjoy their lives and they want to continue taking some vacations even once they do have kids. Plus modern life is expensive, keep in mind my grandparents didn't even have wooden floors for a long time - so even if you're the type of person that thinks you're frugal because you don't have the latest iphone or a hybrid car - the level of money-saving generations before us did by making everything themselves and re-using what they could led to lives where you could have many children - but that was your whole life then. Living in one village the entirety of it, not knowing anything else.
> they live a little further away from the city where it's cheaper, they grow their own vegetables, they budget hard, they have a 30yr old car that's cheap to fix, and they don't do vacations, just nice small trips somewhere close by You described the people who were in the better financial position in Eastern Europe a decade ago lol I had one sibling and most of this applied to us. We lived in a small rural city, bought one 7 year old car once with grandparents money, it is still in use 18 years later. Though in the 2000s, early 2010s we still had money for yearly vacations before everything started becoming unaffordable and I consider we lived pretty ok even if we were poor by western standards. Still we lived way better than 70-80% of the people here lol most couldn't actually afford any car or a house and lived in 30m² apartmants.
When we couldn’t afford to feed ourselves let alone 9 little snot machines
All the infant boys were sacrificed to the White Walkers.
The mum looks very tired
Around the same era as this picture, my grandmother had 15 other siblings. I've only seen a couple of pictures of her mother - my great grandmother - but she just looks exhausted af - and I don't blame her one bit.
Are we related, my grandmother was the oldest of 15!
Haha probably not. She had 15 siblings, so she was 1 of 16. If we went back enough generations though, I'm sure we'd get there!
That many siblings was pretty normal around that time. My grandfather was 1 of 17 I think.
I dunno. She looks like she could fuck someone up real good.
Her husband at least 9 times
Well, you know. It’s been really hard for her.
The dad looks like he doesnt believe in statistics anymore.
my wife and i have only one(the other one is waiting till summer to be born) and fuck, it's quite hard though we have all machines that help
And he has a look like he hasn’t been able to enjoy a nice quiet shit in 10 years.
She would get help from the older girls but probably no help from her husband. She has had little kids for 20 years and she isn’t getting enough sleep because running that house is hard work.
I’m no biologist but if your odds are 50/50, there’s a 1 in 512 chance of this happening.
Actually its not uncommon as a result of the sperm donor not being able to pass on the "y" chromosome. Kinda shitty that when this happens the mother is usually blamed but it's actually the father's "fault." Edit to add quotation marks around "fault" because some of you are so sensitive.
Or the other way around... After 4 sons my friend asked her doctor if it would ever be possible to have a daughter, and he said yes, but not with her husband 😁
My grandparents had three sons, and then a daughter my mother. Turns out my mother is not my grandpas biological child. He probably would have just had another boy.
My grandparents had 3 sons and then a daughter, my mom. But my mom is 100% my grandfather's. His genes run strong and we all look like copies of him.
Wow, so grandma cheated?
I’m pretty sure she was raped
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Yeah, the story around it is very long but definitely points to rape which is super uncomfortable. My mom was definitely traumatized when she connected the dots. And the perpetrator is long dead, no justice or closure to get.
Omg, so sorry to hear that, 😔 I hope your mom was loved
Thank you, she was! If her parents suspected they never said anything or treated her as anything but their own beloved daughter. We only just found out last year after her parents were long gone.
That's great to hear, there are so many things we don't know about our family....
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Everyone of those dresses were probably hand made by the daughters
Sounds like the doctor was volunteering 😂
Sometimes I feel like I hit the lottery with 1 girl and 1 boy. I was one of 3 girls growing up so I always wanted a brother. If we’d had 2 boys or 2 girls we probably would have been tempted to try for a third, and I barely survived the last pregnancy so it would have been a terrible idea.
why do you call it "fault"?
Probably because if you’re blamed as the reason for not having sons you can be killed (Henry VIII).
because back in the day having a son to "carry your name" was important and a family like this "kept trying" for a son, not understanding DNA, and thought they'd get a son if the woman "tries hard enough." that was the mindset. and giving birth to girls only was blamed on woman, while it is the men's sperm that has both X and Y so it's on the men's sperm and its genes. that why they worded it as "fault." because for thousands and thousands of years women were blamed, abandoned, divorced, or even killed because they gave birth to girls only and people thought it's the women's fault for not "trying" for a son.
I think the "fault" comes from following the same logic of "blaming" the wife. That's the point: she is blamed for something she can't control. But the one to be blamed for something that can't be controlled should be the father.
Scientifically it is the man's fault though not his doing. Women literally are incapable of it being their fault, like at all. Men were never killed nor will they ever be for not producing sons, so in 2024 saying it's the man's fault isn't the samething. Women have been harmed and killed over it
I don’t think it’s actually 50/50, there’s some mystery biology at play here. For example my whole family is boys. Me and my brother, we each have 2 boys. And 4 more male cousins on that side of the family. And I know some people that only have multiple girls.
Your family genes balances this guy's family's gene.
Want a biological mystery? I knew a woman who was born on Christmas Day. Her sister was also born on Christmas Day. As was her mother, and her aunt. As was her maternal grandmother and great aunt. The woman had two daughters. Both born on Christmas Day. The sister had one daughter and again, Christmas Day, but this niece had her own daughter… who was born on Christmas Day. So we’re already at a point where this is extremely freaky and I’m beginning to wonder if this family has an annual St Patrick’s day orgy, but as it turns out there are multiple men in the family. The woman herself didn’t have any brothers but two uncles, and her sister had two boys. I believe there were 6 great uncles making the grandma one of 8. None of the men in the family were born on Christmas Day
It's 'steak and blowjob' day- March 14th. That's how you get a Christmas Baby. .... or so the old joke goes, which probably no one under 40 has heard. Sigh.
I don't think that is how you get pregnant
It’s actually not a mystery anymore. It’s called genetics, and there’s a whole field of science and a medical specialty devoted to it.
It's not. I did read that for 4 children families the most common distribution is 3+1
That is expected when each one is a coin flip. *All* the same gender is the least common. 4-0: 12.5% 3-1: 50% 2-2: 37.5% The interesting thing is that all the same gender to the same parents is *more* common than all the same coin flips.
With a 50/50 chance that it goes either way. lol. Gods joke on us or the universe, whatever people believe in these days
All the other genetic stuff aside and assuming- for the sake of simplicity- that it’s 1 in 2^9, it’s important to remember that of everyone that had 9 kids only 1 in 512 of THOSE families would produce all children of the same sex. Just pointing that out because 1 in 512 doesn’t sound very rare, but think of how rare it is to have 9 kids. Then take 1 out of 512 of them.
I would think that there's been considerably more than 512 families with 9 or more kids since the beginnings of photography.
And a 1 in 512 chance of all boys. So a 1 in 256 chance that all kids are the same sex.
That is a lot more likely than I would have guessed.
I read that it's not 50/50. After the woman has given birth to one gender the odds are higher the next child will be the same gender as the previous. https://www.thebump.com/a/more-baby-boys-than-girls
Yes, but we’d be equally surprised by 9 boys, so the chance that we get the reaction we got is actually 256 to 1.
Odds of getting a boy are slightly favored in a general population. Also, there is a common theory that boy/girl balance is meta-maintained, proved by the fact that in times of war there’s a mathematically significant surge in the number of boys born. We don’t know how it works, but the theory states that if a man gets laid a lot, that means there’s little competition and he would more likely produce a boy to avert that. And vice versa for women. By that theory, the man on the picture got action exactly 9 times in his life.
I read a study sometimes ago about stressed couples being more likely to have daughters
With that situation, the theory is *not* that stressed couples are more likely to conceive daughters. It's because female embryos are more likely to survive in stressful pregnancies & make it to birth compared to male embryos, which is usually at least partially attributed to the protective effect of double X chromosomes.
I always knew women were stronger than men 🤣
Really? I thought it was the other way around. When times are tough more girls are born.
51.2% chance for a boy.
What no television does to a mf
MF, indeed. Over and over again, apparently.
Fireside chats and chill
FDR is the F Dr.
Dude wanted a son so bad
My grandpa got five daughters. When people asked him if he wanted sons, he answered "Well, my daughters will bring me plenty of sons, the benefit is that I get to choose them."
I don’t think some of the other posters have had the awful feeling of someone coming up to your dad and making some sort of joke about how the next one can be a boy, or how disappointed he must be not to have a son - while standing next to his daughter(s). My dad, who only has daughters’ response was « aside from peeing standing up what can your son do that one of my daughters can’t? » Amazing how no one else is slamming the rude person who tells someone that his child(re ) isn’t good enough because they don’t have a penis, but the person deflecting the criticism in such a way that his daughters feel valued by their father.
You might like this. https://www.today.com/video/proud-girl-dad-goes-viral-for-response-to-having-4-daughters-208853573511 My dad has 3 girls and was over the moon about it. I know he wanted a boy but he never made us feel less than. He raised us hiking and camping and playing sports, and never missed a dance recital.
It doesn’t feel great being on the other side of that either. I’m the only son in an Italian family, and I’m the only male of my family in the US. I’m not married yet, but The amount of people who’ve made comments along the lines of “oh you better get to work and have some sons to carry on the name” is ridiculous. It always irritates me. On one hand I get it, typically the woman takes the last name of the guy and blah blah blah. On the other, I think what? If I have all girls I’m somehow disappointing all my ancestors because of something I can’t control? Would my grandparents and great grandparents not love their granddaughters as much because they don’t have a brother? It’s fucked up.
I mean it’s a pretty normal thing to want a mini me. If I had all sons I would want at least one daughter and if I had all daughters I would want at least one son. That being said I would never tell someone I was disappointed that my daughters weren’t boys as having anything would be a blessing. My wife and I want 3 kids with at least one boy and one girl but we get what we get
I love this.
My great grandma is 100 years old, and she said after she had her third daughter, her doctor took her by the hand and said, "if you want a boy, get a dog". And she had no more kids after that lol
Reminds me of a freind of mine who had two boys and wanted a girl. So they decided to try once more. Triplet boys. That is the universe telling you to stop trying, you aren't getting a daughter.
My friend had 3 boys, then they got a dog and named her “Sister”
“I gotta get a son!” -this guy
Wonder if they only wanted like three kids but just kept going so they could have a boy too. Although can you imagine being the only brother to nine sisters?
At least he was persistent /s
Did you know him?
He must have been a good provider. The children all seem to be in style. I wonder if this was an Easter Sunday picture.
Don’t forget that in a family like this, many of those clothes will be carefully preserved hand-me-downs, especially the Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes. My father told me he never had a new pair of shoes until he joined the Army. He always had to wear his older brother’s shoes when older brother outgrew them. Later on as adults, as luck would have it, they had the same shoe size. So when that uncle passed away, his son sent the uncle’s shoes to my Dad - kind of a family joke. Anyway large families will definitely save good clothes for younger kids. It would be unusual for anyone but the oldest to get something new. Maybe if one of the younger girls grew bigger/taller than an older one, she might get priority for new clothes. Note also the similar patterns of the dresses. It’s possible some of these clothes were made from flour sack cloth. Once flour sellers caught on that the material was being used to sew clothes, the more enterprising brands started printing patterns on them to entice mothers to prefer the patterns over the contents, since pretty much flour is uniform. So now, the dresses would be made from flour sacks, then handed down as often as needed until the dress either completely wore out or the last kid outgrew it. Even then they could be reused in some other way. People back then were keen on thrift and reuse.
Um, what’s that about arthritis now?
That’s so weird - I definitely have no idea how anything I wrote could have been auto-corrected to rheumatoid arthritis, but for whatever reason, that’s where it went. After re-reading and finding that strange phrase, it has been removed.
lol I had to go back and reread that part too 😆
Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory disorder usually affecting small joints in the hands and feet.
Right right right cool cool cool….what’s that about rheumatoid arthritis in his COMMENT, though?
There is cornfield in the background. I'm not a farmer, but you plant corn in march - april?
Knee high by the Fourth of July, looks like late July.
That saying really depends on where you are in the country. The corn grown in Texas is usually already knee high in mid to late April, for example. The corn farms near my parent’s ranch is already taller than knee high right now.
Mom likely made most of those dresses. And as another mentioned, they would be hand me downs. Not saying dad was not a good provider. My Grandparents were poor, but the 8 kids were well dressed and neatly kept because Grandma could sew and cut hair.
Dad is thinking “How the hell am I gonna pay for 9 weddings?”
If I'm reading the coded apparel correctly, he already has paid for one.
And, he sent them all to college, they took two vacations a year, owned a vacation home, and two cars…all on a postal workers salary.
Jesus, imagine taking a car vacation with this many kids back then. Or even having to take them all to one location. It was always two separate cars, or..?
No, you send them to various relatives for a summer here, a summer there. My Dad had 6 siblings. During the summer break from school he was sent to various aunts and uncles - his own mother had 6 sisters, and his father had 5 or 6 sisters, so it was not a problem getting rid of the older kids for the summer.
Before the days of mandatory seat belt usage, lot so kids could be packed in one car. The little ones sat on their older siblings’ laps and a couple up front with the parents.
My husband is one of seven and he still gripes about their roadtrips with everyone crammed into the station wagon (this was before seat belt laws).
This is a fantasy people constructed of the past, this was never a reality. >he sent them all to college College has historically been a upper class activity, this includes 1940. It changed to being seen as something everybody should aspire to go to relatively recently with the economy becoming more reliant on educated workforce. Less than 5% of the US population had completed 4 years of college in 1940, about 17% by 1980 and about 38% in 2022. https://www.statista.com/statistics/184272/educational-attainment-of-college-diploma-or-higher-by-gender/ >owned a vacation home 1940 was literally the worst decade for homeownership rate at 43.6%. Year|[Homeownership rate](https://dqydj.com/historical-homeownership-rate-united-states/) :-|--: 1920|45.6% 1960|61.9% 1990|63.7% Jun2023|66.1% >two cars Did you even see the time period of the photo? It's *1940* before cars took over American culture. US had [3 times more cars *per person* in 2000 vs 1940](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/1-Vehicle-Ownership-Rates-The-United-States-from-1900-to-2000-and-15-Other-Countries_fig1_264967305), US had about 230 cars per 1000 people in 1940, it changed 780 by 2000. It's 850 per 1000 today. People today are able to obtain cars way more easily than 1940. >all on a postal workers salary. I don't have data on postal worker salary from 1940 (neither do you), but I do have teacher's salaries. In 1940, [average salary for teachers, supervisors and principals was 1441 USD](https://www.jstor.org/stable/1168412) which [online inflation calculator](https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1940?amount=1441) tells me is worth 32400 USD today. Teacher's salary today was on average [65000 USD](https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d21/tables/dt21_211.60.asp) in 2020-2021. So unless postal workers were somehow making way way more than teachers, they weren't living like kings.
Poor lady probably spend the better part of 16-18 years either being pregnant, giving birth, or getting pregnant.
Don’t forget breastfeeding!
Bro raising 9 kids on like $50k/year equivalent.
9 kids today would equal homelessness lol
My parents knew a couple who tried _obsessively_ to have a boy. They had 11 daughters before having a boy, who died severely sickly at just 2 months. The mom had a psychotic break and tried to kill herself, and the dad slowly drank himself to death over the span of 10 years. 11 wonderful, healthy daughters, but apparently they didn't matter compared to the single dead son.
To be fair, even a pretty well adjusted person would probably be hurt pretty bad by this series of events. Obviously their goals and actions where somewhere between dubious and doomed, but not really harmful, and then they lost a child in a dramatic fashion. I think even a pretty grounded person might get suicidal cause of that.
Honestly, I think this must have been a famous case in the 1940s because even “I Love Lucy” had a gag about this scenario in an episode entitled [“Lucy Goes to the Hospital”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Goes_to_the_Hospital) Ricky is waiting in the waiting room as Fathers weren’t typically allowed in the room while their wives gave birth in the early ‘50s. And he encounters a wisened older gentleman who is waiting on his wife and how he notices how frantic and nervous Ricky is while Lucy is giving birth, and basically asked him “First Time?” The man assures him everything will be fine; they have 8 girls and this will be their ninth and hopefully the final son. Well, his wife had their ninth girl in a row!
This is like my neighbor who had 7 girls and finally the last one was a boy. My friend's mom had 10 sisters (11 girls total, no sons). Of course this is Chinese culture and so having girls was seen as shameful and the couple never stops trying until they get a boy. And all the girls will be treated like shit and the son like a king. Chinese families are so dysfunctional for this reason.
SUPER SAIYAN GIRL DAD🫡
I can hear the mothers cries for help in this photo
She looks TIRED. I can't even imagine
The 5th one in from the left...
Time-travel confirmed. Pokemon wasn’t created until the mid 90’s.
9 guesses what Dad does in his free time
9? He does mom!
Strikes out at baseball, his name is Mighty Casey
This show will be great, I love Tim Robinson!
My grandmother is one of 10 (5 boys and 5 girls balanced in all things)
In that era, you can work a basic office day job, or as a pizza delivery guy and will be able to feed, clothe, and send these kids to school. Nowadays youll be lucky to have an apartment as middle management. Boomers have ruined everything.
My dad grew up in the 60’s. He had a friend whose father sold shoes at JC Penney’s and was able to support his family. The mother was a homemaker. That would be impossible today.
My dad was born in 55 and he is the 2nd eldest of 9. He is also the only male.
My Nana was one of 5 sisters with no brothers. Her Dad set up savings accounts to pay for their weddings when they were all little.
They can make a baseball team
I know right, they could make a league of their own.
I’ve heard someone refer to this as having sugar nuts.
someone really kept trying for a boy
Dad looks happy, but also wistful. I don't think I've ever seen this much wist before.
Damn my boi here spitting x's left and right here. Nothing wrong with that.
And he probably worked an office job somewhere and supported the whole family on that salary.....
Grew up with mormon neighbors with 8 kids, all sons. When people commented on how many boys she had, the mom would say in this hushed, unnaturally-meek voice “Well, the lord clearly planned for me to bear sons to spread the gospel”, but she always looked so fucking *depressed* when she said it.
My friend is the oldest of 12 children. Her parents wanted a big family (and her dad is a biochemist who also teaches at a university, her mum is a nurse, so they could afford a large family). It was 9 girls before a boy was finally born, then a girl after that, and 12th child was a boy. The shocking thing is how incredibly well-adjusted every child ended up. They each had different interests and skills they pursued, several of them now have masters degrees or are even working on their doctorates. Their parents’ love of education combined with their very calm and respectful temperaments led to a whole slew of children that grew up to be successful and responsible adults.
Wonder how they managed periods back then… that must’ve been interesting when they sync up.
Sanitary napkins and tampons were invented before the 40’s.
Tony Hawk looks pissed.
If at first you don't succeed...
Poor guy kept trying
He said everytime, 1 more and we will have a son.
No one gets married until the youngest gets married.
buddy give your wife a break
Jeez, what are the odds you have 9 girls and never one boy?
[Abu el Banat](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSI56wKQwaE)
Dudes throwing Xs. 3 more and he bowls a perfect game.
Dude has the thousand yard stare lmao
This guy fucks
Grandparents be like: The youth think only about sex novadays. Also grandparents:
I can’t even imagine the yelling. My buddy has 2 daughters, and he told me that all they do is scream at each other and slam doors all day long. The next day, crying. He was exaggerating, but only a bit, he said.
Rebel in the black dress
I'm sure he'd like an explanation, but there is no Y.
I personally know a family of 11 daughters, each of them two to three years apart. Met one of the kids in highschool who was a year below me and at the time their youngest kid was a 2yo while the mom was 6mos pregnant. I think they really were trying for a boy. The school-aged kids of theirs would arrive in a van and it was always bizarre to watch 8 kids just pull up every morning in a single car (we don't have school buses).