A lot of people think our five-kid family is really big.  Actually, nowadays parents seem to feel threatened at the idea of being outnumbered and think a three-kid family is big, not to be sought after if you are lucky enough to get “one of each” after two tries.  But a five-kid family doesn’t seem big to me, and a three-kid one seems downright small.  I think this is why:

This is a picture of my first grade class at St. Joseph School, taken in 1973 (can you tell?).  Eleven of us in this picture went through twelve years of Catholic education together.  Of those eleven, one came from a two-child family, two from three-child families (I was one of these) and one from a four-child family.  All the rest had five or more–in most cases MANY more.  Is it any wonder that the famliy into which I was born, with three girls spaced four and five years apart, seemed sparse?  And that my current five-kid family seems normal-sized to me (although not to my husband, an only child and the son of an only child!). 
When I was a teenager, I planned on ten children.  I even had ten names picked out.  And now, do I wish I had more than five?  Yes, I do.