Eight Is Not Enough

by Meghan Cox Gurdon
The Wall Street Journal , January 6

Today fewer than 10% of Americans live in households of five or more people and only 1.8% in families of seven or more. That means that if your family consists of a mother and father and five children, you live where I do, which is statistically on the lunatic fringe.

There is, however, one corner of the U.S. where family size has suddenly expanded to titanic proportions, and it isn't Utah. It's Hollywood.

Going on to refer to "Nanny McPhee", "Cheaper by the Dozen 2", and "Yours, Mine & Ours", she says,

"On film, vast numbers of ankle-biters inevitably means enduring a dreadful mess. Fully laden buffet tables collapse, porridge flies, pitchers of orange juice spray across the room. These are all visual metaphors for the loss of control and decorum that having a large number of children apparently entails."

and my favorite paragraph:

"People always tense up when they see a big family coming," observes our 11-year-old, a veteran observer of adult fastidiousness. "Movies like these are cute," she says, "but they don't do anything to lessen the idea that if you have a large family, something is going to explode" (a common occurrence in these movies.)

Thanks to At A Hen's Pace for the link.