With very special thanks to keledy, who gave me her contributions, input, and suggestions.

Large families in a nutshell are families that have so many people, you can never get anywhere with one without being late, hearing the screams of a baby all the time, or losing someone. Although having a large family can be a nuisance for these reasons, it can also be good. They usually provide many Christmas and/or birthday gifts, and they can hold big parties.

When is a family considered "large"?

A family can be considered large if:

• The oldest sibling is old enough to be the parent of the youngest.
• There is a new baby every one and a half years.
• A grandchild in the family is within two years of age of one of her aunts.
• When someone gets lost on a family trip, everyone must get in groups, count off, and then who is lost can be determined.

Large families seem to be a cycle. If a person is born into a large family, that person is more likely to have a large family when they start their own family than others who may not have such a big family. Then, when that person's family gets large, the entire family gets even larger.

Children in large families (usually the older ones) tend to get less personal attention than the younger ones. Although the children may feel neglected sometimes, this lack of attention may turn out to be a plus for them in adolescence/adulthood because their parents really don't care what or how the older child(ren) is/are doing.

Ironically, younger children in large families have similar feelings. While their older sibling(s) are out graduating from college, they're still in seventh grade. They also feel that everyone's also looking down on them as the "little one" who'll never grow up.

When large families begin to get even bigger as the children have children, things become confusing. Setting up a family meeting of any sort is near impossible. Someone always is changing a diaper, looking for a lost kid, running late, has an appointment, was never told about the meeting, or something along those lines. Then, when everyone gets there, the incessant ringing of cell phones and crying of babies goes on.

Going on a trip with such a family is even worse. It gets very expensive with regular costs, airfare, food, drink, etc. Little children cry if they don't get souvenirs; older kids want to break away from the main family and go off on their own or with similarly-aged cousins. In a place like Disney World, the sheer amount of people makes it impossible to agree on a place to go. In other words, it's mayhem.

Gossip is a big problem in large families. As you know, something that starts little gets big when it goes through more than three people. Imagine something little going through over 10 people! Just about everything you do will somehow get back to you if you have a large family.

A real-life example of a large family function

A large family plans a meeting at the zoo. There should be one parent, five children*, and 16 grandchildren. At 7:30, the time everyone was supposed to be there, only one grandparent, three children, and four grandchildren. One child's boyfriend tries to use his cellphone, only to find the battery dead. Then, after about five minutes of confusion, someone uses their cellphone and successfully calls two of the missing children. They are both said to be in the zoo parking lot. They get to the meeting spot about 15 minutes later. The other missing child comes about 30 minutes later.

An hour later, after the family breaks up and wanders around the zoo, it seems after counting off, that two grandchildren are missing. However, no one knows which it is. After finding out which grandchildren are missing, it turns out the two were together and close to everyone else, but weren't notified about the count-off.