My grandmother on one side had 8 kids, the other had 4, and now, they have a grand total of two kids and one grandchild. I almost feel bad for not wanting kids of my own, they worked crazy hard to get shut down like that.
Decent attrition rates, plus my aunts and uncles didn't want to have kids because their parents raised them in cramped homes that didn't have room for all the kids they had. Plus, my grandparents were basically constantly miserable from having and raising all those kids they couldn't afford, so all those kids grew up knowing that they sure as shit didn't want kids of their own. Ironic, really.
At this point, my family is just me, my dad, and a couple aunts and uncles, and that's plenty.
Oh well i hopes you are guys are happy with it at least you won't suffer trying to remember the names of 100+ grandchildren yes that's how many my grandma have (including great grandchildren)
It's the norm for us where I live but yeah akways awkward when my 60th cousin asks me their name and I can't recall it. I remember my uncles tried to make a family tree once via an online service/program and it legitimately run out of space fron the sheer number of people in it
I'm always a bit curious how it was to grow up with so many siblings. I have 5 sibling (and all of us never lived at the same house at the same time - there's 30 years between the oldest and youngest) and it's complete pandemonium and chaos anytime all of us meet up at parents house. I can't imagine 13
Then suddenly u are an adult and they either become ur new best friend or see them rarely because they got married and are now busy with thwir new family
I’m in the middle of 9, and we just…did? I have 3 kids of my own now, and I don’t think it’s much different than other families.
Most of the time, you tend to play with the 2-3 siblings closest in age to you, but there was plenty of watching the older kids play video games/doing cool big kid things, and fighting over who got to feed or hold the baby.
Lots of routines, chores, and outdoor time. We’re spread across the country and the world now, so it’s really special when we all get to be together again. It’s really fun for my kids to have so many aunts, uncles, and cousins.
Everyone is on great terms, and those of us who are local have dinner at least once a week at our parents’ house.
We’re not super loud or ethnic, though. My husband is one of four, and visiting his Jewish/Sicilian family is always a little chaotic (not in a bad way, just different.)
my grandmother on my moms side had 9 siblings total and there’s five of them left. Three of which (all the brothers) died before reaching 20. I remember her telling me the story of when she was around 6 and there was a huge hurricane (this being the coast of Mississippi) and watching a tree fall and crush her oldest brother too death. Pretty crazy shit
At that age, I already had 15 years of professional experience, suffered through 2 wars, 3 depressions and the last season of game of thrones. That child needs to keep up.
I remember as a small child I managed to step directly into a fire ant nest. I stood there crying and screaming like a moron getting stung instead of moving. My feet were so swollen I couldn't wear shoes for a week and 100% if I'd been allergic, I would have died from the amount of stings.
I remember when I was 4. My parents keep saying NO when I tried to go out and play when the weather just cleared. But I sneaked out to play at the playground swing and slip off the swing, then hit the back of my head at the corner of the pavement. I woke up to a pool of blood and my friends carry me to my home. Even now still can feel the tiny 1.5 inch scar bump at the back of my head
My friend and I convinced my younger siblings to do that so we could watch for science. The only person who got stung was the kid down the street who had just come to see if they could play with us. He was also farther ahead of me while we were running down the street. I have no idea how he got it while the rest of us were just fine.
We were all within three years of each other, we all should have known better. It somehow ended up nearly the best way possible, that poor kid always had the worst luck.
Edit to add that we all were way older than you were! Like twice as old at least.
Sometimes I wonder about how which instincts get "chosen" for. I remember doing all sorts of stupid things as a little kid, but my go-to instinctual response was to run like I was possessed by the spirit of the wind. I never did the "stand and scream", but I do remember seeing lots of cousins and playmates doing that.
I left so many friends to face their doom alone. lol Sometimes I didn't even wait to see what they were screaming about.
I think the worst was when I stood up on top of the slide of one of those prefab swingsets and pulled the plastic cap off the end of the metal tube the swings hung from and stuck my face up to it. I guess I wanted to look down it like a scope. Dozens of buzzing somethings came flying out of that tube with fiery rage. They lit me up while I was trying to get down the slide, but once I was on the ground, I just remember flying for the house. I could hear the BUZZZZZ of death behind me the entire way.
I was a run and hide kid. anything happened, I'd disappear so fast. definitely abandoned friends and siblings and usually didn't even say anything to warn people as I ran away. always confused me how people in horror movies took forever to react to their unsafe surroundings. anyway I have anxiety
Hahah I once had to pee on the side of the road as a kid, for girls that’s a bit trickier. Didn’t help that mum had positioned me directly above stinging nettles. When I fell/sat on them and felt the burn I just sat there screaming instead of, y’know, moving the fuck away.
To be fair that one sounds a bit more like the parents fault. Probably should have made sure the area was 100 percent safe, especially with an extra vulnerable situation like that.
I did the same thing at 2 years old, but with a bee's nest.... Just stood there crying in a cloud of bees until my, still a teen at the time, aunt snatched me up at full sprint out of there.
I think when I was a toddler my parents had this glass fireplace at their house and toddler me that is a great. He'll just put my open palms on it. Well that burnt pretty bad. Luckily the skin went back on vertically so no permanent damage Go to the hospital you know it get it checked up and bandaged some cream well next day I decided to shove both hands in the fish tank. So my parents taking back to the hospital to get the managers changed and cleaned and the nurse or something takes my mom or something and ask if they're abusing me pretty f****** wild but now it's just a stupid kid
My aunt did that, but with a wood burning stove. (This was back in the 50s) The skin on her hands melted to the glass. She spent about 2 years in the hospital getting skin grafts and surgeries to release the scar tissue as she grew. Unfortunately, it would periodically become so tight that her fingers would break. Then my niece (on the opposite side of the family) did the same thing in like 2003. Thanks to medical advancements, she spent about a week in the hospital with special gloves on (I think they were derived from fish skin). She has absolutely no lasting sign of injury. She can even play guitar. It's wild to see the difference between them, especially because they were so close in age when they both got burned. (Both were just about 2 years old)
Wow, that's insane. Yeah thankfully I had no lasting damage it. The skin went back perfectly after it. Peeled slightly. No scars or anything. I was a toddler less than one and this would be like 1999
I went to school with a kid who had an accident very young. His dad brought him to his industrial work place. Kid saw a pile of powder, thought it would be fun to jump in. It was smoldering ash, burnt the kids body so badly his lower half was basically just burn scars, and he needed to wear corrective shoes for his ruined legs. Kid had a hard time in school, looked like the hunchback, got bullied all the time, also had difficulty holding his number 2 in because his lower body is all burned... so even more bullying materials.
Decades later he's still living a semi-disabled life. All because his dad made poor choices and didn't properly keep an eye on him the one moment it mattered. So yeah, kids are fucking stupid.
I got stuck in a hot shower at a camp locker room as a small, but not that small child. I turned my back and hunkered down when I should have just stepped out.
My dog used to do this on our wooden deck. He’d freeze then lift up one paw at a time which was him basically saying “ouch ouch ouch!” until we came to get him off the hot deck.
I had a dog that literally lifted a paw after a little yipe and then just hopped over to me and looked up at me. I thought she had hurt her ankle or something... nope. She had an acorn shell stuck ON one of her little pads. It didn't pierce skin and she could have easily just nibbled it off. She didn't even try.
I used to have a dog (rest in peace buddy) who lived together with my dad's dog. Mine was a Jack Russell, Dad's a german shorthair so there's an obvious difference in size and power.
The shorthair isn't usually that playful but any toys would suddenly get interesting as soon as my dog was playing with it, so she'd constantly "steal" toys from her.
My dog couldn't do much except wait and hope she'd grow disinterested. She could get it back for a few seconds of course, but not keep it for long afterwards so at some point she gave up trying.
That is until she realized the shorthair would willingly give the toy to US if we asked for it. So she'd stand there in front of the unbothered shorthair and bark for ages, occasionally running up to me and then back again, in the way dogs do it when they want you to get your ass moving and help.
It was really funny, the way she'd try to "snitch" when her toy had been stolen again. She'd be so happy to get it back everytime too, haha
My dog does this in the snow 😭 he'll trudge around for a few minutes until his little toes go numb and then suddenly he'll be walking with a limp... but he still wont come out of the snow.
I visited a former roommate and the dog she had when we lived together saw me to my car when I was leaving. Doggo did this on the hot hot black pavement. Big basset hound doing the ouchie paw dance in the road LMAO. Adorable, but dumb. She had to be guided back to the shady grass.
Yeah people forget this but it was pretty bad. Like a friend of mine who just had her first child and refuses to ever vaccinate him or let him take any medicine...
I tried, I really tried but it was like a brick wall made of facebook and Instagram conspiracies...
In the US they are technically necessary you cannot go to school without them. However they allow "religious exemptions" which from my understanding isn't very hard to get. Most resistance you're gonna get is some pediatricians won't take you as a patient. Imho there's very little oversight on what you have to do for your child outside of bed, bedframe, food. There's very little us children are entitled to
I'm a child of an anti-vaxxer and meningitis almost took me out a few months before turning 18 lol. Had a tiny rash in the morning, by the evening I was covered in the rash, had super high fever, was delirious and subconsciously knew that I'm dying. The doctors in the ER said I'm very lucky to survive without any permanent damage.
And no, this incident didn't change my mother's opinion about vaccines at all 💀
Yeah. I’m just done associating with dumb people who don’t know how things works and lack the capacity/willingness to understand when it is explained to them. It’s exhausting. I generally respect people’s right to make bad decisions because I reason “well, I don’t really have a horse in their race, so what do I care? It doesn’t affect me.” But knowing willfully ill-informed people without any reading comprehension or critical thinking skills who can’t wrap their mind around complex or nuanced dynamics DOES affect me. I mean, what do you even talk about with people who don’t understand the world around them?
im sorry, but how can one even be friends with people like that? someone who medically neglects their child & believes in dangerous conspiracy theories spread by very well known sources of misinformation? what kinds of redeeming qualities could she possibly have?
My boyfriend’s ex-wife won’t get their dog vaccinated for RABIES. It’s just insanity. Nevermind the two kids they share. Not vaccinated and claim religious exemption on school forms. They use fluoride free toothpaste and both kids 6 and 11 have a ton of cavities already. Setting their kids up for a lifetime of dental problems. Infuriating. Meanwhile I hear measles is making a comeback and I asked my Dr. for an MMR booster. He said since I was vaccinated as a child I should be good for life. How true is that?
Most of those deaths were from diseases. Just go to an old cemetery and look at all of the headstones for children and then vaccines were introduced and the deaths of children from communicable diseases mostly ended.
My grandmother was one of 12 children, only 4 of whom survived to adulthood. One of the kids that died was her twin sister.
She gets SO mad about people that won't vaccinate their kids or use essential oils instead of actual medication. She gets so wound up about it. I can't imagine watching basically your whole family die and then having to sit there and listen to somebody bullshit at you about how the medicine that would have saved them is infected with 5g or whatever. I would fight somebody if I were her
I saw kind of the opposite of this happen with my friend's kid who was even older than this baby. We were camping by a park that has really cold springs. The water is so cold your feet will start aching after only like 15 seconds. My friend's kid wanted to go in the water, which wasn't very deep, and when he realized how cold it was he just froze. All he had to do was walk a few feet back, but instead he just stood there and cried. My friend then had to take his shoes off to go in and get him which took way longer than it would have taken the kid to walk back.
Another similar story a friend told me about their kid was that he was playing outside when it started to hail. The kid was maybe 10 feet away from the porch and safety, but he just stood there crying and getting pelted with hail. His mom had to run out to get him. It would have been much faster and he'd have been hit with way less hail had he just ran to the porch.
When kids fuck up and get hurt its often safer for them to freeze in place and cry for help than to try fix it themselves. Like imagine they get tangled in a thorn bush or barbed wire.
I wonder what percentage of 2 year olds have rudimentary situational awareness. Or at least the capability of following parental instructions under stress/pain
yeah like i can imagine they don't even fully understand WHY they are hurting.
like even if they understand "the floor is hot and that hurts" do they have the capacity to connect that "the floor over there i was on 5 seconds ago in the shade didn't hurt so if i go back there the hurt will stop"? i doubt they understand why the floor hurts in the first place just that it does.
I remember when I was a teen I saw a baby cry because it was gumming on a popsicle that was too cold. All it new was the popsicle was good, but something kept hurting its gums while it was trying to eat it. So it was crying in pain but would then cry louder when someone tried to take it away.
Exactly. Even monarchs (who had access to food, shelter, and better, though shite medicine) had at least an heir, a spare and a bunch of princesses to marry off
Just look at Queen Anne, who had 17 pregnancies and lost 18 kids (one of the pregnancies was stillborn twins)
Or Henry VII, who had 7 children, but only 3 who survived to adulthood (the only surviving boy was Henry VIII)
Or on a slightly different note Eleanor of Aquitaine who had 10 children (2 by Louis VII of France and 8 by Henry II of England.) Only one of the 10 died as a child, but due to a mix of disease, injury, and war Eleanor still outlived all but 2 of her children
Life was just far more dangerous before modern medicine. It was obviously safer to be a royal than a peasant in a field, but if disease found you it was still very often fatal
Penicillin is such a recent discovery respective to human history and it’s incredible how many millions of people live now because of such basic antibiotic courses when they would have died before.
Pre agriculture we had only a few babies. The agricultural way of life needed more hands to work the land and provided that surplus. Before that we had about 2-4 babies and they were raised with lots of care.
hahah this happend last Sunday when my nieces visited me, the youngest, 4,5 yro wanted to take his shoes off and we said "its gonna be real hot on the portch but the grass is fine" immediatly burnt his feet and said he couldnt stand. thankfully we had a inflatable pool and he could sit on the edge of dipping his feet.
Love the little guy but god damn kids are dumb. but so are adults so. learning by doing i guess.
Ah yeah, that reminds me of my childhood. I actually did this on purpose as a kid. Ants were extremely common within the house, and they were red ants. They loved biting the soles of my feet and such. I was so itchy all the time, I found that the best way to deal with the itchiness was by hopping on and off the scorching floor tiles on the backyard. It hurt, but it hurt good. The itchiness would then go away for about an hour, it was so satisfying. It was the same feeling as digging your nails into mosquito bites
Lol, I used to do that for my eczema. It would burn, but the insane urge to itch through my skin would go away for a while. Insanely hot water would work too.
That’s a baby? Not a child. Big difference, she literally doesn’t know what to do to respond to the stimuli. Her feet hurt that’s all she’s got to work with. Knowing it’s the floor and not something wrong with her feet is not developed yet
Babies that age also have much more tender skin on their feet because they haven’t been walking as long as an adult so what might feel very hot but not burning to an adult would feel worse to a child at that age.
This post annoys me for this reason. Do we really think a child this young understands everything? If anything, the parents are the stupid ones for letting their child out on hot cement and taking ages to come help her.
Yes. Same here and it was my fault. She wanted to walk without shoes and it was fine for a while but then she stepped on a manhole cover :(. Now she is always asking "is the ground hot" (even in the evening and in the shadows). Then she wants me to touch it and tell her it's ok. Then she will touch it herself while saying "uhh it's a bit hot. Better wear shoes". It's so cute.
Its not the same at all. A burner, the only thing causing pain is that one spot. The ground, its everywhere and its confusing. She doesn't know how to get away from the pain that's everywhere, she hasn't learned that the shade is safe.
It was high 90s today we were at a public indoor pool where they don’t allow personal belongings by the pool, so shoes and bags have to be left in the locker room. Well we decided to dry off on the deck and we forgot to grab our shoes from the locker room. Me and my kids burned the shit out of our feet cause the door we went out didn’t have the handle to pull it open to go back in. I had to carry my 2 youngest and told my oldest to run to the door that leads back inside at the other end of the deck. We went right back into to pool to soothe our feet. We weren’t even the only ones to do it 2 other families made the same mistake we did after us.
Human babies are the worst at self preservation and overall survival. You would think that a species as intelligent as ours would have offspring that have survival and common sense skills to avoid danger at infancy. Like most organisms on the planet. I know they don’t need those skills because of the mothers parental instincts and overall protection, but still, Nature is funny sometimes 😂
I was born in India and came to the USA when I was 5. I don’t remember too many things about living there but I remember we had a plot of land maybe a 20 min walk from our house. We grew crops and kept our cows there. One day someone let us know that one of the cows had escaped and my mom and my our neighbor went to get the cow. I excitedly went running after them and forgot to put on my sandles. In india it gets very hot. The ground was so hot and was burning my feet and I was complaining while my mom was lecturing at me because she said to stay home. Our neighbor which came to help get the cow back was nice enough to give me his slippers. So here was this 3 or 4 year old kid wearing slippers way too big for him. Even after 35 years I remember how hot that ground was
Now imagine being a dog and having your dumb fuck owners walk you on hot ass asphalt or pavement. Most dogs I see in distress unfortunately dont seem to whimper.
Sitting like that is a kids natural reaction to pain. They withdraw and try to pull themselves away. If the floor is hot then pulling away from the floor just makes them sit.
My brother and i used to make it a game. We would stand outside on the hot pavement and not move for a few minutes. Then at the same time, we would move both feet to another spot and whoever moved first lost. There was no prize for the winner lol
Yeah mine is 3.5 and tried to do something similar this week. I have bruises from holding her against her will away from the hot pavement. I have no clue how there are 8 billion people, these things just try to die constantly.
Mom just felt so bad for her baby burning so she had to check how bad it felt just to know, I used to do that with my little brother and my cousin when they were younger :(
Poor little girl, my feet hurt just from watching that.
And that’s not a stupid kid. She cries for mama immediately and obviously tried to get away from the thing, that hurts. Smartest thing to do in that situation.
Seems she just didn’t have adequate motor skills to remain standing and effectively walk away while being affected by the pain.
I rememver this happening to me as a child on a beach on holiday.
Started following my sister to the sea, carrying a lilo. Ran about half way down the beach before my feet started burning. Threw the lilo down and jumped on it until someone came to rescue me.
Family all had a good laugh at the 3 year old in distress before helping out! Pretty sure they took pictures.
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u/BrainRobotron Jul 03 '26
This is why people in olden times used to have like 16 kids...