I remember going on a car trip with my family back in the 1960s. As we were getting out of the car, mom, dad and five kids, a grandmotherly-looking lady made some remark along the lines of “are all of those kids yours?” to my parents. We laughed, because back in our neighborhood we had 3 families who had 8, 10 and 13 kids.
At my first job in Seattle, the whole block we lived on in Capitol Hill was full of Catholic families, with 10, 12, and 13 kids. Our baby sitter came from a family of 12. But you won’t see that there any more. We have kept up the tradition, but just about everyone else has folded.