When it comes to the joys of large families, there’s more than just an ocean between Europe and the United States. This is what I discovered when I began to regularly travel between the two continents and give talks on the topic of the family.
A full disclaimer first: I believe family is the greatest thing, and by family, I mean a large family. My wife and I were blessed with six children, and that experience has been life-changing, the greatest thing that ever happened to me (besides my faith, of course). So, naturally, I enjoy speaking about having many children.
It will not surprise you to learn that being happily married and having a bunch of children is not the rule in old Europe. People are often shocked when I mention six kids. It is literally unheard of. It’s considered unreasonable even among more traditionally-minded families.
In Italy, where I lived for ten years until recently, it took me three years of driving a car through the streets of Rome until I saw a pregnant woman crossing the road. And this was supposed to be the Catholic country, the land of bambini.
But then something very interesting happened a
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