Dad of 8 here. It makes life so sweet when we acknowledge the child's capacities. Notice it didn't take that much patience...it's almost just a matter of creatively overcoming a language barrier.
I'd think it would also be a great opportunity to have access to a young, malleable mind that's unencumbered by a significant body of past experience and preconceived notions. Every answer is like a pure function...it's derived from first principles rather than coming an existing corpus of 'state'. It seems like a tremendous opportunity to expand your own viewpoint with perspectives that you'd naturally ignore based on your own past experience.
A good friend of mine was the grandson of a couple that ran a school for gifted children. When they retired, there was a video produced about their careers and, at one point, they were both asked what they liked best about their jobs. His grandfather answered, "Getting to speak to the children every day." His grandmother answered, "Getting to listen to the children every day. I always liked her answer better than his.
Economies of scale. The kids work together, play together, teach each other, and parents facilitate (often leading to interesting conversations like the one in the article). It's actually probably a little easier than having 5.
A coworker keeps telling me (I'm a parent of one, and intend to stay that way) that having a big family like his is easier, since the older kids can take care of the younger kids.
Which sounds totally plausible and correct, 'cept it'll take you awhile to get up to that sort of economy of scale :P
This being Hacker News, we can talk about it in terms of graphs, right? Let's look at the sociogram when one parent is present.
The transition from zero to one is of course world-changing. But at one child, 100% of the connections in the sociogram connect to a given parent: zero economy of scale.
At two children they have each other, but that is only 1/3 of the children's connections when one parent is present.
At three, we're up to 50% of the connections that are child-to-child. At this point the sociogram is rich enough to become interesting.
> At this point the sociogram is rich enough to become interesting.
But the family is poor enough to become boring!
(I can't resist a good pun.)
Anyway, kids aren't raised in isolation with their parents. Our two year old tot already has two kids that I would consider her friends; she mentions them when she's home, and she prefers spending time with them to spending time with other kids.
Ask any member of a large, poor family whether they would trade (life improvement costing $XX,XXX) for having fewer children in the family. Life is beautiful and easily beats filthy lucre. It's worth the struggle. People lose sight of this.
I spot two assumptions in your comment: 1) that families plan the number of children they have, and 2) that this planned number is some number lower than 16.
Yours is not the only worldview.
And with birth rates plunging worldwide, many now trending below sustainable levels, who will provide you with healthcare and other services in old age?
It can be done that way, but there are alternatives. One family I know, the kids actually sometimes quarrel to be allowed to take care of the youngers. In our family, we have "chore points" that are mutually negotiated, and babysitting is a favorite way to get one's points racked up easily.
My wife recently put up a small message board in our kitchen, where you can press letters into fabric to say what you want. My daughter (5 years old), suggested, "Candy inside your heart." I find the sentiment very sweet. We have not broached free monads yet.
