Big Families' Stigma

Having a dozen kids is probably rough enough on the family budget—and who has time for 12 Little League games a week?—but parents of large households say dirty looks from smaller families are an especially annoying side effect. With larger families much rarer now than in past generations, parents of a half-dozen or more children say they are frequently stereotyped as religious nuts, freaks, or even Angelina Jolie impersonators. "You get the feeling that anybody who has more than three kids is either doing it for bizarre reasons or there's a medical anomaly," Meagan Francis, author of a book on raising four children, tells The New York Times.