Family - does size matter?

Noticed this duck with her family en route for town this morning - she had 10 babies last week if she is the same one!

 I had an e-mail from a friend this morning in which she told me of her recent doings which all concerned masses of visitors and cooking, a wedding and various other exploits incorporating a massive cast of family and friends.  It got me thinking about families and how different they are.

My family is miniscule in comparison and never have we had a big family gathering such as many of my friends do at the drop of a hat.

I am an only child (or as the French say une enfant unique which sounds much nicer and less apologetic don't you think?) of a single mother.  I did of course have a father but not only was he someone else's father too (some of you may remember this story) but he died when I was only 2 years old and I have no recollections of him at all.

My mother's mother died when my mother was a girl so I never had a Granny but I did know her father so had a Grandfather.  My paternal grandparents never knew of my existence!

My mother had 2 sisters neither of whom had any children nor were they married, and 3 brothers 2 of whom married and had families one having one child and the other 4 children.  As a child I saw my cousins fairly often but we have gradually lost contact other than a card at Christmas and rarely see each other - last time was at my mother's funeral 11 years ago!

My husband has 2 sisters one of whom is single and whom we see regularly and the other who has 2 children and several grandchildren but she lives in Australia and those neices and nephews we have never seen

We have one daughter (not through choice but that's just how it happened) and she is single.

So our family consists of a very independent daughter in her 30s, and a sister-in-law plus us two.  It's hard to have a family get together with lots of noise and laughter with only 4 people. I do sometimes wonder if it would be nice to be part of a big close family but then again I realise that it doesn't always work out like that.

As a child I was always able to be alone if I wanted to which would obviously not be possible with brothers and sisters around and sharing bedrooms and so on.  I learned to be independent and also how to make friends as if I wanted anyone to play with that was a necessity!  I had a choice of whether to be out enjoying my friends' company or whether I might prefer to play alone maybe reading or doing some other solitary pursuit.  What I didn't learn was how to share, how to enjoy playing card games and things which require someone else to play with or how the give and take of normal family life works.

I wonder if you come from big families or small.  If you have lots of brothers and sisters do you all get on well together.  Does family size matter?

PS As I finished typing this Thomas has just come to remind me that we also have two cats so our family is not as small as I would have you believe!

PPS Do pop over to Pipany's blog to see her large family having fun and running their own Olympics - if we did that unless we had the cats joining in we'd all get medals as there wouldn't be enough of us to not win!!