about the book

 "Are they all yours?"

Despite a rash of news stories declaring that "three is the new two" and even that "four is the new three", the world really seems to be set up for smaller families--from booths in restaurants that rarely fit more than four to "family" cars that a family of five can barely squeeze into.

And meeting cultural expectations of what counts as "good" parenting--lots of one-on-one time spent with each child, ample child spacing, the best educational toys--seems almost impossible once there are more than a couple of children involved.

When I had my third child, I began noticing the subtle ways the world seems set up for small families. By the time we added our fourth, I realized that a lot of common parenting and homemaking advice just didn't apply to us anymore, and started seeking out experienced big families online to find out how they dealt with it. How did they fit their family into an affordable home, manage conflicting parent-teacher conferences, and keep the ever-growing laundry pile under control--not to mention deal with criticism from people who thought they were shortchanging their kids by having more than a couple?

I found that parents of many kids are truly experts in their own homes, coming up with innovative solutions for keeping everybody fed, clothed, housed, and happy (most of the time) as well as dealing with sibling rivalry, finances, and helping each child in the family become his or her own person.

A panel of over 80 big-family parents--most with between four and eight kids, but a small handful with between nine and 17!--shared their tips, advice, and tried-and-true solutions with me, and Table For Eight: Raising a Large Family in a Small-Family World was born.