Amish Family Size: How many children is typical?
Amish families are large, with up to nine children on average
In contrast to modern society, an Amish couple expects to have a large family. An Amish woman often becomes pregnant shortly after her wedding.
Amish view children as gifts from God. Thus the use of contraception is frowned upon.
However, some Amish may use birth control and other family planning methods – particularly in more progressive communities.
Yet Amish families remain large, with an agrarian tradition and a need for manual labor also supporting a high Amish birth rate.
Amish Family Size: Large, but it varies
Amish families typically have between six and eight children. The number of children may vary by community, though six or seven children per completed family are often cited as averages for the Amish as a whole.
Nolt and Meyers note a range of family sizes among Amish in Indiana, for example, with the Kokomo community averaging only six children, the Elkhart-Lagrange community seven, both Allen and Daviess counties with eight, and the Swiss Amish settlement at Adams County with a whopping nine children per family (Amish Patchwork, Meyers and Nolt).
A study by Hurst and McConnell found an average family size in Holmes County, Ohio of five children, though this figure includes families which have not completed their fertility cycle, and thus would be lower than one taking into account only completed families (Amish Paradox, Hurst and McConnell).
With the recent shift away from farming in Amish society, some have wondered whether the Amish will also move away from big families. In fact, Amish childbirth has gone down slightly.
Thomas J. Meyers tells us that in Elkhart and LaGrange counties in northern Indiana, for example, families who have switched to factory or shop work have slightly fewer children than those that have stuck with the farm.
According to Donald Kraybill, similar trends have been seen in communities such as Lancaster, PA, perhaps the most land-squeezed settlement of them all.
But big families, at least by US middle-class standards, should remain the norm. In The Riddle of Amish Culture, a study of Lancaster County Amish, Kraybill notes that roughly 10% of Amish families have 10 or more children. Children will always be treasured in this family-centric culture.
“The only treasure we can take with us to heaven is our children.”
This quote came from a mother of five in Holmes county, Ohio, but it could have been just about any Amish parent. For the Amish, children are a blessing, not a burden.
Looking through an Amish Church Directory for northern Indiana, you notice many families with eight and even ten or more children. Many former farmers are now business owners. From a practical standpoint, children are a big help around their parents’ shops just as they are on the farm.
I recall meeting a few “truly wealthy” families with upwards of fifteen children. But the record, in Elkhart-LaGrange at least, comes from a couple who married after each of their spouses had died. Between the two of them, they have had enough children to field both sides of a softball game, plus substitutes – a total of 24 kids.
Large Amish Families Are Still The Norm
Large families are the norm, and Amish view children as blessings from God. At the same time, various factors may influence family size, including a shift away from farm work and greater openness among some Amish to family planning. As a result, Amish family sizes have in fact dipped slightly in some communities.
For more, see:
- Do Amish use birth control?
- Where are Amish babies born?
- Why don’t Amish discuss pregnancy?
- How Do Amish Choose Baby Names?
- Amish Children & Discipline
- Amish Marriage: Beliefs & Customs
- The Amish & Sex: Rules, Beliefs & Taboos
- An Amish Patchwork: Indiana’s Old Orders in the Modern World, Thomas J. Meyers and Steven M. Nolt
- An Amish Paradox: Diversity and Change in the World’s Largest Amish Community, Charles E. Hurst and David L. McConnell
