One Man, One Machete

I come from a large family. There are nine (four ladies and five guys) in my family from a mother and a father. My people do not believe in polygamy. Marriage is believed to be One man, One machete.
From time immemorial, my grandfather had difficulty in getting married and in turn having children. He got married to a woman who gave birth to only one daughter and never conceived again.

wifey and I

His first wife left the marriage because of her inability to get pregnant. When my grandfather remarried again, his new wife gave him five children (two women and three men), my father happened to be the first.
Since male children were considered the heir apparent of their parents in the olden days, my grandfather was happy to have had three boys against his initial experience of having just one child who was a lady.
The lady from my grandfather's first wife got married and gave birth to five boys whom I refer to as my step-uncles, if this ever existed,I wouldn't know. Till today, when we travel to my town, these step-uncles of mine still visit their maternal home.
When my father and his siblings started to raise their own families, they had many children. This was to enlarge the frontiers of the family lines. Their experience while growing up and the history of their father, my grandfather when it comes to village matters of decision making, the size of a family is a reference point. Since theirs was a small family unit, they were always not considered.

Hence, my first uncle has ten children and the other one has five.

One of the reasons why families of the olden times were large was because the fathers were farmers. Most of what was needed to cater for the family were locally sourced. My grandfather was a farmer, hunter and Palm wine tapper. You can imagine the large income he made with all his trades. I remember that each time I visited my grandparents in the village, I saw a big yam barn of different sizes of yams for family food. There was also a large number of local breed fowls and goats too.

Our immediate family

It wasn't much of a task to raise a large family as much as the source of finance for the family was readily available. Also, education and shelter was not much of a matter back then. My grandfather has a four bedroom mud house which was large enough to conveniently occupy his family and still have enough space for visiting relatives.

Our Family when my immediate younger brother had their first child

Finance Is A Much Considerable Factor In The 21st Century Family Structure.

We live in a much more competitive time than our grandparents. Everything is now attached to money. Some of the things that our grandparents got for free in their times are now gotten through money.

This is why partners in marriage take a lot of time to consider the number of children they would have going forward. Some of the things that people consider this day before going into childbirth are as follows:

Income
The income of a family is a factor to be considered when talking about the number of children you will produce in the immediate family. For responsible parents that will yield results, it is important to note that finance is tied to everything a child uses throughout his or her life with the parents and beyond. Income and finance is the head-factor for running the daily affairs of a family unit. For instance:

Quality Education: The world is highly competitive on the kind of education an individual has. This is why many parents are striving to ensure they give their wards the best so that they can grab any opportunity in their near future. Knowing how expensive quality Education is now, parents who are in the middle and lower class have decided to cut their coat according to their cloth.

Foods and Nutrition: During the days of our grandparents where they need not to buy some.of their food items, they have little or no worries when it comes to stomach infrastructure. In our time, we buy nearly everything because people would rather want to work in the office, neglecting the traditional ways of raising a family. This is predominantly the reason why the cost of food items is on the increase. Anyone who wants to have well nurtured and nourished children must first of all count the cost.

Parenting is becoming more difficult as the day goes by. This is why new generation parents who want to have the best family where the children are well raised and have all the basic provision of life must calculate before they produce children.

My Personal Family Structure & Plan

To God be all the glory. I got married in 2013 and I have two children. My first child (daughter) will be eleven years old in January while her brother will be nine years old in February, 2025.
My daughter is in Basic Eight and her brother is in Basic six. They both attend a private school because we thought that there are better teachers and dedicated staff in the private school set up. Since we want the best for them, we have to do all that we can to pay their fees from time to time.
Our children are our first registrants in our work place HMO to secure their health in case of any emergency. We also ensure to give our best when it comes to foods and nutrition.
My wife and I opted for childbirth control because of our forecast for the family we have decided to raise. Though we both come from a family of nine and seven respectively, we have seen and I know some of the sufferings we had while growing up and we do not want such for our children.

On the extended family front, I have a large family but my immediate family unit is small due to the above reasons.

• All Images Used In The Publication Are Mine