1. Better chances in cake walks.

2. Always someone in earshot when you yell for more toilet paper.

3. Always enough people to make Apples to Apples more competitive and compelling.

4. For the younger kids, there are plenty of people capable of checking your math homework.

5. If a pot needs to be stirred frequently, there’s someone handy.

6. They share chores, so they actually do less chores.

7. Each baby arrives home from the hospital to more and more arms open wide.

8. Lost things are found more quickly when a half-dozen people are searching.

9. When you are sick, you have a lot of concerned visitors.

10. Dance parties are like actual dances.

11. Being a flash mob is a way of life.

12. Safety in numbers, like when the boys invade public restrooms.

13. The Halloween candy haul is shamefully, delightfully over-the-top.

14. Snowball fights and snow forts are epic.

15. People randomly shout “Bless you!” in parking lots.

16. At least one of your siblings will share your affinity for oddball things, like Gumby or wombats.

17. Plausible deniability.

18. The match-ups rarely repeat in the family gift exchange drawing every Christmas.

19. I don’t have to store leftovers, because there are rarely leftovers.

20. We get to celebrate often with 10 birthdays a year, plus holidays ~ always a happy time in the near future.

21. When we are sad, there is always someone who knows exactly how to cheer us up.

22. If your family gets a new puppy in early winter, and it’s snowy, you won’t have to take him out so often because there are 6 other people who can put on boots and shiver.

23. When illness strikes, there is usually someone else with the same malady to keep you company in your misery, watch movies with you, and nap with you.

24. We can do a legitimate chorus line.

25. Ben Franklin said it best: He that raises a large family does, indeed, while he lives to observe them, stand a broader mark for sorrow; but then he stands a broader mark for pleasure too.