No country for young people

I was with an Irish friend in a pub in Dublin waiting for a Champions League match to start when somehow we ended talking about siblings. He has three and he was surprised when I told him that it was a lot. I asked him if that was standard in Irish families and he said that it is quite common. Half-way through my pint, I did a quick mental scan through a few of my closest friends’ families back home in Portugal. Most of us – including myself – only have one sibling. I couldn’t remember many cases of families with three kids. In fact, I reached the conclusion that I know many more only children than people coming from families with three kids or more.