The average size of the family is going bigger

What is the right size family? We need an answer now

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What is the correct number of children each of us should have? It’s a question to which we urgently need an answer – made all the more necessary by the latest reported figures, which show that Britain now has more families with four or more children than at any time since the 1970s. According to the European statistics agency, Eurostat, there’s a growing trend for large families – even though the average family size is getting smaller.

Should this be celebrated, or condemned? We need some guidance, surely. If not, how are today’s young people of childbearing age ever going to work out what to do?

The good thing about it all is the equal-opportunities nature of it: almost everyone is made to feel inadequate

Virtually every day, it seems, some politician or media figure weighs in on the issue of family size: one of the most personal decisions that anyone will ever make is also, it seems, one of the most politicised. Last month, for instance, George Osborne sparked a major row by deciding to cut tax credits for working families with more than two children, and with this in mind, I looked to our popular press for its top tips on the optimum family size. Here is its voice of reason:

Zero children. Poor you: you must obviously be sad, or lonely.

One child. How could you condemn your little one to a life of loneliness – you selfish person!

Two children. Well done you! You hit the magic number – and will never regret having too many or too few. But watch out – friends may be jealous of your perfect family.

Three children. Sorry, you may think you’re being a bit daring, with your extra fertility ’n’ all, but this is the most stressful number to have.

Four or more: you probably know this already, but you’ve just doubled your risk of heart disease.

The good thing about the above is the equal-opportunities nature of it: almost everyone is made to feel inadequate or miserable. Politically, though, it seems that larger families in particular are in the firing line. All the parties, but the Tories most enthusiastically, have pledged to clamp down on these feckless parents, and these political messages are fed by the scare stories in the press of “benefit scroungers” having endless babies and living luxury lifestyles – paid for by hardworking taxpayers.

I’m all for the idea that people should only have children if they can afford them, and shouldn’t expect the state to step in (though I do believe in the principle of child benefit for all). But most of the widely reported media stories involve benefits cheats who have been caught out, rather than people living on state-approved generosity. These extreme cases distort the true picture, which is of working families struggling to make ends meet but suffering short-term problems such as illness or job losses which leave them requiring support.

Most grotesquely, back in 2013 Osborne seized on the horrific deaths of six children in a house fire as a moment to question benefits payments. After the manslaughter conviction of Mick Philpott, who started the blaze in his Derby home, the chancellor said: “It’s right we ask questions as a government, a society and as taxpayers, why we are subsidising lifestyles like these.”

This supreme example of using a tiny number of cases to hammer whole sections of society has been a hallmark of the Tories in government. And watch out: thelatest rise in large families has been credited to the number of migrant families, who have relatively more children. So if we didn’t already have enough reasons to hate migrants, here’s another one.

Of course, there is a group of large families whom the media love, whose size is a sign of their drive and ambition. They are the super-rich.

“City superwoman” Helena Morrissey is one: she has nine children, earns squillions by day, yet gets home by 6pm every night to do the ironing.Nicola Horlick is another: she raised six children while working in the City. There you are, women, you CAN have it all. Stop your moaning about equal-rights this, maternity that, childcare the other. If you can’t fly as high as they do, there must be something wrong with you! (Of course, the army of nannies, cleaners, cooks, gardeners, etc, who support them is not reported quite so often, but there you go.)

I have a larger than average family (due mainly to a series of accidents – they never taught me sex education at school). And I never read the right newspapers to show me the number of children I should aim to have. Were I to make the choice again, I’d probably think two is not quite enough, and three is too much. But until we all have exactly 2.4 kids each, there’s no sign the arguments over family size – personal and political – will ever stop.