The size of families

I drive a boy in our neighborhood to school in the mornings, and he often talks about his life at home with his brothers and step brothers. The stories are filled with rough housing, complaints that he doesn't have enough attention and how he hates being the youngest. My son (somewhat snarkily) counters the conversation with his views about being happy he is an only child.

The boy asks my son if he knows what divorce is. 

"Of course I do," my son says. "That's how I ended up with three sets of grandparents."

Their backseat conversations make me think about the size of families. I know so few people who don't have a blended family in some way...and families take a long time to bring together. I mean, even blood-related family members have a hard time coming together, so what I am saying is...families are complicated.

I talk to my son about the different kinds of families that are out there, and how none of them are perfect. I tell him that family size has varied greatly over the last century, as most people used to have really large families with lots of kids, and then the family size shrunk down and now people may have really large families again because of divorce and remarriage. I tell him the important part is to try and see the good in the family that you have and know that you have a place in it.

He listens to me. And then he checks to make sure that I don't have any plans to give him siblings (this is seriously a fear of his). He says he knows he is loved, but he would like to play his iPad now.

He gets it.

How do you stay connected to your extended family? Tell me in the comments.