Re: How many kids?
If your grandparents are alive, ask them when they had their first child.
In the olden days, people started conjugal lives early, much much earlier than today. My maternal grandmother had her first child when she was 15! She had a total of 10 kids! She is still alive and in her late 80s (I think). .
The olden days were tough for pregnant women and infants. In the absense of stats you and I can’t be certain how many survived and how many died. You think pre/post natal care was better in those days? I doubt it! You think infant mortality rates were better than what they are today? I don’t think so! It was not their diet, or the medical science of the era that resulted in healthier children or easy pregnancies but it had a lot to do with people staring making babies in their teenage years.
As regards yearning for the days of yore, we only hear the good things and happy memories from our elders. We hear about natural and unadultrated foods and food stuff, what we don’t hear about are the sanitation problems of those days, we don’t hear about medical malpractise that had had killed many people including infants.
I agree that joint family systems did provided a cushion to young people starting families. But I also know of examples, from family elders, where young couple ventured by themselves without any support. Modern soceity unnecessarily prolongs the adolescence of the youth.