In recent years, family unit has shrunken on account of fewer kids in a household, whereas people in the past experienced merits of being a member of a big family. While children in those families may had some drawbacks, they indeed benefitted both as a child and an adult.
Having more siblings with different talents and abilities, which can support other siblings, is a golden opportunity of a one’s life. For instance, someone can help youngers with Science subjects, while another can help with Arts, thereby offering a greater chance to younger one to excel in both fields. This is supported by a recent study conducted at Colombo University, in which they claim that the academic performances of adults who grew up in large families are much higher than those who were born in smaller families. In addition to the academic support, these children took more responsibilities, such as looking after little brothers/ sisters and doing household work, whereby they became more responsible in their adulthood than children of smaller families. So, it gave them a chance to maintain a house while performing tasks at aprofessional level; hence, they experienced a balanced life.
However some may argue that kids in bigger families were economically disadvantaged due to large number of households. In contrast to these days, human life was simpler in the past, where people enjoyed growing crops and raising livestock for their needs, and they therefore lived without struggling to make ends meet. So I personally do not believe they faced financial problems. What made things better for them was that they were highly likely to live in extended families rather than nuclear families; it therefore ensured them to grow up with moral values such as sharing and caring for others, what made them adults who have helping behaviors.
In conclusion, advantages of being surrounded by a lot of brothers and sisters far out weighted than disadvantages in the past.