It all started with a video of a woman making her own cheese.
Thats right: I got it into my head that Id like to attempt to make cheese.
Sour my own milk.
Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection
Queso my own fresco, if you will.
But what struck me more than her skills with dairy were her children.
Where were her kids?
Who was she baking for?
How was she getting them all to behave so well?
Wasshe, in fact, a witch?
Which is all very lovely and interesting, but alsolets face ita bit strange.
In Ireland its 1.63.
Which makes a family photo of six, eight, or 10 children somehow striking.
It wasnt always this way.
Theres also a problematic racial element to this pumpkin-patch-going, matching-yoga-pants-wearing phenomenon.
According to the United Nations, in 2022 the average household in Senegal was 8.7 people.
In Gambia, it was 8.1.
In Palestine, it was 5.1 and Pakistan, 6.8.
They are aspirational as well as atypical.
Some of them even have time to make their own cheese.
