Whenever anyone says to mother-of-five Anna-Marie Foley, as they often do, that she must have her hands full, she always gives the same answer: “I say yes, I do have my hands full. And what they’re full of is joy.”Her attitude sums up the feelings of the vast majority of parents, Catholic and otherwise, who have broken through the barrier of having just one or two children and kept on going. I have four, a big family in national average terms (the current birth rate is 1.85 per woman) and in the course of researching this article I have spoken to many parents who have five, six and seven children: all are brimming with positivity about the benefits, to the family itself and to the wider society. So it is a shame, many of us feel, that having a large family is increasingl