You can listen to Bing Crosby's Christmas album, to the song "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas", where the parents having 4 children (household size thus 6) is described, as an anecdotal supporting note... since it was a popular song for the masses, 4 kids was not seen as unusual.
Why not? Stats are numbers compiled for someone at some point. A song this popular is a snapshot into how people lived and perceived themselves back then. A measurement of sorts. A disagreement between the two is a good indicator that the stats are suspect, or not the right stats to be looking at
Because people dont accurately represent their situations? This seems so silly. West Virginia has a huge culture of music singing about how its a state of coal miners, when in reality, there are less than 15k working in the coal mines, with a population of 1.75 million.
That does not indicate that there are secretly a lot more coal miners, it just indicates that people are clinging to and showing off an identity that they like and want to be represented by.
The parsimonious reason is that people write songs about comfort and large, happy families, not about AGIs and statistical households of 3.3 to 3.7 people with 1 to 1.44 breadwinners. Songs (and media) reflect cultural values, not cultural realities; see also rosy movies about the "good old days" of 1960s USA being not particularly representative of the period's racial and economic strife.
