The Goq,
i urge you to look at the tragedies from this summer alone and find out what the average amount of children are in these families I don’t know but i suspect that these types of tragedies are more prevalent in families with double digit children.
If you take a sample from the frum community alone, then yes, you will find a lot of large families, but these types of tragedies happen across all communities, not just ours. They happen to families with one child, or two or three. That is not to excuse the occurrence of even one such tragedy.
My point is that just because you have A and B does not mean that A caused B.
Parenting multiple children brings new and different challenges, and parents must grow, adapt and address these challenges. If they do not, they are being irresponsible parents, just as first time parents would be if they didn’t adapt to care adequately for their first child. This does not mean that parents of double-digit children are irresponsible simply for having so many children. Each couple has its own limits and dynamics, and parents with 10 children may do better than parents of one or two. If parents do not feel like (or realize) they can adequately care for 10 children given their current lifestyle, yet have them anyway without first addressing their issues, then that makes them irresponsible parents.
The Torah commands us to be fruitful and multiply but i feel having a family with a dozen or so children is unfair to those children,
Why would it be, if the parents are properly caring for each child?
the older girls of the family are forced to play mommy when they themselves are still kids and deserve to have a childhood, the younger children do not get the kind of attention they deserve
You are describing symptoms of bad parenting here, not something that is a bygone result of having many siblings.
A parent should never establish a situation where they rely on their children to act as surrogate parents. The older siblings are not parents, and doing so not only creates an unfair burden as you suggested, but is unsafe and increases the risk of the tragedies you alluded to in your OP.
At the same time, children should be taught responsibility. If an 8 year old child gets herself or himself a cup of water, s/he should be taught to offer water to others in the family at the same time (including the parents!). This is good chinuch and though it has the side benefit of aiding in smoothing the house workload, it is not the same thing as becoming a surrogate parent.
Also, parents should continuously assess and monitor their children’s needs and how they are relating to each child. A lot of parents (including me) trend towards being goal-oriented (get them all up and out on time, get them to bed on time, get them fed, etc.), which is good, but carries the danger of going into auto-pilot mode (no news is good news). This must be overcome. Parents must connect with each child every day. This may take more creativity and effort with a lot of children, but I believe it can be done.
again this is my opinion and I may be wrong but I am entitled to my opinion no matter how unpopular it may be.
I think you are seeing an unfortunate situation and you are grappling with it, which is a good thing. I just disagree with you about the cause, which would also affect the discussed solutions.
In the Western world, frum Jews are pretty alone in having large families. We do not have as many guides and role models for how to effectively parent these types of families. Perhaps this is a place to begin making changes.