My theory is that maybe ALL of the kids were accidents. Nick and Diana would have been pretty young when Charlie was born. If I'm not mistaken, there was an episode where Charlie was talking about how surprised he was to get his baby brother Bailey after being an only child for so long, so I'm thinking Bailey was also unplanned. Julia MAY have been planned, but I'd say it's iffy because there's only a year between Bailey and Julia. Granted, there are people who do plan pregnancies immediately after the birth of the previous child, so it's possible, but I think more women than not would prefer to wait until the previous child was about a year old before trying to have the next. It's VERY exhausting to deal with being pregnant while having to care for a baby that's not even a year old yet. Claudia could have been planned or not. It would seem like the Salingers would have thought they were done having kids, since Julia would have been four by the time Claudia came along, but it could be either way. Maybe they did want another child and thought this time they'd wait until the youngest was a little older. As for Owen, it's all but said in the series that he was definitely an unexpected surprise. Ordinarily, I'd say you don't have five "accidents" when it comes to kids, as you generally learn your lesson with the first accident and do more in the future to prevent the next, but you never know. Nick and Diana might have been the kind of people who just didn't favor birth control. Maybe they didn't plan or try specifically for a big family but certainly weren't opposed to the idea and just wanted to let nature do what it was going to do when it was going to do it. Someone mentioned maybe they had infertility issues that they eventually overcame, but it could very well be just the opposite. There may have been wide age gaps between the kids because their parents may have tried for years to avoid getting pregnant, but nature just always had a better idea. Some people are seemingly just immune to certain types of birth control, something will work really well for awhile but then fail, while something else won't work well at all. Some people are just meant to be more fertile than others despite efforts to be otherwise. I even knew a woman who got pregnant twice on the Depo Provera shot and once on the pill. it does happen. In any event, the Salingers were obviously good parents who loved all of their kids and wanted to make sure they were taken care of and their big family turned out to be a blessing for them, as did the kids' age differences. It could be it was just all part of God's plan to ensure those kids would always have each other once their parents were gone.
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