I have a trainee parent, who's been a trainee since yesterday (on fast speed), and only 4 children have been born without my help.

Is this normal?

yes if a male is left with many females and he is any level of parent their will be many kids when you come back in all about the same age

Ah, a triple post, you should be patient when submitting a message

But no, only 4 children, and enough breedable females.

Edit: Well, I just checked the parenting skill for a male that had no skill at all, and he's been busy. But that still leaves the question: Why didn't the master farmer, that was checked to parenting, do so well?

They have about 50,000 food units, so that couldn't be it.

I think LadyCFII answered this question in another thread -- apparently male villagers older than 50 will not initiate breeding on their own (they can still father children, but they won't do it by themselves).

Is your farmer over 50? [I usually wait until the peeps have some skills before setting them to parent, I guess I shouldn't wait that long!!]

I didn't know that

The master farmer that I checked for parenting, and turned into a trainee parent, was in his late 30's, and was 54 when I opened up the game this morning. The parenting skill bar hadn't moved either, which is to be expected I guess, with just 4 kids.