Daily Dose #33

Large or Small Family

When I was younger, I once told my mom that I needed to have a lot of kids so she and my dad would have lots of grandchildren. I have only two siblings. Currently (and holding I’m sure), my parents have sixteen grandchildren with nine being mine. I kept my word from when I was like 13 or something like that! But, if I’m being honest, it really did just happen to end up that way. I was not completely convinced that I would ever have as many as I do —- I’m glad I have them all, though.

My mother came from a family in which her dad had fifteen children in two marriages. My dad was the second born of ten children in one marriage.

And I like all these numbers!

As stated above, my husband and I have nine children and we couldn’t be happier. Sometimes, I think I want more, but most of the time, I’m okay with what we have. I’m not sure I could go through another pregnancy or even the infant/toddler stage. My youngest is five so they are all school age or beyond.

My husband comes from a family of six children. His dad only has two siblings and his mother, I believe comes from a family of eleven kids. I could be mistaken on that. By the time he and I met, he’d lost an uncle as to whom he had never met and I’m not sure how many have passed away in the time we’ve been together.

But, moving along…..

As I said, we are happy with what we have.

But, like most anything, there are some advantages and disadvantages to having a large family. And in large families, these advantages may just very well be the disadvantages as well such as the following:

But as is said, with big families everything is just MORE. More love. More laughter. More joy. More personality which equals more growth in individuals. More chaos (sometimes good, sometimes not so good). More money – food, clothing, gas. More food. More noise. More time needed to divide. More arguing sometimes. More tears. More drivers. More activities.

I like to think all the positive ‘mores’ balance out all the less-positive ‘mores’ at the end of the day.