I have twelve children.
A lot of people gasp when they hear how many kids I have. I’ll start this post off answering all the usual questions.
Yes, they are all my and my husband’s children. Yes, we were married when our oldest was conceived. Yes, we are Catholic. No, we don’t have any twins or triplets, although the children keep praying for them! Yes, I gave birth to every one of them and, again, my husband is the father of them all.
And, lastly, no, none of them are adopted. However, we have always wanted to adopt. I’ve even attended adoption classes. Unfortunately, we were laughed at when I inquired because I had two little ones and was expecting #3. I was obviously young and naive and didn’t know what was best for me.
To top it off, no, we are NOT patient (ask ANY of my children). I actually see patience as not always being good for the child. After all, when your child is misbehaving, should you really be patient?
So why do we have so many children? Because we have Faith. We have Faith that God knows what’s best for us. I definitely don’t claim to know it all but I do know that I can trust Him to take care of me and the family He gives me.
When I think that I could have followed the national average of 1.86 births per family it makes me sad. What would my life be like with only my two oldest? I couldn’t image what it would be like to have a 20 year old and an 18 year old in my house, and no little ones. Yes, I know there will be grandchildren but they aren’t the same as your children and they (probably) wouldn’t be living with me right now.
What is it like at my home?
My home is always so busy. I’m not sure if that’s a bonus or not! For example, my oldest son is a licensed property manager and is doing property manager stuff. My oldest daughter is working in our office. I have a sick little boy watching “How to Train A Dragon” (for the hundredth time), two children watching it with him, four children doing their school work, two napping, and one working on her own blog (www.victorianbeauty.net). Soon I’ll be starting dinner and will be dishing out chores to prepare for the evening. We have animals to feed, the table to set, vacuuming, and most importantly baby rabbits to check up on. We have four different litters right now with two more mamas expecting. I love the chaos, I just worry about what it is I’m forgetting!!
The funny thing is I grew up in a family where I thought I’d grow up to be like everyone else. You know, 1.7 (or was it 2.3?) kids per family, a college degree, working parents, the basic average household. God had different plans for me though. I met my husband when I was finishing up high school and I started going to church. It changed my whole outlook on my future and what it was I wanted to accomplish with my life. I no longer wanted the college degree and especially didn’t want to pay a college to indoctrinate me with their ideas. I didn’t want to be a working mom that was forced to pay someone else to raise my children. And, I didn’t want to be the average household.
I knew this would take some hard work and a lot of sacrifices. For example, right now our family has a car shortage, sort of. My daughter drives my truck to work. My son drives his truck to work. My husband drives his car to work. Do you know what that makes me stuck driving if I need to go somewhere? The family bus. Yes, you read that right. Our family vehicle is a 21 passenger bus. Very convenient and economical to be sure. Lots of smaller vehicles, just none available for me to drive. I’m looking into buying a Toyota Sienna but since I don’t want to make payments I’m currently saving. Hopefully soon. 🙂
To help with all the jobs needing to be done around the house the children do chores focused on certain areas of the house that’s assigned to them, their jurisdictions. One may have laundry, another bathrooms, another the garage, etc. We also pair up our older children with a younger child to help with morning and bedtime chores. This way we know everyone has their teeth brushed and diapers changed. However, our routines should probably be saved for a separate blog post.
I just wanted to show skeptics that having a big family in today’s age is possible and the workload doesn’t entirely fall on the mother. This makes it possible to have a large family and a sane mother at the same time. Or, at least, mostly sane. 😉
