Blessed with a large family

My colorful life

I had planned on writing and publishing an article today to tell you all about Eastern Orthodox Pascha, but I have been looking at the pictures I took and decided that I’ll do better to paint them in watercolors and chalk pastels than to merely upload pictures. I’m a watercolorist and such a wonderful service followed by a fast breaker and a feast is better served with the warmth of these two mediums.

Today I am discussing large families. The internet has been abuzz with stories of The Duggars, John and Kate, and the now-infamous OctoMom. In all honesty, I don’t watch the show about the Gosslins, and I only know of the Druggars through FARK. I feel sorry for the OctoMom because I think she is in way over her head and is now unable to make a right decision and make anyone happy.

I have a large family and for this reason, I will not watch the shows that portray "us." I have friends with just one or two kids, but my effort is not greater than theirs. I have more, but they put in just as much time with their kids as I do, but they are less spread out.

I think that having a large family is great. I love my children, but I feel like the women who get portrayed on TV see themselves as nothing more than being mothers. (OK, I have watched the shows but I don't make a habit of it.) There is nothing wrong with only being a mother, but eventually the kids grow up. I hope my kids don't have children before they finish college. I look religious when I am not being public, OK? I think that it's assumed that I think the world is 10,000 years old and that the world is flat when this isn't the case. Such is life, let people underestimate me. I study a few languages on the side and enjoy reading of languages and wines, art and philosophy. I am a letter writer, an amature chef. Don't get me wrong, I cannot work outsode the home because my chidlren need me, but I am not limited. I am a mother, I am a writer, I am an artist, I am a college student. I am a Rennaisance Woman.(This link is ultra conservative, but I am a Rennaisaance woman; I can still be grateful for our two party system and appreciate what can be achieved with it!)

We did not plan this, but we have flexed and accomodated with the results. When my husband and I got married 14 years ago, we planned to have four kids and stop. He married me with a few already, then hen we found out that #4 was a boy, people made stupid yet common comments that set me off. “Oh, so are you going to quit now?” “Now that you have your boy, are you finished?” They’d say these things in front of my three eldest daughters. That hurt me because I remembered people saying that in front of me when I was five years old, after my brother was born. We can blow off to what my dad said as it having been the 1970’s and women not having big families, but my daughters were not going to suffer that, so we started telling people that no, we were not done, that we wanted at least five children no matter what the gender. Their mouths would drop, "FIVE CHILDREN?" We didn't think it would happen for a few years, but #5 was born within a year and a few days of #4. 

People were vulgar to me after that asking if I was going to get "fixed." I was floored when stangers asked me if I knew what caused it or turned to my husband and asked how he could let it happen. My kids were being angels as they are in public! What kind of a thing was that to say to us? This would often happen right before my planned operations and I was galled by the questions. I’d decide to not get “fixed” since I was not broken and my husband backed me. Several children later, I am happy with my large brood, and I shudder to think that had it not been my stubbornness that these precious, responsible, loving persons wouldn’t be here.

The most annoying thing about having a large family is that people ask me silly questions and hyper focus on it. I was in massage school and the teacher kept talking about my huge family. I would stop him and say that really, my kids were not there and that I wanted to focus on class and not think about my family and he’d persist. I have been getting my teeth fixed only to have dental hygienists start asking me where all the kids were, as if getting my mouth worked on would make me feel like speaking, much less have to worry if my kids’ friends’ moms had remembered to get them. (I will only see male dental hygienists now. Men talk about what they are DOING, women talk about mind numbing issues. When I told one dental hygienist that I really didn’t feel like discussing my family with her since I was just wanting to close my eyes and relax, (and she was taking an impression of my teeth and had told me to be absolutely still!) her face brightened and she asked me, “So. . . do you watch Jack and Kate plus 8?” Sometimes I think that you don’t pass an interview for dental hygienist school; you just do worse than the other people.)

I don't go back to doctors who hear that I have a large family then look up and ask, "Where are they?" I really hate that if I make the time to make myself feel better that i have to justify getting away from the house and assure the medical professionals that I am not leaving them to play in traffic along Seward Highway. I have started to refuse to discuss them since none of my conditons that are not GYN concerned have anything to do with the kids. The doctors have a ton of personal information on me including where I live, and I don't know who has the ability to access that information or what issues they have that they have not been arrested for yet. Saying that I have them at baseball practice, which school, etc. could have some scary results.

Stopping my production line was hard. I was sick of being pregnant by the time I had Nina, my ninth baby. That pregnancy had been hard on me, and my doctor would have put me on bedrest if he thought I'd have been able to handle it, but instead he would tell me, "You have been through this and you don't need me telling you to lay down with your hips up. When you feel like you need to, lay down." Telling me to lay down would have had me arguing with him. (I didn't like female OB's. They would compare my pregnancy to theirs. I couldn't have a ten pounder, as I was too small, etc. and they in thier pregnancies. . . I kept having big babies! They'd order me on to bedrest and by the grace of God, I was OK in spite of doing whatever I wanted just to "show" them. Male OB's know when to back off and use your obstinance against you!) This being said, I knew that part of my identity was in having babies. I loved feeling like I was working with God to make a person who would grow up to do good if not great things. I loved feeling the babies kick inside me and I will never get over the new baby smell or carrying new babies around. It was hard to get my tube tied. When I was on the operating table for my c-section, my loving OB asked me if I was sure I wanted it done. When I hesitated, my husband said, "In a year you can go back to college." I was so excited and screamed, "Do it! I am going to college next year!" I was going into another aspect of my personhood.

I get asked if I love them all the same. Would someone please tell me what this means? Does this mean than I let the 2 year old drive and insist on picking out my 20 year old's clothes? I don't love them the same. Thatis such an assnine comment that I could scream when I hear it. I love them all. You either love or you don't love. I love them all, I do what I can for them and encourage them to grow,

The best thing about having a large family is the stuff that comes and surprises you when you least expect it. I had eight loads of laundry on the couch, sick kids and I was behind in my college work when Elizabeth and her boyfriend dropped over. I apologized to her boyfriend and had tears in my eyes from embarrassment and wondered if he thought my daughter would be like I was in 20 years. He is a very kind man and hugged me and said, “I was just thinking how lucky I was that you didn’t go the college route at our age and not start having kids until you were 30, or my soul mate wouldn’t be here!” (He is worth his weight in platinum and one of the blessings that I have with Elizabeth. I had her at 19 and while shepostponed my life plans, I regret nothing of what I missed out on. Seeing her do it and do more is it's own reward.)

Today at my Pascha feast with church, we had an Easter egg hunt and my 5 year old, PJ, had a basket full of plastic eggs and candy. There was a little girl a year or two younger than he was, who didn’t have nearly as many. It upset him and he started to cry. He was really upset that she didn’t have many! Elizabeth told him that he could share and so he gave her several of his so that her basket held about as many as his did. That little girl’s father was very impressed with PJ, who shrugged his shoulders and smiled at his friend and said it was OK, then blushed and ran off. This is the kind of thing that makes me know that I am raising the kids well.

I am not very organized. I think that my organization contributes in some regards to my children being a little more free spirited, but I have a couple of kids who seem like they will follow my husband into applied sciences like medicine and computers, while others are artists. I know families who are all 4-H families or all Scouts and that doesn't work for us, although we tried it. I think that the hardest part of having so many is that each child is so vastly different and has unique gifts that they need to be nurtured differently. One of my children studies languages on her own and wants to put stickers all over the house with the language she is interested in. Another loves Chess and science and said that he wants to “be the smartest person in the world—except for God.” One is considering the priesthood so he can do nothing but study and write and lectured his brother on arrogance, encouraging him to “seek wisdom first.” Elizabeth is a fire fighter, yet Georgiana is probably leaning toward marketing, and Captain Kathryn is going to study culinary arts. I literally drive all over South Central Alaska getting the kids to their events so they can be enriched. With the babies, they are still forming, but I do not see them as blank slates. The slates will write themselves as I let them experience the world as much as I can.

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Edited later. . .

Here are a couple of great links at Chabad. I mentioned in my Lists post that I love going there and here are a few reasons why. Mirish Kiszner writes about boosting a 12 year old’s esteem when she tells her mother that no one likes her and that she has no friends. Mirish writes in a sweet way without the BS of candy coating things. You need to check out her other articles. They aren’t Chicken Soup-type stuff, but solid, direct, well researched advice.

Jay Litvin also writes a great article in the form of the Language of the Soul, where he explains communicating with children. He speaks of the Seven Attributes (kindness, discipline, compassion, endurance, humility, connection, and dignity) and how  understanding them allows us to see how we are communicating. The Jews are Counting the Omer, but everyone can read this and have some light shed on their communication style.

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