Lylah, one of our largerfamilies.com contributors, also writes the Child Caring blog at the Boston Globe, and she interviewed me for a post she wrote on raising big families. There’s a great discussion going on in the comments section–why not head over and weigh in?
Here’s a reprint of my op-ed, originally published in the Christian Science Monitor under the (questionable, but apparently SEO-friendly!) title “Thanks to Angelina Jolie, Having Lots of Kids Is Hip”. Hope you enjoy!
With Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s twins–and Sarah Palin, former VP candidate and mother of five–in tabloid headlines, big families seem to be once again making the news.
Over the past year or two, several news stories have suggested that in certain affluent circles, “four is the new two” and that it may be a new sort of keeping up with the Joneses: instead of a big-screen TV and expensive car, the new one-uppers just keep adding more kids to the fold.
While my husband and I have four stair-step boys ages 10, 9, 4, and 2, and I’m expecting another, we aren’t part of that particular breed of breeders.
Our lives are nowhere near glamorous. We drive a 2001 Dodge Caravan. My husband works as a computer technician, while I earn the other half of our living as a freelance writer. And we frolic at the public beach, not a country-club pool.
The Jolie-Pitts – heck, even the Palins – we aren’t.
We don’t fit other large-family stereotypes, either. We aren’t Roman Catholic, Mormon, or Orthodox Jewish, and have no religious opposition to birth control. While we aren’t wealthy by any means, we aren’t poor as church mice, either.
Four kids weren’t always considered a “big” family. In 1976 – the year before I was born – an American woman had a 36 percent chance of giving birth to four or more children in her lifetime, and about 60 percent of women had families of three children or more.
But according to the latest census, the number of women who can expect to have three or more has been cut to 29 percent, while those with four or more children has dwindled to 10 percent. And as the number of mothers having more than a couple of kids has dwindled, so has understanding of families that don’t fit the two-kid mold.
I’m frequently treated to comments like “Are you crazy?” and “Better you than me!” While I don’t (usually) take them personally, it’s easy to see that we’ve become a culture in which kids are seen as more burden than blessing.
But there are many of us who simply like children, enjoy having a lot of them around, and even do a good job at raising them in bulk – though if you buy into today’s high-pressure, high-cost parenting style (which, incidentally, isn’t scoring many points among child-development experts these days), it may seem impossible.
It’s true that I may never be able to provide all five of my kids with all the material comforts that I might have given one or two. They’ll have to figure out a way to help finance their higher education (a fate that many kids from smaller families also face). And, yes, the fact that I have to divide my time between them pretty much eliminates the danger of my turning into a “helicopter parent.”
But I happen to think there’s immense value in some of the lessons kids learn in larger families, like having to share, having to wait your turn, and realizing that other people’s needs are just as important as your own.
My kids will reach adulthood with a built-in support network that will be around long after my husband and I are gone. There’s plenty of love to go around in my family – and not all of it has to come from Mom and Dad, though of course, plenty of it does.
I’ve heard the argument that children use up precious resources. But as far as I’m concerned, my children are a resource.
When, later in life, we parents will be the ones who need constant care, it’s our children who will be providing it; let’s hope there are enough of them to go around.
Despite world population growth trend lines, birthrates are falling in Europe. Even here in the US, the number of births per woman hovers right around replacement rates. A relatively small number of couples choosing to have four or five or even 12 kids isn’t likely to skew those numbers much.
My kids aren’t status symbols, but to me they are a symbol of sorts: Children represent opportunity for the love, compassion, and support that’s learned within families to be shared with the rest of us.
It’s time our entire culture shifted its priority away from things and back toward people.
There are a lot of ways to accomplish that. Ours happens to be choosing a larger family over a more luxurious lifestyle.
And who knows? Someone’s fourth or fifth baby may just change the world. Or at least, her little corner of it.
–Meagan Francis is a mother of four with a fifth baby (her first girl!) slated to arrive in March 09. She’s the author of Table for Eight: Raising a Large Family in a Small-Family World and blogs at www.meaganfrancis.com/blog.
Confession, I hate making dinner. I don’t really mind breakfast or lunch but something about making dinner really irks me. I am totally that mom who has her head stuck in the cupboard while the kids are complaining that they are hungry still looking for something to make for dinner. I have been trying to come up with a better way. I tend to fall back on my old staples, except I am pretty sure that if I serve my kids chicken tacos one more time I might have a mutiny.
In an effort to avoid said mutiny I have been surfing the web and I came across this blog post by Christine that totally made sense to me, go check it out it’s way better than mine, she knows how to make charts! It was a meal plan that lasted for 4-5 weeks. Bah!, you say I don’t have that kind of time plus I am not going to the grocery store for a months worth of groceries that my kids will end up eating inside of a week. Oh, you weren’t thinking that? Must have been me.
Here is the thing though broken down very simply.
1. Decide if you want to have theme nights for your dinners. i.e. pasta night, Mexican night, breakfast for dinner, chicken night or anything else you might fancy. You don’t need to have themes, its just an option.
2. Make a list on any old piece of paper like this:
Monday Tuesday
A. A.
1. 1.
2. 2.
3. 3.
4. 4.
Until you have done this for all of the days of the week.
3. Start filling in the numbers with different meals that you can have for dinner, if you have themes is sort of makes it easier.
4 For the letter (A.) pick 7 sides that you can serve with your meals, so when you are done you will have side items picked for every day of the week. These recycle weekly.
5. If you are feeling very motivated now you can use index cards 4 for Monday 4 for Tuesday etc. and fill in those meals one to a card.
6. You are done
Now you have just planned a months worth of meals for your family that does not include repeats! In the end you are eating the same meals every month, but you are not eating them every week, and you have taken the guess work out of your week all the way down to the side items. If you find that you have something in there that doesn’t work for you it can always be changed out. And I figure in the summer when we are grilling like crazy I will change it up to include that.
I kid you not I sat down to do this figuring it would take me all day and I would get frustrated and forget it, I was done in about 15 min. I even got up to 5 weeks of meals, who knew that there was more to dinner than tacos?
This is what mine looks like,
Themes:
Monday: Pasta
Tuesday: Mexican
Wednesday: Breakfast for Dinner
Thursday: Crock Pot
Friday: Pizza Night
Saturday: Soup and Sand or leftovers
Sunday: Beef or Chicken
Mondays: Garlic bread and salad
1.Spaghetti
2. Chicken Alfredo
3. Baked Mostacholi
4. Stuffed Shells
5. Stir Fry (with noodles)
Tuesdays: Rice and Corn
1. Tacos
2. Enchiladas
3. Nachos
4. Taco Salad
5. Quesadillas
Wednesday: Fruit Salad
1. French toast and sausage
2. Eggs and hashbrowns
3. Pancakes and Bacon
4. Biscuits and Gravy
5. Crescent Bake
Thursday: Green beans
1. Chicken and Rice
2. Hot Roast Beef
3. Swedish Meatballs
4. Chicken Pot Pie
5. Pork Chops with Mushroom Gravy
Friday:
PIZZA NIGHT
Saturday: Fruit and Veggies and Dip
1. Chili and Sandwiches
2. Club Sandwiches and soup
3. Grilled Ham and Cheese and Soup
4. Meatball Subs and French Fries
5. Left overs
Sunday: Broccoli and Garlic Bread
1. Beef Stroganoff
2. Scalloped potatoes and Ham
3. Coney Night (obviously no garlic bread)
4. Grilled Chicken and Sweet Potatoes
5. Sloppy Joe’s with French Fries
Since I could not for the life of me get a little chart on here I had to break it down like this, computer genius I am not, I really need my own personal web designer, any offers? But I think you can get the idea? So this week looks like this for us:
Monday: Spaghetti with Garlic Bread and salad
Tuesday: Chicken Tacos (I know I know) with Rice and Corn
Wednesday: French Toast and Sausage with Fruit Salad
Thursday: Chicken and Rice with Green Beans
Friday: PIZZA NIGHT
Saturday: Chili and Sandwiches with Fruit Veggies and Dip
Sunday: Beef Stroganoff with Broccoli and Garlic Bread
Love it!!! And with any leftovers we can save them for Saturday or have them for lunches during the week. I can now officially tell you what I am having for dinner for the next month. Of course it all hinges on the hope and dream that I actually venture into the grocery store to buy said food. But now when the kids say “What’s for Dinner?” I can answer them and they can stop being afraid that I won’t feed them one of these nights!
’til next time
Jillienne
* I have been trying to get this posted for over a week, if there are a million typos I apologize!
My 4-year-old, Logan, is totally in love with babies. He pretends all of his stuffed animals and toy figures are babies. He acts as if he’s a baby and makes what he considers to be baby noises, which sound exactly like a whimpering puppy. He takes good care of his babies, tucking them in the doll basket he inherited from his sisters, holding them, putting them on my lap for me to hold while he does something else, propping them up to watch him. It’s so sweet.
Lately not only has he been playing with imaginary babies, he’s been saying that he wants a baby. He craves one so much, he wanted to put it on his Christmas list.
This morning, there was a real newborn baby on TV, so he paused it and called me over.
“Mom, look at this cute baby.”
“Awww, it is really cute!” I agreed.
“I really want a baby,” he said wistfully. “Why can’t we have a baby?”
Uh, because the factory is closed? This ship has sailed? And because four kids is plenty for me considering my original plan was to have two, then after the twins, three. Logan was a surprise. I have more than enough to handle, being mostly on my own.
“I’m sorry, honey, but we’re not having any more babies,” I told him, though secretly, the baby on TV had gotten to me too. It would be so nice to have a little body again to cuddle and hold and kiss.
I love babies. I love kids. If I had a nanny, or even a husband who was home in the evenings, I might consider having more of them. Each one is a blessing and I am so grateful for these precious little people, to watch them grow into the adults they will one day be.
Though my baby fever has lessened as Logan gets older, I still succumb to the occasional baby lust, so I have to get my fixes by holding my nieces and nephews. The family calls me “the baby hog” because at get-togethers, I always have a baby in my arms. I assume that the fever eventually goes away completely, but when?
It’s rather hard for me to accept that the reproductive phase of my life is over, even though I don’t actually want another child. Losing the possibility of having another baby is just another symptom of aging, another sign that I’m getting closer to being a grandparent than a new parent.
Gulp.
Do you ever feel baby fever? How do you deal with it? If you’re through having children, how do you feel about it?
* cross posted on Parenting By Trial and Error
When things go wrong, people are quick to say things like, “That’s because you have all those kids.” What about when things go well? I feel like I have an embarrassing amount of things to be proud of these days. We have five of the children involved in activities, and are in the middle of the musical theater season and basketball season now. Here are some reasons I am very happy to have many children:
10. My oldest son, number 2 child, was a strong member of his basketball team. At the height of his season, he alternated as point guard and forward. He effortlessly drove to the basket, and jumped higher than anyone on the court.
9. My oldest daughter is on a winning basketball team. As in, they beat everyone in their Indiana tournament, and it’s been so long since they’ve lost a game that we can’t even remember when that was. And she leads her team in rebounds, despite the fact that she’s the shortest player on the team.
8. My baby, 10 months old, is standing by herself. She likes to dance and sing, and shake noisemakers during praise and worship. My favorite move is the little elbow bending she does when she’s really breaking it down.
7. My 6 year old can do the splits in two directions. She’s also learning to do a bridge from standing.
6. My 8 year old can do a bridge from standing. She’s working on kicking back over from bridge position.
5. My 4 year old knows all his letters and letter sounds. He is starting to identify letters in print.
4. The sounds of music in my house include Bach played by three different children.
3. My oldest’s performance in HONK! had me laughing loudly and clapping.
2. My oldest son’s performance in HONK! was the big show stopper. I laughed, I cried, flapped my arms like a seal.
1. My oldest tried out for the Civic Theater production of High School Musical 2, and got the lead role, Gabriela!!!!
cross posted at team gray!
I created a photo album of my recent “day off” - a day off from work and from homeschooling. Prepare to be dazzled, really. It’s an exciting life I lead — enjoy!
Remember when you were 13 and you ran outside at midnight on New Year’s Eve with 7 of your closest friends and shouted, “Happy New Year!”? My son will.
Do you remember running outside barefoot in the snow when you were newly 17 on New Year’s Eve? My daughter will.
How about toasting the New Year with sparkling grape juice and cider? We’ll all remember that. Along with watching the painful exchange between a nearly toothless Dick Clark and the most fabulously dressed Ryan Seacrest.
I’ll also remember how much I love the sound of a house filled with children–especially when ours have friends over. How the sound of a group of new deep voices discuss the efficacy of wet noodles. Or giggling girls talking about dancing and what killed Spiderman’s former best friend.
I wish I could hear more giggling girls playing barbie and dress-up, and little boys playing basketball. . .
Welcome, 2009! May the year be full of more of the same.
Bring it on!
cross posted at Team Gray!