Are They All Yours?

Common misconceptions about having Large Families

Any family that has breached the 5 kids mark will have heard repeatedly, no matter where they go, the same comments from random strangers. "Are they all yours!?" We've made a habit of retorting with comedic gestures, such as "Oh no we found a few of them on the side of the road." or "They're having a sale on children back in aisle 6."

With every addition of a child after that the comments continue to expand. "Don't you know what causes that?" To which my husband responds, "I'm starting to think it's getting her flowers."

"I don't know how you can handle that.".......

"By the Grace of God."

"I'm glad it's you and not me.".......

"Me too."

And my husband's favorite, "Don't you own a T.V.?"

His response, "You think watching television is better than making babies!?"

You get used to it and come to expect it and, like a grizzled veteran, you come to find that their shots no longer intimidate, and then you start to realize it's like a badge of honor that few in this generation will ever get to experience.

Strangers' comments are one thing, but what if they're coming from friends and family? Sadly, its usually not as easy to brush off especially since those close to you feel more comfortable with "letting it all out" in a not so discreet way, especially following a loss (miscarriage or stillbirth).

"You have one of each (boy and girl), that's all you need."

"Don't you think you should be spacing them out more? Your body needs a break."

"Maybe God is telling you you're done."

Hurtful, yes, but dissuading, no. Our faith is strong enough not to cave to the biblically ignorant, but it can be annoying. After nine children you would think they'd eventually give up their campaign.

Answering Six Common Misconceptions

#1- Having 9 Kids is Not Like Having 9 Toddlers

The funny thing about humans is most of us have one baby at a time, with the obvious exception of twins and (even more rarely) triplets (I am not including the unnatural and medically impregnated Octo-Mom types). We are not like dogs who have a whole litter of pups at a time. Most of us start at one and a year or two later we have another and so on. This period in-between means that the first baby is usually walking, talking (to some extent), and even close to, or fully, potty-trained before the next one even comes around. By time the time that the third kid makes her entrance the first can help pick up and do very basic chores, and so it goes down the line and before you know it you have a teenage boy helping dad build a shed and a pre-teen girl who can cook an entire meal for the family by herself.

I will say that having lots of kids would be way more difficult if you take the more modern view (which has destroyed society), that "kids should be kids and enjoy it while they can" and that kids should do nothing but school and play, because after all (as this logic goes) once they hit 18 and become adults, then you will learn that life actually sucks and that you just have to suffer through it till you die. Makes you wonder why we have 40-year-old children living in their parents' basement refusing to "adult?"

#2- They Don't Have to Eat You Out of House and Home

Do we have to buy a lot of groceries?

Yes and No.

When it comes to groceries, there are many things that can cause the fullness of the cart to vary, but perhaps the biggest is the quality of the food you put in it. I've seen a mother of two with a grocery cart full of pop-tarts, gummy snacks, granola bars, cookies, mac'n cheese, and every other pre-made processed-to-death boxed snack or food-substance you can think of. This woman's cart was overflowing, and she was complaining about how much her obese kids eat. I looked at my large crew of physically fit kids and to my cart which was full but not overflowing and contained whole raw foods with almost nothing from the inner aisles.

The difference?

We don't spend money on nutritionally dead food, or on empty-calorie snacks that you can eat and eat and eat and never feel full. If my kids eat something in between meals, they grab an apple or an orange and continue about their day fully satisfied. A bowl of hearty stew full of meat and vegetables will fill my kids way quicker than pizza which will give you the illusion that they haven't eaten in days as they pack several large pies away with ease.

Another aspect to consider is whether you grow or raise any of your own food of which the kids can be a part of. Our kids have been feeding chickens and gathering eggs as one of their earliest chores. Older kids enjoy milking goats, slopping the hogs, and tending gardens. These tasks are a wonderful experience for them as well as a good way for them to contribute to decreasing the grocery bill.

#3- They Don't Have to Be Completely Out of Control

Are our kids perfect? Far from it. Sometimes my house more closely resembles a circus, with clowns trapezing off stairs onto couch cushions to the applaud of onlookers, usually ending in some form of injury. There are many days of which I contemplate just burning the house down rather than deal with the hurricane disaster that swept through my kids' rooms after a few days of building forts with my storage totes full of clothes and toppling/scattering them all. Is this amount of damage a daily occurrence? No, not usually, especially in the summer when they can be outside building forts with leftover boards and sticks, riding bikes, and climbing trees.

Getting pent up energy out is one aspect, not expecting boys to be the same as girls is another. The boys need to battle, whether that be with toy weapons or wrestling on the ground, they need to get masculine energy out. For older boys that can be vented through chopping wood and building things (working with dad really helps with this as well).

Another thing (which I wish we would have realized sooner) is to discipline bad behavior, that you don't want to spread to the others, more strictly with the first ones. The younger children look to the older ones as examples and if you let the older ones get away with certain offences be sure that the younger ones will pick them up. When your 4-year-old starts giving the same disrespectful attitude as the teenagers you know you've been overlooking an issue that needs addressed.

A Side Note: The real litmus test for how your kids are doing can be seen in their behavior in public. If your kids are the ones people are using in memes comparing how they were disciplined in stores back in the day vs now, then you may need to revamp your parenting strategy.

#4- Name-Brand is Overrated

I can honestly say between hand-me-downs from many different family members, gifts, and yard sales, I've hardly had to put out money for clothes. Brands make no difference in their ability to perform their intended duty, which is to cover our nakedness, so paying $400 for a pair of Gucci underwear makes no sense when you can get a pack for $5 at Walmart. Most of my clothes are hand-me-downs from my mother, some of which are probably 30 to 40 years old. Kinda makes you thankful that the styles recycle every so many decades.

One Potential Issue: the quality of hand-me-downs can depend on who you receive them from. Some of our cousins' daughters dress like THOT's and when we are gifted shorts that more closely resemble panties than pants, I am quick to pass them on to a charity where that piece of cloth would be better than nothing at all. The same is done with shirts that have satanic symbols or inappropriate sayings, like "Rub Me for Good Luck."

#5- Gaming Can Be Managed.

My husband and I both grew up with Atari, Nintendo, and Sega, but it wasn't all-consuming of our spare time. We both had many other hobbies of which we enjoyed; reading, drawing, and musical instruments to name a few. But there is something very wrong with the gaming of today. Kids spend countless hours sucked into open-ended online games, so many in fact that they have no time for anything else, often losing the opportunity to gain other skills while they are still young enough to learn them easily.

Does this mean we have banned all gaming in our house? No. But we are more selective. We don't have Wi-Fi, so all online gaming is automatically out, as is the newer systems which require internet to download any new games regardless of whether you buy the disc or not. So, what can they play? My kids are excellent at Super Mario, Donkey Kong, Kirby, and some of my husband's old first-person shooters like Halo and Doom (for old Xbox or PC). The nice thing about these older games is that after playing for so long the kids get bored and move on to something else. These games lacked the obsessive components that newer games have to keep the youth's attention for several hours at a time. There is just only so much jumping around on a 2D screen that you can do before your drawing pad starts calling you.

As another guard we have also implemented a system where in order to play games you have to first earn that time through doing extra chores. A job like hauling a load of firewood would earn a few hours of game time, which we then write on the board (we call this the hours system). After an hour or so of gaming they would subtract them from the board and then have to seek another job in order to have gaming hours on the board again. This system has worked for us for several years now to help with the balance of work and play and has reduced the need for corporal punishment for certain small offences (because hours can be taken instead).

#6- College Isn't Really an Option

Many people have asked us over the years how we planned to pay for our kids to go to college and the answer is easy. We aren't. The fact is, besides the cost being completely unaffordable without going into mountains of debt (which we do not approve of), we also have to consider the fact that most degrees are useless. Colleges use to be for the most excellent to go into needed fields such as to be Lawyers, Pastors, and Practitioners of Medicine. Now every Tom, Dick, and Harry is pushed to seek further education at a huge cost, when they would be better suited to be electricians, masons, and carpenters.

As convincing as that argument is the more important reason would be that we value our kids' souls. Studies have shown that your kid is more likely to survive the Normandy Invasion than their faith surviving through college. Christians shouldn't think that sending their kids to Sodom to get an education would be beneficial to their relationship with Christ. So, what about Christian colleges? See my previous point on debt, only make it much worse.

So, if having a large brood of children seems too daunting because of these critics, most of which come from people who didn't have more than a couple kids themselves, ask someone who does have such a brood. With every child that God blesses you with, He also blesses you with the means to care for them and provide. If you feed them nutrient-dense food, are willing to wear hand-me-downs, and train your kids to a trade instead of college then they don't have to be expensive. If you give them ways to expend pent-up energy, discipline more strictly while they are young, and implement ways to keep their work and play in balance then your life can have some semblance of order.

...And by order, I mean not being bothered by the crayon on the wall, the occasional bloody nose, the couch cushion with a rip on the side, the toddler version of dueling pianos, and a continual crunch underfoot no matter how many times you sweep. You know, those little things that you would look back on fondly when you are old.

Some really do prefer to have it the opposite way, to live in a clean quiet empty house.

Personally, I prefer the crumbs.

-Mrs. Johnson