Last night while at my church's womens group a couple of us were discussing children. Another mom with 4 boys recently found out she was expecting. We were all excited for her and she is praying for pink :)
What I want to share is something Jared and I have been running into A LOT lately due to our own pregnancy. There seems to be two main camps when it comes to peoples opinions about our large family.
Camp #1-The older crowd. People our parents age or even a few years older than us who feel their child bearing years are over. The majority seem pleased, even excited for us. We've had total strangers approach us with great interest wanting to know if they are all ours and if the baby is a girl or another boy. We've had several people mention that they wished they had more children when they had the chance. The general consensus is children are great (even though it's difficult when they're young), have lots and you won't regret it later. Your Mercedes won't hug you back when you're 80. Larger families cost more but in the end no material possession has more worth than a child.
Jared and I have always felt it important to seek the wisdom of our elders (people with more life experience) when it comes to large life decisions. When we were praying about baby number 5 we talked to several people including our church's Eldership and we were given great encouragement to go ahead. Children are a blessing from the Lord.
Camp #2-The younger crowd. This largely consists of people our age and younger. There are those in the throws of parenting young children and they can't see the light at the end of the disciplinary tunnel just yet. The idea of taking care of 5 children overwhelm them and the say we are "crazy." Little do they realize that those rambunctious 2 year olds turn into loving caring and even helpful 8 year olds eventually.
Then there are those that are not yet married or just married who don't understand the overwhelming love that comes when you have a child of your own. They see all the needs of the child and the demands on the parent's time and resources and think, "No thanks."
I don't expect people to understand our desire for a large family. I would appreciate people taking a minute to observe our family and respect our decision knowing it was not something that just happened to us through our ignorance. Our family is purposeful and we got here through a lot of prayer and dependence on God's guidance. We have 4 well behaved respectful little boys that make parenting fun and rewarding. It's our love for them that gave us the desire for one more.
A mother in our group last night said it best, "It's not the children you have that you regret, it's those you decided not to have that give you pause."
2 comments:
I grew up in a big family (6 kids) and its pretty shocking some of the reactions you get. Its funny you blogged about this today I was just reading about the Duggars and their 18th(?) child. I find them fascinating. I was reading a message bored about them and reactions were pretty much split down the middle. Half the people were saying that the kids were obviously well taken care of and they seem happy so all power to them. The other half was horrified. Some were trying to perpetuate the overpopulation myth while others said it was "forced labor" to make the older kids help out with the younger ones. It was pretty obvious though that what the people who criticize the Duggars are really upset about isn't that they have so many kids it that they are so religious.
I absolutely agree with your comment about the Duggar's religion. This family is happy, healthy, self-sufficient, and those children are seemingly safe from abuse. There are so many kids out there in homes with serious issues. The Duggar family having older children help with their siblings is extremely minor compared to the plight of their peers. We have no intention of having 18, in fact we're happy with our 5 but I will not begrudge them for their decisions. I think that the non-believing audiences out there are shaking in their boots at the idea of 18 conservative Christ followers that may too have 18 children each. There are definitely worse things.
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