When is "too many?"

People ask if we will try for a girl. My answer is Are you NUTS? I saw video of myself as a teen! No way in hell am I putting myself through that on purpose!

Well, its not like I can tell them about the 2 day crying jag when I found out Henry was going to be a boy. Now I don't care, I just want to have another kid by the time I am 40

[Rapunzel]

With five I always - ALWAYS - have the most children in any gathering I attend (medical, community, church, homeschooling, etc.). It's not the case in Texas where it's easier to have more children. But, it's definitely the reality where I live now. Something that definitely limits family size around here is mother's age. I found out last year that the average age for a woman to have her FIRST child around here (Boston) is 35. That's the average! Remembering how exhausting a newborn is at the age of 21, 24, 27, or 30, I can definitely see a woman having her first at 35 would put the kabash on her wanting to have more than *maybe* one more.

Another HUGE limiting factor in Boston (where family size is truly tiny - two kids is enormous and three is just, well, crazy) is the cost of living. I live in an 1800 sq ft apartment and we pay $1800/month - and that's CHEAP for here! Normal cost is more like 1800 sq. ft. for $2500/month. Additionally, very few people are insane enough to want to send their kids to Boston's public schools. But, tuition for a private school around here runs tens of thousands of dollars - for ONE child. One of the local papers around here did a study and they figured the poverty line for a family of four in Boston was somewhere around an income of $50,000/year. Can you imagine what the poverty line would be for a family of seven?

Anyway, when we went to Texas this last summer it was like someone took a corset off of me and I could breath freely again. We ran into so many people with over three children (and, many with up to six!). It was refreshing not to get the open stares and rude comments I get up here. Of course, the cost of living is MUCH lower in Dallas and San Antonio where we were visiting and the mentality towards having children at a younger age is very different there as well.

Sometimes it's tiring for me to hear for the 5 billionth time, "You must have your hands full," in the grocery store, or, "Wow! I could never do that!" in the airport, or some of the other comments people blurt out constantly. A comment that a person with lots of kids WANTS to hear: "You are so blessed!" A comment that I got a couple of times out in Boston that is never welcome: "Oh, you're a breeder."

Jennifer

SIL lives in Boston, Sommerville actually, and their 2nd floor condo on a triple decker cost something like 500 K. Place is only 1200 sf at most, in horrible shape, a hundred years old. She also just got married, and is 35.

My freind from here in Madison says that sometimes you get comments from the Zero Population Growth people and thats just with one kid.

Breeder should only be used by uncommitted gay men in jest to a good friend who just announced her pregnancy as a form of congratulations...oh,,,you're a breeder now honey... If you wanted to be equally rude you could shoot back, oh yeah, well at least I have something to show for all my copulation! What do you have besides the bitchy attitude?

[Auspicious]

They may not realize that "breeder" is so offensive. A woman in this article uses the term to refer to herself:

''We're just late breeders," said Huber, who had her first child after she was 40.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/art...aby_boom_town/

P.S. Not saying the term isn't out of line. As much as I like a cynical/ironic little joke, even I wouldn't say that to someone, especially someone I didn't know extremely well.

[Rapunzel]

See, when I hear the term "breeder" I have visions of the book, "The Handmaid's Tale", flit through my head. The term breeder is great for horses and dogs and livestock that have not been sterilized. And, maybe it's a good term for a man who knocks a woman up and then doesn't take responsibility for the child he helped create. But, outside of those instances I just find it in very poor taste. And, in the cases where it was used towards me it most certainly was meant in a derogatory manner.

Maybe I should post that in the thread on rude people? It's kind of appropriate....

Jennifer

[SueC]

I would definitely take offense to the "breeder" comment, though I suppose with Arborea's scenario I'd probably take it in stride . I think it probably does matter where you live, I'm in the midwest and I know several people that have 4 or 5 (or more) kids. I've always been astounded when around big families how well it seems to work. I'm talking 5 or 6 kids, but it seems like those familie's kids get along way better than my oldest 2, perhaps they know a little more about living in harmony than my brood does. It does get old hearing the comment "haven't you guys figured out how that happens yet?". That is so, so clever!

[DCJenn]

To dovetail on Jenn's comment about age of first-time parents- heck yeah, it's WAY harder on me now than it would have been in my 20s. and we got a one-year-old who sleeps through the night!

I can't imagine having a family bigger than two kids at most, and it is partially due to my age, partially because I'm one of those zero population growth wackos, and also because we have to pay a lot of money to get ours, it' becomes an extremely limiting factor!

I grew up with cousins though who had six- and my brother and I loved hanging with them- we had two cousins, one older than me and one younger than me (all by a year so now we're 39, 38, 37 and 36) so we were together from sun up to sun down when we went on family vacations.

But back to the original question- 16 seems like too many- I know they're provided for but there's a difference between feeding and clothing your kids and actually getting to know them as individual people and there is NO way you could do that with infants and toddlers and elementary school age kids along with teenagers. I had an office staff of 16 once and I certainly could tell you some pertinent information about each of them but not in a great detail- and we spent a hack of a lot of time together.

Whew.

Jenn

[PrincessFiona]

Not to change the topic, but did anyone notice how those kids all just sat there for an hour or something...even the little ones? My 2 year old couldn't sit still for 2 minutes let alone 20. My only thought while watching the video of them and then hearing the tv commentator make a statement about how the little ones just sat there and didn't make mischief etc for a long period of time was that it just wasn't normal.

Of course, maybe I'm just jealous! We were at the hotel this week with the kids during the move and I had 2 mothers and 1 grandfather comment to me about how *busy* Aidan is. The grandfather said "I'm tired just from watching you"...my response "You think I'd be skinny by now after chasing him all around". Literally, we walked around the pool area for an HOUR while the others swam...well, I walked and held his hand while he leaped and pranced and whooped and hollered gleefully. I had to constantly walk with him/hold his hand to prevent him from running off around the pools by himself.

I'm tired just thinking about it.

kris

[mommax3]

Kris, I did notice that the kids seemed unnaturally calm (which led to my "stepford" reaction noted in my earlier post in this thread) but I did notice one of the little boys putting his hands up like claws and making a monster face one of the times the camera panned the whole group, and it cracked me up! (Do you suppose there was a reason they had the little boys sitting on the floor? ) I am sure they are all "normal" kids, but they probably were primed for this big tv interview.

Two of my boys always inspired comments about how active they were, too (and it didn't make me skinny, either!) and I just decided to take it as a compliment, even though it felt at times as though it was a curse! I know they came by it honestly because my husband can hardly stand to sit still even now, as an adult.

Sally

[Rapunzel]

Hmmm.... I don't see it as that abnormal really. But, it probably is weird for most people (ie seeing a lot of calm children together). My husband and I are very good friends with a couple who call our children "scary-good". And, in a way, it's very true. We just have four children who are naturally very, very obedient, calm, and good-natured. And, the other one...wellllll, that's why they invented Benadryl . Just kidding (well, just a little).

So, I can see that there is a family somewhere in the universe with an enormous number of children who, for the most part, behave themselves in public. I'd call them pretty darned lucky! (And, maybe that is what contributed to the parents feeling like they could actually handle that many kids!)

Jennifer

I didn't see them on TV but might have thought that is strange, too. A few calm kids, yes, but 16? That's pretty darn lucky!

My kids are not spastic and reasonably obedient but are energetic and "hands-on" learners. They could probably sit down for a short interview, especially if there were a lot of cameras and lights and people to look at. If I had a nickel for every time I've heard "oh my, they are so busy!" or "ha ha, are you sure she's a girl?".

[Vishenka69]

Almost everyone I know has 1 or 2 kids. 3 is considered A LOT. I can't even wrap my head around 4 or 5. To me that's just crazy and borderline suicidal. When we finally get around to having kids, I'm pretty sure we'll stop at 1, 2 max. But I guess I just don't get the allure of a big family.

[DCJenn]

Other than my cousins and the huge families in my neighborhood (We had a Mormon church, a Catholic church and a Conservative Synagogue on the outer edges of our neighborhood, so to say there were a LOT of Big A** station wagons would not be an exaggeration) we had no frame of reference for large families. My husband is one of 5 but it's a multiple parent five- Two older sisters by mom and first hubbie, one younger sister my mom and step-dad, and one step-brother one year older. He loved it when his step-brother would come out on weekends and in the summer because he had an ally against the girls.

I KNOW that I don't have the mental resources to handle more than two.

This is sort of off topic- but did you all hear about the woman who threw her three kids into the San Franciso Bay? Obviously one would have been too many for her- she was a unmedicated diagnosed schizophrenic. So, how do we as a society address people who DO have too many for THEM-. Obviously our foster care system isn't up to the task. (as was made clear by the parents who locked up their 11 adopted/foster kids in cages at night, ostensibly to keep them safe from themselves and others)

These people with the 16 are doing an OK job- but what about the people who aren't?

Jenn

[mommax3]

This is not politically correct AT ALL, but it just broke my heart to hear about those poor little boys. If someone can't take care of their kids, TAKE THEM AWAY! NO SECOND CHANCES! One of the biggest drawbacks (for me, anyway) about foster parenting is that the goal is always to reunite the biological family. If I were a bigger person, I guess I could sign up for that, knowing ahead of time that my heart was going to be broken, but realistically, I can't do that to myself or to the rest of my family. If someone said to me TODAY "I have three little boys whose mother is homeless, schizophrenic, and off her meds. We are terminating her parental rights, but would like her to have visitation if she gets on medication. Would you adopt these boys?" I would absolutely say yes, and I have at least two friends who would also say yes. But it doesn't work that way, and I guess I understand why.....it is just SO INFURIATING, though. By the time former foster kids are released for adoption they are at least 10 and many have serious, serious problems that are too much for me to think about taking on with three kids of my own.

I don't know the answers, but I can't stop thinking about those boys.

Sally