I would love to have a really big family--I absolutely would. I mean, like 8, 9, or even 10 kids. I would do that and I'd love it. Oh sure, it'd been insanely intense and I'd be a haggard old woman by 40, but I'd love it. I love kids and I love big families. If I'd done things the way I wanted, Kylie would've been born more than a year earlier than she was, we'd have a fourth kid already and would likely be gearing up for number 5 (alas! the Lord had other plans, and now I see why).
At this point, I don't know how large our family will be (likely not 8 or 10). We're both pretty darned sure that there are at least two more coming at some point. After that, its hard to say because we just don't know yet. Here's the problem: kids are expensive. I don't even have a problem scraping by our whole lives because we've got a large family. I don't care if I never have a fancy house or nice things or travel much; people never seem to believe me when I say that, but I really don't care (of course I'd love to have all that, but its just no big deal if I don't). And I trust that if we accepted the responsibility of all those children, the Lord would ensure we had the means to provide for them. What I don't trust is our ability to develop the self-discipline necessary to stretch those means to care for a large family. Maybe as I develop better financial management skills, I'll develop that confidence.
But here's the bigger problem (and this really is a really big deal for me, even though I know it sounds ridiculous to a lot of people): once you get past six kids, you have to either spread them way out, age-wise (and I much prefer them all scrunched closely together--I feel like the almost 3 year gap between Dylan and Kylie is huge), or you have to take two cars every time everybody goes together. Or (this I hate almost as much) you have to get a ginormous vehicle, like a 12 or 15 seater van.
So there you have it. My biggest obstacle to a gigantic family is transportation. Call me selfish, but there it is.
2 comments:
You know, growing up in a big family, I completely understand this! We never went anywhere without two vehicles after our huge van died and we replaced it with a mini van. We never went on road trips or vacations. As a kid- it always kind of sucked. I'd hate that I was the "only" kid who'd never made the drive to Disney Land! We did fly with all of us once or twice, and now that I look at prices, WOW I bet that was expensive!!!
I think if you can provide for them, then a large family is great! I love all the perks of a large family.
That being said, We plan to stop at 4 if the Lord doesn't mind :) I've been there, done that, don't need to repeat!
I came from a family of 7 kids. We did have to take two cars every where we went, but the older kids kinda liked it because they got to drive their own car. As a child, I didn't much care about the mode of transportation. What really stunk about being a big family was not being able to go anywhere really far because it is expensive to pay for two cars to go places.
But, I think that big families are great! I love having a ton of brothers and sisters. It does mean that my parents have to have a big house now that they are older though because now that we are all married and a lot of us have kids, we would not fit in a little house.
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