HMS Blog addresses families’ unhappy reactions to a new addition to a large-ish family.
I would like to kick off this coversation with a reminder that Gaudium et Spes #50 that tells us that parents have the obligation–in the sight of God–to prayerfully decide what is God’s plan for the size of their family. While parents are obliged to take into account the interests of the Church, the other children in the family, and other factors, no one else may interfere in that decision. And no one can ordain themselves to do what the Church herself does not ordain herself to do, specifically, to tell parents when and when not to have another child. We rejoice in every life given to us, and we pray that each of us would be open to God’s unique plan for our lives. Period.
My brother who read my blog weighs in that what I need is a more creative way to tell people-like they do on TV.
The only problem is that you didn’t tell people in a creative way. They didn’t have blogs on “Full House.” When Rebecca was pregnant, she told Jesse in a game of Pictionary. So, when you play Pictionary like every family does on Friday nights, you need to tell everyone that you’re doing a movie title, and when Jesse guesses, he’s gonna say “cheese half-ink a baby.” The whole audience will laugh, especially when he shows up to the hospital dressed as Fred Flintstone and needs his apendix removed. Or if you have a bigoted father-in-law named Archie, he could show up to the hospital in black face, but I don’t think too many people would appreciate that. Or if your name is Elyse Keaton, you could be stuck in a television station during a snow storm while your husband, Steven, is stuck with the plumber.
Anyways, the moral of the story is that if you want a laugh track, Josh needs to change his name to Jesse Katsopolous, or better yet, Uncle Jesse. I guess you can forget the other stuff, because it obviously isn’t as important as the Friday-night games of Pictionary that Michelle loves so much.
This and the episodes of “Family Matters” where Steve Urkel turns into his cool alter-ego, “Stefan,” just prove my point that sitcoms teach us a lot about the real world. I’m starting to forget what I was talking about originally, so I’ll stop.
Just forget Oreos and eat “Cool J” cookies. 😉
Well, at least your brother seems cool!
Yeah, my immediate family (parenst, siblings) are cool. It is the extended family, who in reality you would think their opinion matters less, but how they do not think in sync does affect your mood, kwim? since I had Matthew, my Great Aunt and Grandmother have not missed an opportunity to tell me I cannot have anymore.
They even told me one story at a family get together how they “stood up for me” when one of their cousins said “I think your niece is going to have more. When I asked her if she had enough, she just looked at me and smiled” and my Aunt told me “Well, I told her you are not having anymore!” Since then I have been getting lectures about not having anymore. I am a family embarrassment.
It must be hard when it is these older relatives and not more of a peer that you can be a little less patient with.
I had 18 first cousins growing up (3 of them were almost long-lost.) I never thought it was a very large extended family — each of my parents had 6 siblings who survived to adulthood — and then I heard *6* cousins described as a lot! Davey is unlikely to have more than 2 and I find that sad.
Oops. I had 28 first cousins. 18 on one side and 10 on the other (only 2 of my father’s siblings had kids.)
Let’s count… I have 10 first cousins, and I often hear people say that’s a lot. Sad, isn’t it?
I’ve got a grand total of 11 + 5 = 16 (It’s late for me and it’s been a long day)
Sometimes, I doubt if my future children will have any. In reality, they might get one or two. And we’ll be the “weird” family :o)
Dani, you’re my big-family inspiration. I’m trying to convince Matt that this whole big family thing is a good plan and that it is entirely unnecessary to spoil children with things like their own bedrooms. He seems to think that we might not want to have such a big family because we’d have to have a really big house so everyone would have their own room. And that’s his only argument.
You know, I’ve noticed a little bit of a trend (even my own dear wonderful grandmother has fallen into this trap)… that “old” people don’t think their younger relatives should have a lot of kids… even though they did it… I actually caught my grandma rolling her eyes a little once when she said that my aunt was thinking of having another baby (she had three at the time and now has four). I don’t get it.
Amy,
My grandmother was born in 1922. She came from an Italian family in the Bronx, exactly the time, place and culture Margaret Sanger was directing her family planning intitiatives, and she did her job well. My grandmother had two children, and she became very ill when she had the last, so she had to have a hysterectomy. She tells me all the time about how it was illegal then, but she is so grateful because she didn’t want anymore.
This contraceptive attitude has it’s roots farther back then we think.
As for having their own room, my boys have one room and my dd another yet they will not sleep in seperate rooms.
My grandmother-in-law also seems to have a prejudice about large families. She’s under the impression that you just can’t devote enough attention to your children if you have more than two. She harrassed my MIL mercilessly about her third and the families weren’t speaking when she had her fourth. I think she connects large families with being poor and uneducated as well as having wacky ideas about familial love.
For the record, most of the women and men who came out of that generation (the one that grew up in the Depression) may have grown up in large families but resented it. They later tried to regulate family size as best as they could, and many who had large families did not because they wanted to but because the children were “accidents” (what a horrible word for one of God’s most precious gifts).
My three children are lucky – they have 24 cousins and that’s just on my husband’s side of the family – plus 6 on my side. I am one of five siblings and my husband is one of 9 (and he and his twin brother were adopted after his parents already had 6 children).
my mom just sent me a pic from my cousin’s baby shower – 5 generations of women! My granma, my mom, my aunt, my aunt’s daughter and her daughter and granddaughter, her other daughter (the one having the baby) and my sister. It made me want to cry.
I have 5 siblings. On my dad’s side, I have 3 1st cousins and those cousins have a total of 6 kids (my 1st cousins once removed, or my kids second cousins). On my mom’s side, I have 9 first cousins and I have lost count of the next generation, and there are at least 1 + in the generation after that. I also have 8 nephew and nieces on my side, and 5 on my husband’s side. That, to me, is a normal to small family. I think those small families must be so lonely!