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Published : May 16, 2009 |
Author : Megan
Category : S. Encouragement for Mama | Total Views
: 207 | Rating :  
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 Megan
I'm 26, the oldest of eight living and still present at home: any childrearing or household-management experience I have comes from that source!
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There was a lady who used to work at a local fruit market who was somewhere in the middle of a super-sized family (the actual number escapes me, but I think there were over twenty children). She had nothing but bad things to say about it. Her mother had died young from being overstressed by childbearing, she said. Her older brothers and sisters never got to have a life because their parents just passed the newest baby along to be raised by siblings. No one ever had enough room in the house, they didn't get the attention they needed from their mom and dad, there wasn't enough money for everyone to go to college, and ultimately she decided she would never have more than three children because that was all a family could reasonably be expected to handle. She spent a lot of time every occasion I was in her checkout line asking me about whether my parents were going to have more kids, and was I really okay with having "so many" brothers and sisters?
At the time, I had six siblings and would've welcomed six more. Didn't seem that many compared to her twenty-odd, though clearly she thought it was way too many.
That's probably the first real exposure I had to the idea of oldest children in a family being unfairly taken advantage of. At the time, I simply thought my checkout lady had a bad experience, but I've come to hear more and more about how badly people think kids like me are treated. Supposedly, our childhoods are being taken away and our lives blighted by excessive amounts of younger brothers and sisters.
I still find it pretty incredible that this viewpoint is popular. It's so far outside my personal experience that it's like night and day.
First of all, the idea of "deprivation" is a hoot. Okay, so maybe I didn't get all the things I might've gotten had there been fewer people to consider around here, but I got a lot of non-things to make up for it. For instance, there's only two situations in most people's lives where they can spend hours sitting in a recliner cuddling a sleeping newborn: when they're a new mom with only one kid (any more and you usually can't spend quite so much time!) or when they're a big brother or sister who has so many fewer responsibilities than a mom or dad they can afford to spend hours that way. Honestly, if I had to come up with the blessing of my life, it'd be those hours with every one of my siblings. Well. Except for the one two years younger than me. She was a little big for me to hold back then.
That right there makes up for so much I don't know what could top it. But I'll go on.
Losing my childhood is a myth. Did I have responsibilities? Sure! But what is "childhood" supposed to be about? You're supposed to be growing into the understanding and maturity of an adult. You're supposed to be protected from things you are not mature enough to handle and given the training you need to gracefully assume that maturity. Personally, I think the greatest facet of having a "good childhood" is having parents who love each other, and I never had any doubts about that. The next is knowing your parents love you, and I had that assurance too.
I also got to do so much other people don't get to do until they're older and have kids of their own. I coaxed toddlers to walk. I saw first smiles. I heard seven different variations of my name from babies who were just learning to call me. I helped teach one or two to read and was excited every time I could give someone my favorite stories to read for the very first time. I taught three kids how to ride a bike (until my brother got better at it). I've been the official tooth-puller for years. I got to clean scrapes and put band-aids on and learn how wonderful it felt to make someone else feel better when they got hurt. I've been a teacher for years, instructing everything from math to cooking - and how many girls graduating from high school say their dream is to become a teacher? These things were all possible because I lived with kids so much younger than me. First they were my babies, then they became my buddies. You don't get better time to spend with people than what I've had.
In regards to overloading with household duties: I think it's tough to put this in perspective for people who are used to kids having a full school load. Homeschooling takes a quarter of the time and energy of public schooling and it's way more relaxed for us to do things like help with the laundry or take care of cleaning jobs. My childhood wasn't filled with drudgery. It was normal life in which there were things that had to be done to keep things running, and plenty of time to do things I wanted to do. I did really dislike cleaning the kitchen for a while. Then I got used to it. Then I actually got to like it. I often clean the kitchen because I enjoy that part of the housekeeping more than other people do. Thing is, housekeeping was always just part of what we had to do together to keep everything going. We never called the stuff we had to do "chores" because they were just things you had to do in life. There's often just as much enjoyment in doing these things as there is doing other things considered fun.
Besides, from the time I was very small, Mom and Dad always referred to our house as "Our House". We did things together. We went to bed at the same time. We ate meals together. Whatever was going on in life, we were a part of it. I never thought of cleaning the kitchen as something I did for Mom as much as it was something I had to do because we were all in this together and the kitchen needed some work. I don't look at my grocery shopping duties now as a chore because it's my bit of keeping everything running smoothly. Hey, everyone who's a good employee at work and loves their job feels the same way from what I can see.
Time with Mom and Dad was never a problem. I've never, ever felt neglected. For one thing, Mom and Dad had that same "team" feeling and didn't have a lot of activities that just involved them. Mom never did "girl's night out" with her friends and Dad quit golfing when I was eight because it was taking him away from home most of Saturday and that was one of only two days a week he was home from work all day. They would go for walks together and later snacks after dinner, but they spent most of their time with us. Mom was never a person who liked to sit and play games with her kids, but she did lots of things with us. If she was cooking, we were cooking with her. If she wanted to go for a walk, we'd go too. I probably talk with Mom today more than I talk consistently to anyone else: we go for a walk every morning for exercise and she has things like that she does with all the kids. Dad was a little harder to spend time with since he was gone at work for normal business hours, but he always made the time to hold the babies, play with the bigger kids, give math lessons, and take care of problems. Both of them have always treated us as the most precious things they have, and never made any comments about how they regretted having so many or how difficult it was to have us.
Well. There was the time we caught a stomach bug and had more people throwing up than there were bathrooms. Dad looked at Mom in the middle of everything and said, "Who's idea was it to have all these kids anyway?" Which made even the sick ones giggle. Weakly.
Thankfully, flu epidemics have been few and far between. One big facet of being part of a family of ten is that we've become gradually more germophobic over the years. We're actually quite healthy, but the problem is if we get a cold it takes us a few weeks to get over it; and the stomach flu is to be avoided at all costs.
The whole subject of personal space is another non-issue. I honestly haven't felt like I needed to be left alone because there were too many kids getting into my things or intruding on what I wanted to do. I suspect one reason I've felt so content and comfortable with many siblings is because Mom and Dad have expected and trained their kids to be good to each other. When kids aren't allowed to be selfish terrors, it's easy to live with them. There are things we don't share with each other, but for the most part we choose our secrets carefully and having spaces all to ourselves has never seemed necessary. There have been times I've felt crowded (I never thought our big van would feel too full, but these days there's just not enough room to ride comfortably!), but certainly never on the verge of going insane from having too many people around.
Speaking of training, the training and raising of the kids has always been firmly Mom and Dad's territory. This doesn't mean I haven't watched the younger ones often or haven't done my share of scolding or keeping them out of trouble. The thing is, it's seamless. It doesn't intrude on my life: it's just part of it. Since I want to have plenty of my own kids, I've really been glad for the opportunity to learn hands-on so much of what I'll need to know. It's like being apprenticed to someone who's really good at the trade you want to become certified in.
College tuition for all of us would definitely be a challenge; if I had decided to go, it would've taken some work. But when it came time to go, I realized I didn't want to. There was nothing at college to teach the things I wanted to know. When people ask how on earth our parents will ever be able to afford for us to go to college, I just grin. So far, none of us have seen any reason to go because we're doing fine without spending that kind of time and money.
I've enjoyed my life as the oldest of many siblings. People ask me now how many of my own I'd want and I tell them fourteen. It's exaggerated only because I doubt I really have time to have fourteen now, but the point is the same: I would have many if I could. It's not just because I have a romanticized picture of what a big family is. I know it intimately and I truly love it. I have confidence that a big family can work and be good.
So whatever happened to those people who say being the oldest of a big family is terrible...I feel very sorry for them. Somehow they missed out on the thing that's been the most special part of my life.
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 Comments and Discussion Wall |
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 Posted by Fulltime Mama on May 17, 2009 |
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Reading this was such a breath of fresh air - thank you!
I have heard SO many times all the possible negatives of "so many children" ... it is encouraging to hear the positives from one who has been through it first-hand!!
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