The Truth About Big Families

The Sydney Morning Heraldrecently reported that “less than 2 per cent of Australian women have six or more children.” Well, I must know so many of that two per cent.

I know families of 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and a few with an even dozen. Whenever there is a movie about big families you always see children hanging from fans, piles of horrible food and a mum on the edge of a breakdown. Perhaps that’s why the general public feel they can be so rude to those with a brood. I come from a family of six and my Mum was often asked by strangers: “Why didn’t you buy a television?”, “How do you remember their names?” , or just told “You poor thing!”

So I thought I would share a few home truths – here are ten things I know about big families.

1. Babies come cheap. Before you protest, please hear me out. Many people having a baby think they need to buy every useless gadget on the market. You can buy a pram for a couple of thousand dollars. We got ours free, second hand. There are plenty of ways to waste money on a baby – from expensive designer nappies to buying trendy clothes they will wear for a week. In the end the baby doesn’t care about the money spent on them. They need lots of love and cuddles. Even their food is free at first. 

2. Expenses may grow, but so does the love. Of course children become more expensive as they get older and parents have to make sacrifices. So they might not own the flashiest car and they might have their holidays at the coast rather than in Europe. A mother of a big family might not spend her days getting a manicure and shopping the credit card away – but wouldn’t you trade all these things for a beautiful new person?

3. A big family does not mean chaos. Some of these Mums with big families could have been the President of USA – their homes are run with such precision and order. With more children, there just seem to be more strategies in place. Older kids help out with housework and looking after the younger ones. You rarely see kids hanging from the fan or throwing their breakfast at each other.

Read more at Mercator.Net.