BIG FAMILY : ORDER

How do Big Families Live? 

This is a photo of my extended family in Spain.

My husband comes from a family of twelve.

I am myself one of four.

Times have changed!!!  The massive incorporation of women into the workforce, coupled with the lack of support from the State make it very challenging for large families! In Australia surprisingly enough, the help available from the government is dependent on the inflow of money at home, not the number of children. So it doesn’t matter whether you are feeding two or twenty…

To give you an idea about numbers: the average number of children per household in Australia is 1.9. Most people (79.4%) live in households with one or two children, 14.9 per cent lives in households with three children and the remainder (5.5%) lives in households with four or more children. A slightly higher proportion of Aboriginal children live in homes with four or more children (10.4%). 

So that brings me to ask: this small percentage of families who have more than four children, are they crazy?  Or are we in a selfish society where having more children means less comfort?

While the standard of living has risen dramatically in recent decades, it is also true that we have become a society stressed, ambitious and overly concerned about our personal well-being. I feel we are in a society that is losing its human values; principles that are essential to the proper personal development, and ... more importantly that of children. Perhaps we need to think more about being someone rather than about having some things…

Being a mother of ten, what I think most important is the mental organization and intention for my doing things (I aim to write about this every Monday on this blog). I mean to talk about the organization of the house, meals with different recipes, the laundry cycle, etc. .., these of course in terms of implications, costs, times, locations, etc.

The Von Trapp Family from the well-beloved The Sound of Music.

In terms of mental order, here are some points that bring large families to what I think are realities of life:

• Food: never missing but neither spare. Stews and sauces are always present in the menu, potatoes and chicken, are favourites. When I think food, I think first economic dishes.

• Clothing just enough, removable and no extras that cause sibling rivalry. Children know to share and to inherit from others or from relatives or friends.

• Holidays then to be impossible for me. But then they are necessary. I find them exhausting to prepare but I have now learnt not to schedule. In fact, holidays are a few days with very little routine:  we talk with the children and try not to make too much of a schedules, just relax. The same thing happens in married life, sometimes you just need time together to relax, just be together, but this will be discussed later also.

• On a day-to-day routine, I need LOTS of organization. We use bunk beds, have shifts established for toilet in the morning and also turns for showering in the evening. The older ones have to help in the house, make the bed, pick up their room and have to help with the smallest children. I find these skills are setting my children for success in life as they learn from an early age to share, be responsible, be accountable and above all learn to be generous with their time. Family life is challenging but it is at the same time VERY enriching on a personal level.

I will wish to have this is Room.. Perhaps in the future

• No hairdresser, in my case I cut all my children’s hair as we cannot afford this. In general we can afford luxuries and whims only very few times.

• Rebates are a blessing, and other offers and promotions, great for our daily bread.

• For extra expenses such as camps or sports expenses, we use the help of grandmothers, uncles or godparents. That is what keeps the family bonded J!

This is the family from London They have 13 children!

·      Regarding education and children’s behaviour, all I can say is that psychologists and educators suggest that it is within a big family where the best conditions for proper mental development and lower psycho are achieved! Of course, you always run the risk, according to experts, that parents implement educational uniformity, i.e. an unconscious way they treat all their children the same way, without customizing or individualizing, without shades. In my particular case, each child is different and one works to be more severe and in others to be more conciliatory, of course, every child has their own character.

 Some My children at our last holiday!

I never thought about having so many children, and there are already 10!! I am happy despite the work involved, I hope we can share many experiences.

See you,

Lovely, 

Ele