(This is my attempt to write a little humor without the list format. The fact that I am providing an intro to clarify that is, of course, a bad sign. Still, I want to make sure no one thinks I am just ranting like a crazy person. I am crazy, I’m just not ranting. Much.)
Why is it that wherever I go, people think I have too many kids? I only have four – and the fourth is only a recent addition, so most of my experience comes from three – but from the way people point, gawk, and stare, you’d think I had twenty ducklings following me in a line. Granted, my four are all pretty close (the oldest is only a few months shy of her sixth birthday), but it’s not like they are ten months apart. You’d think I’d committed a dreadful faux pas.
I go into the grocery store, and I get pity. “Wow, you have your hands full,” folks say, voices oozing in sympathy. A convulsing cancer patient would get less sympathy. “Wow, that’s a lot of kids!” they’d express in a shocked voice when they see us walking by. I even had one woman at the daycare in our gym tell my daughter that she was sure Mommy was finished having kids when my little girl expressed her desire for a sister (again, before I was pregnant with my fourth). It’s always nice when someone else plans your life. At least I knew this woman; it’s not like the strangers who always nod and say, “You must be finished.”
The worst of it comes from family, ironically enough. You’d think the family would be happy, or at least the LDS side of it. But my husband’s grandmother, descended from pioneer stock, told us that it was too hard anymore to have so many children. Good thing she was only pregnant ten times! Or my mother-in-law would say she thought we were having too many kids. This from a woman who planned to have a large family, and whose first two were about as close as my first two!
The other side of the equation is my nonmember family. I thought older people were supposed to, you know, like kids, be more traditional and accepting of large families, things like that. My paternal grandmother tells me I’m crazy, while my maternal grandmother is a bit more diplomatic; “So you’ll be taking a break,” she stated when I called to announce the latest birth. For at least six weeks, grandma! My mom, however, is the best of all. During my second pregnancy, she called every day to tell me I had postpartum depression, despite the fact that, um, I didn’t. I’m not sure why, but after the first week, I started getting depressed when the phone rang. Sort of like Pavlov’s dog; the phone rings and I cry instead of drool. I think I’d’ve rather had the dog food.
In fact, my mother gave me the best line I’ve ever heard about having too many kids. While I was six months pregnant with my third child, she flat-out said, “Don’t you think it’s about time you stopped being pregnant?”
Feigning ignorance, I responded, “No, mom. I have another three months.”
Sheesh.
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