The Texas Mama

With all the big family controversy lately, it made me ponder about the family I came from- the one I was born into.

I’m the oldest of six. If you’re LDS too, then you probably didn’t bat and eye at this. Not LDS? Not Catholic? You probably squirmed at that a little bit.

In a large family it’s just fact that some extra responsibilities are going to fall to the older siblings. Considering the size of my parents’ brood, my responsibilities were not all that bad. We had regular chores like any other kids. We complained as we did a bad job of cleaning up the kitchen after dinner. We sometimes made our beds after being yelled at to make them three or four times, and occasionally we even threw our clean clothes on the floors of our rooms for our mom after she got done washing them. The complaining hasn’t changed.

I do recall a fair amount of “watch your brothers and sisters while I…” going on. Understandable. Some things are just better and more quickly done without a whole gaggle of kids to keep an eye on. Parading through Walmart withthat many kids? No thanks. I can handle shopping with my one. On a good day, her plus a friend. That’s it.

Doing just the most basic things must have been so hard for my mom with so many young kids. We are currently respectably 26, 23, 19, 16, 14, and 11 years old. But there was a time when I was, as the oldest, a teenager. I was just barely 15 when the youngest was born.

It’s common fact that teenagers are embarrassed by their own shadow. Everything embarrassesthem. Growing up here in Texas there weren’t many large families that went to school with me. Like, at all. So I was teased about my large family, because as we all know, when you are a kid anything that veers off from the norm is tease-worthy. And I became embarrassedto go out with my whole family. I’m ashamed to admit that I was embarrassed by my big family because we were different.

Now? Heck no- I don’t think it’s a big deal at all! I even paid for a big family portrait of all of us the summer. I am an adult now. So they tell me. I have a blast when we all go out together.

Time spent individually with my parents was not a frequent thing. I’m sure that when I was very young I got plenty of my parents’ attention- I don’t remember. Dividing your time up among six kids? Not easy. My mom made the effort as best she could though. It couldn’t have been easy.

And keep in mind that when you have six kids? You’re going to spend a lot of time pregnant or the mother of an infant. So sleep, showers, and time are things you don’t have much of. Are your kids going to suffer from that a little bit as well? Yes, of course they are. But when you chose to have a big family those are things that you chose to give up. You just can’t do it all.

Sure, you think about the financial aspect of it. Were my parents broke? Oh ya, they were broker than broke most of the time. But no one ever went hungry by any means. In fact, we were all little oinkers. There was even dessert a few times a week which is more than I can say for around here.

Sure, sometimes my clothes were a little small for me back in 4th , 5th, and 6th grade when I refused to stop growing. And yes, I was embarrassed by that back then. But those clothes were bought at regular stores and new. Not hand me downs or donated. Did I get name brand stuff like some of the really lucky girls who sported the newest popular brand name jeans? Heck no.

But you know what? Now that I can afford name brand jeans? You won’t find any in my closet. I’m a Levi’s from Walmart kind of girl, thanks.

Funny how the way we were raised shapes us. The fact that I only have one child may very well have something to do with the fact that I came from such a large family. I recognize that. But my practicality is something that I got because I came from a large family as well. My frugality is something that both makes my husband proud and frustrates him. I’ve developed several traits that are a direct result of the large family I was raised in.

The need to write all this down just struck me as I was reading about all the media backlash having to do with large families lately. You don’t hear much from people who grew up in large families and their honest thoughts on it all. You hear plenty from the parents as they are raising their kids, but not the adults who were kids that grew up in those families.