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Saturday, December 20, 2008

Sounds about accurate to me....

Editor Gerald Korson’s humorous take on society’s view of large families:

Here’s how society’s perception of family size appears from our side of the maternity ward:

Child No. 1: In today’s culture, everyone is entitled to have a chid. No problem there. It’s a birthright. It can be a boy or a girl - it doens’t matter.

Child No. 2: You’re allowed a second child, as long as it’s the opposite gender from your first. “How wonderful! You have one boy and one girl,” we heard when our second child came. “Now you can quit.” Quit? At 25, we’re done having kids?

Child No. 3: The culture allows you, if you insist, to have a third child, but only if you failed to get a matched set with the first two. Call it a mulligan. If you have two girls, you go for a boy; two boys, and you’re after a girl. if you blow it and get another of the same, too bad. You get no more do-overs.

Child No. 4: Now you’re just getting ridiculous, especially if the kids are close in age. You’re officially christined “Fertile Myrtle” and “Virile Cyril.” Knock it off.

Child No.5: People begin to suspect you are nuts. Or just plain irrisponsible. Or both.

Child No. 6: The diagnosis is confirmed. Besides, a family of eight is simply impractical. Most minivans seat seven. Now you need a full-size van or nine-passenger SUV, or one of those classic early 1980s station wagons with the fake wood panelings and the fold-down third bench seat (I recommend the 1983 Pontiac Parisienne).

Child No. 7: By now, anywhere you venture as a family, you are inevitably asked, “Are they all yours?” Take no offence. Between day-care, field trips and the proliferation of blended families, it’s actually a legitimate question.

Child No. 8: Since No. 5 you’ve been hearing that timelessly coarse quip, “Don’t you know what causes that?” You have permenant teeth marks on your toungue from trying to suppress snappy sarcastic replies. (One wouldn’t think of making remarks about fertility to couples with few or no children. Why are large families fair game?)

Child No. 9: Neighbors, strangers and even a few well meaning friends have pretty much given up on you long before now. They compare your progeny to sprting events: With nine, you’ve got a baseball team.

Child No. 10: You’ve gone American League and added a designated hitter.

Couples with large families aren’t necessarily better parents, better Catholics or more blessed than others. We’re simply blessed in a different way - and, like all persons of faith, we are called to raise up our blessings for the greater glory of God.

3 comments:

Sue said...

Amen! That was well said.

There are some people that can handle a large family, and then there is me who can't. To be chasing after little ones for eighteen years is a long time, especially longer when there is more than two. Two was all I could handle and afford. The Lord does provide, but I wasn't willing for him to provide me with more sanity for a larger family.

God does bless you, Steph. He gives you strength, wisdom, and sanity to be the loving mother you are to your kids.

sajmom said...

I'm not sure I have any of the following-strength, wisdom, or especially sanity....but I'll thank you for the compliments anyway!

Jamie said...

omg. that is so funny for child no. 3!!