"You do know how that happens, right?"

And other things people have said about the number of kids I have

I’m not trying to turn this blog into a Hannah’s Children fangirl account, but this was fun to think about and has relevance across the board. There is no number of children a woman (or man) can have that is somehow safe from commentary from strangers, friends, relatives, and strange relatives, including (maybe especially) the number “zero.” I have five (soon I’ll have six), and people have things to say about it.

photo credit

Brief Recap: Hannah’s Children is economist Catharine Pakaluk’s synthesis of her own qualitative research on the lives of 55 college educated, American born women who have five or more children. Carrying On: each woman interviewed was likely asked a question like, “Has anyone ever made a comment on the size of your family in public?” Their answers were, of course, 55 variations on “Yes!” Pakaluk (who has eight children) starts the book with an anecdote of her own about one of these comments. There were plenty of stories of encouraging commentary; there were also stories of innuendos and, at worst, insults. The ugliest comment Pakaluk recorded was that a stranger in a grocery store responded to the fact that a family had twelve children with, “You should be spayed.” I didn’t understand just how bad this was until I was summarizing the story for Jonny and realized that spaying is the sterilization treatment for female dogs.

Someone said that to a mother. In front of her kids.

Sometimes, you fight fire with fire. A friend once told me about her sister-in-law, a mother of six, whose husband was told at a party by a stranger, “You need to stay off of her.”

Before he could respond, she stepped in with, “What makes you think it was his idea?”

What a legend. I can’t imagine myself coming up with something that quickly.

For the record, the commentary I receive from friends, relatives and strangers is 95% lovely, lots of “You have a beautiful family.” Often, what I hear in response to “Five kids, six in September!” is more of the other person’s story. I hear about losses and dreams and hopes and plans that did not work out. If I had known this was part of having a bunch of kids before I had a bunch of kids, this would have been an auxiliary reason to have a bunch of kids.

What follows in bold are real (well, remembered) bits of dialogue and brief reflections.

“This is what life’s all about!”

We were sitting at the end of our driveway with two empty pizza boxes and a bunch of paper plates and napkins. Our kids were zipping about in the cul-de-sac on their bicycles, pizza sauce smeared on their faces. An elderly man with a ball cap that identified him as a Vietnam veteran said this to us as he walked by.

I mean, I think he’s right.

“Who is that woman with all of the beautiful blond children?”

Okay, so this was not said directly to me, this was asked about me. A friend whose aunt goes to the same parish who must have seen us in our pew one Sunday. This was both consoling and funny, kind of like seeing the back of my own head and realizing that, even though I had my doubts, it was a good hair day today.

“What a brood!”

This was another elderly gentleman, on his way out of the YMCA in his power chair while we were on our way in. Yeah, five is a lot. Also, old people get away with a lot. Just how it works.

“Are they all yours?”

No, I found five unrelated children with an uncanny resemblance to one another and decided to take them to the pharmacy.

“You do know how that happens, right?”

People ask this at family reunions, at class birthday parties, at the park. There’s a special place in my heart for this question, because it affirms the link between sex and babies, a link that society at large seems determined to erase or, at the very least, undermine. Do I know what to say in response? Not really. One time, Jonny responded to this question by launching into “the talk,” and, trust me, that friend has not brought it up since.

“You need a television!”

I had only three of the five with me at the bank (two in the double umbrella stroller, one helping me push it). A fellow bank-goer started in with, “Two more, and you’d have a basketball team!” I told him that I did have two more. He followed up with, “You need a television!” and then walked away. If I was a legend, I’d have told him that if those were the options, I’d rather have more children.

“You are RICH.”

I was at a birthday party for a set of twins in my son’s class. During my conversation with a fellow party-going mother, I learned that she had immigrated from China about fifteen years before with her son. She had since married, had another child, a girl, and was currently teaching four levels of Mandarin at a large high school. When she asked if the baby I was currently pregnant with was my second and I told her he was my fifth, she told me I was rich. I probably said something about being “blessed.”

But when I thought about it more on my way home, I remembered some other Chinese women I’d met in 2019, when my second child, a girl, had just turned one. They were English teachers, and they were staying at my parents’ house while they attended a six-week training put on by a local organization. Each woman had one school-age son back home. On the last night of their stay, I brought my kids over for dinner. I had dressed my daughter up in one of those impractical holiday outfits, a green silk dress and a pink headband with a rose on it.

Her feet didn’t touch the floor for the whole evening. The guests passed her back and forth, took pictures of her, squeezed her and cuddled her, made faces at her. She was one of those babies who always had her tongue hanging out of her mouth.

China does not have the one-child policy that it used to. But the government does impose large fees on families who choose second children. Having more than one child is not illegal… just impossible. When one of the teachers handed my baby back to me at the end of the night, she said, “Maybe… maybe you’ll have another girl someday.”

You are RICH.

Yeah. No kidding.

“So, are you guys done?”

Listen, I understand that this is colloquial, that meaning of this question is, “Are you planning on having more babies?” But every time someone asks me this, I can’t help but think, “Done” with what, exactly? Even if I never have another baby, I’m still raising a family. Does that ever get “done”?

Here’s the thing…

It’s not just what people say, it’s how they say it. I’d take a jovial “Ya’ll do know how that happens, right?” over a dismissive “Looks like you’ve got your hands full!” any day.

This Spring, I was at a high school track meet with everyone except the toddler, so, four kids. One of the parents working the entrance tables did a quick head count and said, “Four kids? You have FOUR kids?”

“No, I have five, the baby is at home with Dad.” I did not reveal the fact that I was having a sixth.

“FIVE KIDS! Where’s your superwoman cape?”

I smiled. This was so genuine, both the words he said and the way he said them.

“I left that at home, too!”

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On the Calendar: Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul

Gotta hand it to

The Pillar

for coming up with the best way to summarize what the feast, which this year falls on a Sunday, is about: “but nothing so encapsulates the reality of the Church as the joint commemoration of a coward and a jerk as her greatest apostles.”

Incredible.

Sunday’s Gospel is 🪽Matthew 16:13-19. Here’s a highlight:

He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Simon Peter said in reply,
“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

To be able to say the same is a gift of faith, no matter which kind of sinner (and hopefully eventual Saint) we might be—jerk, coward, or otherwise.

Did I come up with a great poll idea before all of my children started melting down simultaneously at the end of Friday naptime? No, I did not.

But if you’d leave a comment telling me the story of one of the weird, crazy, or kind things someone has said about your family size, I’ll relish reading it during naptime today 😅😅

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My books: Eucharistic Saints, A Saint A Day

Not affiliate links or Amazon links. By all means, buy the books on Amazon, I just figure you know how to get there on your own. Sometimes TAN and Thomas Nelson run deals, though!

+ Saint Sessions for YDisciple (co-written with Tanner Kalina)

We partnered with January Jane for the inspiration for the content!