My very favorite had to be when the lady at Lowe's asked us, "Is this a daycare?" and my 10 year old responded "Who wants to bring a daycare to Lowe's?" after she walked past...
We got a similar one at the beach the other night. We were there in the evening with several other families and there was a gaggle of probably 10-15 similarly aged kids jumping waves. A couple of us were standing on the shore chit chatting while watching the toddlers play in the surf/tide pools and this guy asks, "Who are all these kids? Is it like a field trip?"
We're like...uh, no, there's just a few families here... These are just our children.
I have been very thankful that most of the recent comments have been people telling me on the way out of Mass (with all levels of shenanigans ranging from angelic to not) that "You have a beautiful family" -- that one is always a winner.
I love this topic so much. I read Hannah’s Children earlier this year and it is a book I will NEVER stop thinking about; just what my heart needed to read after recently having my (surprise) fourth.
I came from a small family (2 kids spaced 6 years apart) and didn’t think I’d have more than two but God had different plans. Now I wish we had started having children younger and could go for #5, but I’m 41 so I don’t know if that will happen. Since we homeschool and I always have all four (ages 10 down to 10 months) with me, I always get comments. Most say something about me having my hands full. I always try to respond positively, I want my kids hearing me say how much I love having them and love having them all around me. I never want them to hear those comments and feel they were/are a burden to their mom. And we always point out other larger families and comment (to ourselves or sometimes to the families too) how beautiful their families are and how grateful they must be to have so many little blessings. I want to create a culture that celebrates larger families!
Noticing and celebrating children - of large families especially - being countercultural seems like such a weird turn of events when actually stop and I think about it!!! So strange. But we can simply do our own smalls part to foster a different attitude—starting with ourselves, and then outward.
I have 2 littles and am currently very pregnant and I’ve been tempted to come back to the childless friends who’ve jokingly(-ish) given the “you know how that happens?” with “oh yeah! but I’m not convinced you do, which is a shame”…maybe one day lol
Takes a lot of gumption, gumption I absolutely do not have in the majority of situations I find myself in... hahahaha. I wish you all the success in the world with it, though 😅.
Haha, I have also found that “y’all know how that happens right?” Is often in a kinder more good humored tone than the “hands full” remark. Funny, that.
And we’ve also had the TV comment from extended family quite a lot, because they know we really don’t have a TV, and there’s truth in that there IS more love-making without one! 🤷🏻♀️ Idk what’s wrong with ppl who wouldn’t be down for that!
Haha one side of the family is not Christian and you can see the scandal and confusion on their faces when they realize that this topic is “hot and spicey” and not embarrassing to us! 😆 especially since children seem to come from it !
Yeah, it really struck me--the difference between the humor in the "how it happens" joke and the "hands full" thing-- at a birthday party recently where I heard both in rather quick succession... maybe the second has this embedded view of kids as burdensome? And the other really is a joke, which can be delivered well or poorly... I don't know.
We don't have a TV either, the irony was absolutely noted. 🤣
It’s fascinating how two kids is ingrained into people’s psyche. After asking if I was trying to induce labor by weeding my flower bed, the same elderly lady made a comment about 3. Nothing even notable to remember, but I responded nobody regrets having another one. When talking with my mother in law before she died, she did share regrets for not having a third. But my father in law couldn’t be convinced and she gave up. (I found his vasectomy paperwork when cleaning some of her things out.) My mom’s siblings were talking about fighting other kids at high school who commented on their exceptionally large family. My grandma’s baby died after a battle with cancer 7 years ago. We all talk about how much we loved her and what she meant to us. Not that my grandparents should have figured out natural family planning sooner. I read Hannah’s promise while pregnant and think often about the yes to life and the yes to suffering. Yes to dying to self, openness to loss and death. But also more peace, joy, hope, love, etc.
Yes, the open-ness to more of everything, which some days does feel overwhelming but there's other times when I just can't believe how lucky I am that things have unfolded like they have...
The least kind response I’ve had was a woman at the pediatrician’s office who recoiled at the sight of me with a double stroller and a baby in a front carrier. She remarked “that is a lot of little kids” to her daughter as I struggled to open the door and push the twin stroller through. She did not offer to open the door or the exterior door.
We also get lots of you’ve got your hands full, are they all yours, etc. Mostly people want to know if our boys are triples. (They are twins and then 20 months younger.)
Whether having four children is considered out of the ordinary seems to depend on where we are. Older people seem touched when they see them, especially if they had several children or grew up with multiple siblings. We once had a gentleman remark on their haircuts. We do home haircuts for everyone and their identical cuts reminded him of his childhood. The saddest was a discussion with an older man whose son died some time ago. Our boys reminded him of his son.
The people of the world want triplets *so bad* -- or multiples of any kind, I have noticed this when I've been asked if my 3rd and 4th (she's slightly small, he's slightly big, they are about 18 months apart) are twins.
That last part is sad, but also there's the wonderful part in it that he was able to reminisce!
With only two kiddos, I don’t get a ton of comments on our family size. But with one boy and one girl, I got lots of comments during my second pregnancy about how we could be “done now” since we have “one of each.” One of each what???
Lol one of that completely unique individual and one of that other completely unique individual... hahaha.
I am convinced that sometimes people just want to say something, and that the vast, vast majority of the time it's intended kindly.... and remember that I say all kinds of weird stuff about how much hair a baby has. 🤷🏻♀️
When I was approaching my due date for my fourth kid a weird man said "well this many kids you won't have a hard labor, it'll just slide on out of you".
My very favorite had to be when the lady at Lowe's asked us, "Is this a daycare?" and my 10 year old responded "Who wants to bring a daycare to Lowe's?" after she walked past...
We got a similar one at the beach the other night. We were there in the evening with several other families and there was a gaggle of probably 10-15 similarly aged kids jumping waves. A couple of us were standing on the shore chit chatting while watching the toddlers play in the surf/tide pools and this guy asks, "Who are all these kids? Is it like a field trip?"
We're like...uh, no, there's just a few families here... These are just our children.
I have been very thankful that most of the recent comments have been people telling me on the way out of Mass (with all levels of shenanigans ranging from angelic to not) that "You have a beautiful family" -- that one is always a winner.
The Lowes anecdote still gets me. lol
"Who are all these kids?" 🤣🤣🤣 Where could they *possibly* have come from?
I love this topic so much. I read Hannah’s Children earlier this year and it is a book I will NEVER stop thinking about; just what my heart needed to read after recently having my (surprise) fourth.
I came from a small family (2 kids spaced 6 years apart) and didn’t think I’d have more than two but God had different plans. Now I wish we had started having children younger and could go for #5, but I’m 41 so I don’t know if that will happen. Since we homeschool and I always have all four (ages 10 down to 10 months) with me, I always get comments. Most say something about me having my hands full. I always try to respond positively, I want my kids hearing me say how much I love having them and love having them all around me. I never want them to hear those comments and feel they were/are a burden to their mom. And we always point out other larger families and comment (to ourselves or sometimes to the families too) how beautiful their families are and how grateful they must be to have so many little blessings. I want to create a culture that celebrates larger families!
Noticing and celebrating children - of large families especially - being countercultural seems like such a weird turn of events when actually stop and I think about it!!! So strange. But we can simply do our own smalls part to foster a different attitude—starting with ourselves, and then outward.
I have 2 littles and am currently very pregnant and I’ve been tempted to come back to the childless friends who’ve jokingly(-ish) given the “you know how that happens?” with “oh yeah! but I’m not convinced you do, which is a shame”…maybe one day lol
Takes a lot of gumption, gumption I absolutely do not have in the majority of situations I find myself in... hahahaha. I wish you all the success in the world with it, though 😅.
Haha, I have also found that “y’all know how that happens right?” Is often in a kinder more good humored tone than the “hands full” remark. Funny, that.
And we’ve also had the TV comment from extended family quite a lot, because they know we really don’t have a TV, and there’s truth in that there IS more love-making without one! 🤷🏻♀️ Idk what’s wrong with ppl who wouldn’t be down for that!
Thanks for writing this, I enjoyed it!
"Yeah, we know how it happens and we enjoy it more than TV"
Haha one side of the family is not Christian and you can see the scandal and confusion on their faces when they realize that this topic is “hot and spicey” and not embarrassing to us! 😆 especially since children seem to come from it !
burnnnnn lol
Thank you, Sarah! I'm glad you did.
Yeah, it really struck me--the difference between the humor in the "how it happens" joke and the "hands full" thing-- at a birthday party recently where I heard both in rather quick succession... maybe the second has this embedded view of kids as burdensome? And the other really is a joke, which can be delivered well or poorly... I don't know.
We don't have a TV either, the irony was absolutely noted. 🤣
It’s fascinating how two kids is ingrained into people’s psyche. After asking if I was trying to induce labor by weeding my flower bed, the same elderly lady made a comment about 3. Nothing even notable to remember, but I responded nobody regrets having another one. When talking with my mother in law before she died, she did share regrets for not having a third. But my father in law couldn’t be convinced and she gave up. (I found his vasectomy paperwork when cleaning some of her things out.) My mom’s siblings were talking about fighting other kids at high school who commented on their exceptionally large family. My grandma’s baby died after a battle with cancer 7 years ago. We all talk about how much we loved her and what she meant to us. Not that my grandparents should have figured out natural family planning sooner. I read Hannah’s promise while pregnant and think often about the yes to life and the yes to suffering. Yes to dying to self, openness to loss and death. But also more peace, joy, hope, love, etc.
That last part, Cassandra!!
Yes, the open-ness to more of everything, which some days does feel overwhelming but there's other times when I just can't believe how lucky I am that things have unfolded like they have...
The least kind response I’ve had was a woman at the pediatrician’s office who recoiled at the sight of me with a double stroller and a baby in a front carrier. She remarked “that is a lot of little kids” to her daughter as I struggled to open the door and push the twin stroller through. She did not offer to open the door or the exterior door.
We also get lots of you’ve got your hands full, are they all yours, etc. Mostly people want to know if our boys are triples. (They are twins and then 20 months younger.)
Whether having four children is considered out of the ordinary seems to depend on where we are. Older people seem touched when they see them, especially if they had several children or grew up with multiple siblings. We once had a gentleman remark on their haircuts. We do home haircuts for everyone and their identical cuts reminded him of his childhood. The saddest was a discussion with an older man whose son died some time ago. Our boys reminded him of his son.
The people of the world want triplets *so bad* -- or multiples of any kind, I have noticed this when I've been asked if my 3rd and 4th (she's slightly small, he's slightly big, they are about 18 months apart) are twins.
That last part is sad, but also there's the wonderful part in it that he was able to reminisce!
With only two kiddos, I don’t get a ton of comments on our family size. But with one boy and one girl, I got lots of comments during my second pregnancy about how we could be “done now” since we have “one of each.” One of each what???
Lol one of that completely unique individual and one of that other completely unique individual... hahaha.
I am convinced that sometimes people just want to say something, and that the vast, vast majority of the time it's intended kindly.... and remember that I say all kinds of weird stuff about how much hair a baby has. 🤷🏻♀️
Like they’re a set of collectors cups or toys in Happy Meals.
Haters gonna hate
such a touching piece. Made me cry. So grateful for God's gift of children to you and to us!!
When I was approaching my due date for my fourth kid a weird man said "well this many kids you won't have a hard labor, it'll just slide on out of you".