I have been unsatisfied with my blog titles for some time. But I think I have finally found one that fits. We will have to see. John didn't like toomanykids because while he knew that I meant it as a joke and a reference to all of the people who tell me that I have too many kids, he didn't like me using anything negative. I went with Hope while we were selling our house in reference to hoping this ends soon. Then I could not think of a good title so I stuck in All my little ducklings until I could think of something better. I have now thought of The More the Merrier in reference to how I really feel about my children. and how both my husband and I felt about growing up in big families. Having said that, I want to say a little bit about big families. Some time ago I thought it might be nice to join an internet group of moms with lots of children. I never did, but I did read a lot of articles on big families and I started following the TLC Duggar family some. (Now that we have cable with our HOA fee, I watch their show faithfully. I really think they are a light to the world.) But because I read a bunch of stuff I got to learn a bit more about what other people besides the other Target shoppers think. From them I get things like "Don't you know what causes this?" to "Why did you do this to yourself?" or "Your hands are full." But in reading about the topic people tend to say things more like "How can anyone who cares about the future of the planet go about brazenly overpopulating it like this?" And a lot of other mothers of big families typically do not like the religious stereotype portrayed by the Duggar family. Anyway, I thought I might list some of my reasons for having a big family. Like the Duggars, having a big family was very religiously motivated for both my husband and I. Without our religion I cannot honestly say that we would not have gone with the social norm and had no more than 3 kids. However, we feel like the commandment God gave to Adam and Eve to multiply and replenish the earth is still in effect today. We have made covenants in the Holy temple to multiply and replenish the earth as well, and we take this very seriously. We do not want to get to next life and find that we did not have all of the children God wanted us to have because of our choices. The second reason would be that while every time we get pregnant with another child we are very nervous about how to fit one more kid in the house, the car, and the budget, as soon as we have that little one home we just can't see how life was ever good without him or her. We really and truly love each of our children, and God has always made a good way for us to take care of our childrens' needs. Of course it is a lot of hard work, but I can't think of any good thing that doesn't come from a lot of hard work. That also tells us that if we decided to not have any more children because most of the people we know think that we should not have anymore children, we may miss out on another precious child. The third reason we have chosen to have a big family is that we both grew up in big families and we loved it. Our siblings are our best friends now as adults, and we had a lot of fun with them as kids. Our kids love, love, love all of their aunts, uncles, and cousins, so we want to give to our children the same thing that our parents gave to us. Of course, I understand that choosing to have a big family is NOT for everyone. There are a lot of people who really and truly cannot handle the chaos that comes with having a lot of children. Some people have genetic issues that makes it so they cannot have healthy children, and there are a lot of couples that would like to have large families that have just not been able to have them. I am not trying to judge the choices of other people for not having a lot of children or not having any children. I am stating why John and I have chosen to have the large family that we do. I think that God has blessed us tremendously with my healthy body and the 7 smart, healthy, and good children that we do have. We are very lucky to have gotten such a fun, big family and I love it everyday. I would not go back in time and have less children or space them farther apart. i am very satisfied with the choices we have made as well as the surprises we received from God. I think we are perfect, and yes we may have one or two more.
