Thursday, March 26, 2009

3 Kids is a "Large Family"?

Opening up my email this morning, I saw an invitation to join a website called "Large Families Today". This struck me as just a bit odd since I only have 3 kids. Maybe because I'm Catholic and also have a number of Mormon friends, but I don't consider myself as having a "large" family just yet. It's only since the birth of our 3rd in January that I've even started to think of myself as having a medium-sized family. To me, a "large family" has 5 or more kids.

We may get there some day- I'm only 32 and taking it one baby at a time. DH has already started in about wanting baby #4 but I told him to check back with me in a year or two. Right now I'm still adjusting to having a 3rd! For me, being "open to life" does not equal "have as many babies as physically possible". It means seeing children as gifts from God and not setting an arbitrary limit on family size. It means keeping an open dialogue with God and DH about whether to try to conceive, try to avoid pregnancy, or something in between.

Large families are wonderful and I personally believe our society would be better off if there were more of them. It makes me sad when I hear others give materialistic reasons as justification for having only 1 or 2 kids. Wouldn't it be nice if children were again seen as blessings rather than burdens?

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