There are many myths and misconceptions about what it is like to have a large family. I, being one of six children and one of twenty grandchildren on my father's side, am here to give you an idea about what it is really like to always be surrounded by family.
Since before I was born, I have had a large family. All of my grandparents come from large families, so from the beginning I have had a numerous amount of great aunts and uncles. When I came into this world I already had an older brother and three cousins.
In my experience, people assume that large families come from large families. Neither one of my parents have an excessively large immediate family. My mother has two sisters and my father has two brothers and a sister. They ended up with six children. Both of my mother's sisters have two children, each a boy and a girl. Both of my father's brothers have three children. His sister has eight children, so the two of them together have over half of the grandchildren.
Having a big family is interesting to say the least. A lot of people look at us like we have three eyes or two heads or something. Some outrageous ideas I have heard about big families are: the kids sleep in drawers, that they drive a bus, they ask if we all live in the same house or if we are all biological siblings, that we have a big house, that we are Mormon, that everything is always loud and messy, we are self sustainable, and, one of the most common, that we live life like the Duggar or the Willis family. I also get asked quite frequently if my youngest two siblings are my children.
While many of these are partially true, it is not the full reality of what it is like to have a big family. I do not and have never slept in a drawer, and neither have any of my siblings. We do share rooms: three girls in one room and three boys in one room.
My mother does drive the bus, she does not drive a bus. She works at the local elementary school as a teacher's assistant and a bus driver. She drives a van, regular sized, and my father drives a Suburban. Yes, we all live in the same house and believe it or not we all have the same two parents. We do not have a huge house. We have a two story, three bedroom house with a large backyard. We are not Mormon. Both of my parents were raised Baptist and that is how they have chosen to raise me and my five siblings.
Yes, most times it is messy and loud, but that is not always the case. We do clean our house, some more than others, a.k.a. me, the neat freak. It is usually quiet when everyone is sleeping or someone is doing something they are not supposed to be doing, most of the time. We are not fully self sustainable, but we are a state registered farm. We have an assortment of animals in our back yard, including pigs and chickens. At one point we had miniature cows and many goats.
Yes, I am part of a large family and the Duggar and Willis families are also large families, but every family is unique, big or small. Not all small, "traditional" families are the same, just like how not all large families are the same.
My parents were older when they had my youngest sibling, my brother Timothy. I was eleven and in the fifth grade when he was born. I was in first grade when my youngest sister Emma Faith was born. My dad has grey hair is is kind of going bald. People ask him all the time if he is their grandfather, especially about my brother. I was asked once if his grandfather had taken him ti swim practice the day before because they assumed I was his mother. My sister Leeann was asked if they were both her children when walking out of Walmart one time. I'm sure my parents would love grandchildren and my grandparents would love great-grandchildren, but I do not think they would want their elementary school children to give them that.
With my dad's family, there is always someone for everyone. There is a cousin or sibling within a year of age for all of the grand kids. There is always plenty of food. At Thanksgiving a couple of years ago there was around thirty of us, and we had two turkeys, a ham, deer meat, and gator tail, and that was just the meat. We definitely spend as much time as possible together. The same goes for my mom's family, as we live in a different state than both sides and only see them once or twice a year.
Sometimes being in a big family is difficult. Sometimes you do feel overlooked and forgotten. Sometimes you wish you were an only child, and you get jealous of your friends who are. But sometimes you realize you would not trade your family and how you were raised for anything. Being in a large family taught me how to work with others, even when I did not like them. It taught me how to work hard for what I want because it will not just come to me if I wait around for it. It taught me the value of communication and expressing yourself.
Being in a large family taught me how to be myself. I highly doubt, in fact I know, that I would be where I am today or who I am today if it was not for them.
