The Beauty of Big Families

Sometimes you just have to laugh

I love to see the families at Mass. Our TLM has been dominated by single people--uni students, thirty-somethings, middle-aged, elderly--but of late more parents have been coming, and with them their children. There's a man with three little sons, and a couple with children ranging from a teenage daughter to a babe in arms. There's an elegant Frenchwoman with four children. There is a young couple with just one baby so far. It is so just nice to see so much young life and their noble, fruitful parents.

Apparently large families are a cliché at American TLMs, but they certainly aren't here in Edinburgh. I haven't seen any at the TLM in Rome or Barcelona. The TLM in Kraków was so packed, I couldn't tell. And to be honest, in Europe "big family" can mean two parents, three children. When I was a kid in Toronto, people thought my own family--two parents, five children--was huge. Only one other kid in my elementary school class came from a big family. and I believe she was the youngest.

From a trad point of view, five children is not a lot. Eight is a lot. Twelve is amazing but not particularly weird. I once taught children from a twelve-child family, and they were terribly sweet. I was absolutely one hundred percent determined never to become a housewife, so I never hankered after twelve children myself. I thought four or five would be fine. Then I married someone who didn't like children. Wah. Then, despite swift granting of an annulment, I didn't marry again until thirty-eight. Wah again. 

I am sure mothers of big families sometimes wonder what they would do if they didn't spend every penny and waking moment on their husband and children. Well, I write, blog, learn Polish, do housework and faff about. It's not very noble, but it's not meaningless either.* My husband has quite a good if underpaid job in the charity/heritage sector which he really enjoys and can afford to do. It gives him time to do research, give lectures, publish articles, hobnob with painters, and meet other interesting people. We have long quiet evenings. We very occasionally go out and have what we call "a boozy lunch" and, indeed, we go on annual trips to continental Europe. (Most of my earnings go on these trips.) But we don't spend much money on clothing, home decor, cars (we have no car), beauticians, etc. Even childless married couples can't always go crazy with the so-called disposable income. We are having a good time now, but old age looms before us with all of its horrors. The horrors are likely to be worse for us than for parents because we have no children to prop us up in an emergency, and we will have no grandchildren to keep us young. 

Fortunately my excellent parents gave me, on top of everything else, four splendid siblings whom I now share with Benedict Ambrose. I hope they have more or less forgiven me for my autocratic older sister ways by now. So far two of my siblings have provided us with nephews and a niece, so thank the heavens, we are not entirely bereft of children to love and be loved by. Siblings are the gift that keep on giving--at least in a family like mine where the siblings get along tolerably well.  Having a big family ensures continuity, company and care down to the second generation.

My mother is not crazy about children, but she liked her own and dedicated thirty years to feeding us, buying or making, washing and ironing our clothing and bedding, enrolling us in school and various extracurricular classes, driving us to hockey practice, spending the "Baby Bonus" on our shoes, cleaning after us, encouraging us to read and write, and with our father taking us to church. My father bankrolled the operation, made pancakes or waffles on weekends, and took his daughters to Saturday dance classes at his university, where he got some more work done. 

Naturally my mother's child-centered life went entirely against the zeitgeist, which told her that she had had "such a little life" and I am deeply sorry that she didn't know many other women with big families and was rarely (or never) told what an amazing and noble life she was living. She wasn't a Catholic when Pius XII was alive, and I don't think she ever read this wonderful speech.

I feel rather rueful about Pius XII's thoughts on the son's salary, for my generation is the first in Canada to be poorer than its parents, but there are different ways one can reward one's parents. Now that their child-raising is done, my parents can afford to travel to Europe on holiday, and naturally they stay with us in the Historical House. When they like, they can also drive to French Canada and stay with my brother Nulli and his growing family in a beautiful house by a lake.  My other brother and both my sisters still live in Toronto, so they can keep my parents company and generally keep an eye on them. My nephew Pirate provides my semi-retired father with essential duties. (Men of all ages like being needed, and we really need my dad to help take care of Pirate.)

My childhood was not halcyon, and although I loved my brothers and sisters dearly, the message I got from my soi-disant Catholic school, via the playground, was that big families were weird and what really mattered was having enough money for the finer things in life, especially the fashionable clothing my mother didn't want to (and probably couldn't) waste the family income on. This anti-child attitude, among Catholic children themselves, is most definitely a gift of the Spirit of the Second Vatican Council, to say nothing of the Winnipeg Statement, that I find difficult to forgive. 

Thus, what should have been my joy in growing up in a large and lively middle-class Catholic family (my father has never had a day's unemployment) was overshadowed by a widespread ideology that claimed housewives were parasites, large families bad for the environment, and luxuries like the latest fashions absolute essentials for teenage girls. 

That said, I had fun and frolics only-child B.A. could only dream of, and I would not have exchanged any of my siblings for all the fashionable clothing, bags, make-up, fancy holidays, riding lessons in the world. In my dreams I return to the little house on my childhood street with its big back yard, swing set, sandbox and siblings. My mother is always young, with her long hair in a braid, pinning the clothes to the laundry line while I marvel at her muscular housewife's baby-toting arms. The sun is pouring down, and my sister Tertia's hair shines like gold.

/

Fun fact: a group of bunnies is called a fluffle.

*The housework and the hospitality are on the noble side of the ledger, of course. The Christian married woman is never more clearly a queen than when she is on her knees before the oven, the washing machine, the scrubbing brush, the pile of socks or the small child.

UPDATE: On the way home from dinner at the house of friends'--no word of a lie--B.A. and I saw TWO RABBITS! And GUESS what we told them? (Hee hee hee!) Guess! Guess! Ah ha ha ha ha ha!