Murphy101 Posted November 23, 2015 Share Posted November 23, 2015 (edited) I wouldn't assume everyone from a large family has a large family or that everyone from a small family has a small family. Dh is an only child and we have 10. I am sure some of my kids will have none, some one, some more. And as for carbon foot print... All I know is for a fact that my household is less than any of my neighbors. We have 1 trash can and it picks up twice a week. Just about every house here has at least 2-3. We have 4 vehicles (2 are low fuel consumption) for 6 drivers. (One travels out of state every week.) all my neighbors have the same number or more vehicles? I do not comprehend this. One of them doesn't even have kids! It's a retired couple. (And I'm for sure that RV is not environmental friendly.) Their houses are the same size or bigger. None of them garden and all have golf course lawns. I have recycle bins in my garage. Our trash pick up does not offer recycling but we do it anyways. (Eta: and it takes me about 6 months to get enough to bother going to the recyle center.) We simply don't buy many things everyone else considers a staple must have. This is especially true in paper products. No paper towels for example. And I don't buy anything individually wrapped. I try to buy mostly in bulk and mostly cook at least semi-scratch. And that's not even discussing hormone pollution of chemical birth controls that we don't use. :) I don't mind friendly comments but mostly I'm just in a hurry to get in and get out. I hate shopping. The gal who was agast Sunday at church when I said I have 10 was rather confusingly amusing. We both Catholic. This shouldn't freak her out. 😆 Edited November 23, 2015 by Murphy101 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lea_lpz Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 Today at church a new woman found out the deacon and his wife have 6 girls and she was shocked...shocked! And asked "how do you do that?" To which one of the other regulars, a matter-of-fact (think geeky engineer), friendly father of two replied totally dead-pan "well I would assume the natural way..." Hahaha! We all about died laughing! It kinda served the woman right, she really was going on far too much about it. My husbands' coworkers at the pizza place he is delivering at while job-hunting found out we have 5 and were amazed, but mostly because of his age or perceived age...being 32 but looking younger. My dh is 33 going on 34 and has 4. He'll have have 6 by spring since I'm due with twins. I'll be 31 when they are born. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lea_lpz Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 When we were expecting #5, I got a lot of comments and raised eyebrows. He died the day he was born. Now I'm expecting again (#5 living if you count it that way) and all the people who raised eyebrows or made comments before now tell me how happy they are for me and how glad they are. Emily We had a similar experience when I was expecting #3 from my family and I had a miscarriage at 14 weeks. I conceived our daughter 3 months after my d&c and then everyone was excited, but for this pregnancy with twins, not so much. My moms pretty blatant about me now "having too many kids", and others are ignoring the fact I am pregnant by avoiding the topic. This should be interesting over the holidays now that'll I'll be 5-6 months pregnant with twins (how do you not notice!?!). I try not to take it personally. We have a lot of one and done, or 2 kids with the idea of 3 kids being "the max" among my cousins and siblings on my side of the family and don't understand why we'd possibly want more. My dh's family on the other hand is supportive and excited. He's the only one having kids. His two older sisters have chose not to have kids but are great aunts. His twin brother is not married but would like kids, so hopefully, but as of now we joke he's borrowed his sisters two kid credits, lol! My mother in law had 4 and always wished she'd had more. So she's thrilled! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lea_lpz Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 Yes, what is it with the gender thing? We have boy, girl, five boys in a row and the last was a girl six years ago. I'm fifty now so I'm pretty sure she's the last - LOL! Anyway, constant comments about how we "just had to keep trying for another girl". Grrr!!!! Or, in front of the all the boys, "How nice that you finally got another girl!" Double Grrr!! Yes, we're thrilled with our Dassi-girl but we would have been equally thrilled with another little boy. Why is that so hard to understand? I think we'll be getting that soon! We had been really even. My stepson 11, dd8, ds6, dd1, so boy, girl, boy, girl, but now we're having twin girls, so we'll have 2 boys and 4 girls. I think we're done so we'll just have to hear about all our girls! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lea_lpz Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 I wouldn't assume everyone from a large family has a large family or that everyone from a small family has a small family. Dh is an only child and we have 10. I am sure some of my kids will have none, some one, some more. And as for carbon foot print... All I know is for a fact that my household is less than any of my neighbors. We have 1 trash can and it picks up twice a week. Just about every house here has at least 2-3. We have 4 vehicles (2 are low fuel consumption) for 6 drivers. (One travels out of state every week.) all my neighbors have the same number or more vehicles? I do not comprehend this. One of them doesn't even have kids! It's a retired couple. (And I'm for sure that RV is not environmental friendly.) Their houses are the same size or bigger. None of them garden and all have golf course lawns. I have recycle bins in my garage. Our trash pick up does not offer recycling but we do it anyways. (Eta: and it takes me about 6 months to get enough to bother going to the recyle center.) We simply don't buy many things everyone else considers a staple must have. This is especially true in paper products. No paper towels for example. And I don't buy anything individually wrapped. I try to buy mostly in bulk and mostly cook at least semi-scratch. And that's not even discussing hormone pollution of chemical birth controls that we don't use. :) I don't mind friendly comments but mostly I'm just in a hurry to get in and get out. I hate shopping. The gal who was agast Sunday at church when I said I have 10 was rather confusingly amusing. We both Catholic. This shouldn't freak her out. 😆 Our home is likely smaller than the average 4 person household, maybe by half (1100 sq ft.). We have two cars, a minivan and an older 4 runner. We'll likely try to move after the twins to a 1500 sq ft house and we'd like to replace our mini van with a passenger van when we can afford to do so. Really my mini van is not any more of a gas hog than my Camry was (I drive that when it was just dss, dd, and ds but it got cramped so got a minivan within a year of having our son). We buy almost every thing we can second hand as far as baby gear, kids clothes (except shoes and underwear and an occasional nice outfit). I pretty much always see if I can find it used before shelling out new. It's more economical but it also makes sense. Kids outgrow clothes and interests quickly! We also just streamlined as far as how much clothes, toys, baby gear we have. In reality most kids don't use most of the toys and clothes they have. We also don't do conscience foods in small packaged portions. I was at my moms the other day and she asked "does Amelia know how to drink from a Capri Sun? Oh, of course, she probably does it all the time." I replied, "I don't really buy those." It's not so much that I am opposed to them for nutrition, but at the point we hit 3 kids buying those things seemed wasteful. With 4 children, buying individual serving of snacks and drinks at a place like Costco would last about a week, and probably mean my kids would not eat any real food. This is lost on my mother. You need to buy snacks or the poor darlings wouldn't eat anything at all; it's the only way to get them to eat after all! Anyhow, my kids snack at home on fruits, veggies, cheese, yogurt, and I will likely have an economy pack of pretzels, crackers, raisins, and I'll buy 2 big bottles of juice. If they blow through it before the next grocery trip, too bad, so sad. Milk, water, tea. I also make stuff, like muffins or maybe trail mix or granola bars or ranch or hummus to dip veggies in. Apples and peanut butter are a staple. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saraha Posted December 1, 2015 Share Posted December 1, 2015 We get comments and I always freeze in the moment. But we got them way back when we only had one. A woman in a grocery store telling my husband he is clearly the father of my oldest daughter when she was a baby about made me die inside. Was I giving off the "my husband isn't the baby daddy" vibe? On the other hand, one of our adopted sons looks shockingly similar to my husband so we get comments on how much they look alike. Those make me giggle. We have two kids in wheelchairs so we get asked if we are a group home. We were out with another family from the boards when we had fewer kids and someone asked if we were all a Sunday school class. I remember that! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.