Sarah Palin's threatening womb

I live in a blue-state town, but oddly enough large families are fairly unremarkable here. Even though we are populated with lots of "whitepeople," 3-5 kids seems to be the norm, with a couple mega-families (on my street, the people next door have seven and the people at the end of the street have eight). So my three are hardly an anomaly.

I think the large-ish families around here are a reflection of the fact that a) most of the people in town are "townies" from way back, and have extended family networks here and are strongly rooted in place, b) it is a small, compact, old-fashioned town where you can let your kids out to play without worrying overmuch, and where older kids can safely walk or ride their bikes to get where they need to go, cutting down on the "mommy chauffeur" thing that my city and suburb friends have to do, and c) it seems fairly normal because everyone else is doing it.

When I visit my friends back in the NYC suburbs, though, it's a different story. They are absolutely floored that I have three kids; and that I had them "so young" (sheesh, I was 31 with my first! hardly a spring chicken!). Because around there it is more socially acceptable to have a single child in your early to mid-forties, and then to hand said child over to a nanny so you can resume your career as an investment banker or whatever. "How on earth do you handle them all, by yourself?" they want to know.

For those of you freaked out by the logistics of large families; my mega-mom friends say that anything over three is a wash. In other words, if you can handle three, you can handle eight, and the biggest problem is finding a vehicle that they can all fit in. It also helps if you live in a safe, smallish town so the older ones can walk or ride their bikes to soccer practice or afterschool jobs or whatever; and of course the older ones help out with the younger ones. The youngest two of the 7 next door used to practically live at my house because they loved being "big brother and sister" to my kids, and I greatly appreciated the help they gave in terms of playing with my kids so I could get a few things done, taking them out and pushing them on the swing, helping them with crafts, etc.

I know it is fashionable to decry older siblings helping with younger ones (it's slave labor! it is unfair to expect big sisters to act like little mothers!), but most older siblings relish the chance to be "in charge" of a younger sibling, if only for a few minutes. My littlest one is the youngest child in the neighborhood, and I don't think her little feet touched the floor for the first eighteen months -- there were always big sisters and older neighbor girls (and boys!) who would hold her, play with her, read to her, etc.. It's how kids are wired; they really would rather play with each other than play Nintendo by themselves all day. This is how families have functioned from the beginning of time; it's how kids learn about sharing and responsibility. Don't get me wrong, they still fight and bicker but it often seems like the kids from big families are a lot better at getting along with others and working things out on their own than only children or children with just a few widely spaced siblings.

My oldest daughter LOVES it when I assign her to look after her 3-year-old sister while I do something; she practically glows with delight at being entrusted with a responsibility, even if it is just playing dolls or helping her color. I thought they would resent it, because I grew up as the younger of two siblings born 9 years apart and was used to doing my own thing all the time, but I found that each baby seemed to move the other ones up a notch in the hierarchy, which they welcomed.

It's not for everyone, but people need to realize that until fifty years or so ago, pretty much everyone had big families, and it was fine. I have a friend who grew up as one of eight, and another who grew up as one of fourteen, and both said they loved being part of a big family. "There was always something going on...never a dull moment!" and "Even if I had a terrible day at school, and felt like I didn't have a friend in the world, I could come home and there was a house packed full of people who loved me."

So I kind of wish we had gotten started earlier and had a couple more...I'm almost 40 now and don't quite have the energy to go down that road again, but from what I see it doesn't seem like a bad thing at all.

Who are these rude people who make comments to parents about the size of their family or their lack of children? Not midwestern-nice.

As the mother of four, I've been the recipient of nosey and offensive commentary from both sides of the fence. It's been hinted that I have too many, and more than hinted, by conservative Catholics, that I have too few! Recently a good friend, who is still in contact with people I knew back then, had to give one of them a reality check when he suggested she should be practicing NFP. She politely hinted he should back off, but he wouldn't leave it alone, and she finally had to tell him bluntly to shut up. She has three grown sons and recently had surgery, chemo and radiation for an aggressive breast cancer, for which she'll be on estrogen-suppressing drugs for the rest of her life. The crowning irony of this interaction is that the insistent NFP-er's wife is infertile, so he's never actually had to practice what he preaches. He just thinks other people should.

I think the commenters who have said that people on all sides of a question do this, that it's a matter of their own insecurity with other people's differences, are correct. And it's probably healthier and more practical to shrug off such comments as a reflection on the speaker, rather than to get excited and go "See! See! Everybody hates me!" As the target of much persecution throughout my life for being too this or too that--too different, in sum--it's taken me much time to come to this realization, and some effort to hang onto it!

BTW, re the title of this post . . . I've always felt it was rather rude to refer to parts of a woman's body as if they had a mind and personality of their own. I hereby register my objection to the image of Sarah Palin's brawny, pit-bull womb strutting around pugnaciously threatening people. If people are threatened, they are threatened not by a disembodied womb, but by the use which Sarah Palin, a complete human being, has made of her fertility. (I'm also wondering when Rod will have a post up entitled "Todd Palin's Threatening Balls!" I would guess the answer is "never" . . . .)