by Michele Blacksberg

Created on: July 07, 2009   Last Updated: July 08, 2009

The question of whether it is possible to have too many children leads to the next question. What kind of life is desired for your children and yourself? Having a family with a large number of children means more resources are needed than for those that are smaller. The first mostly obvious issue to be considered is finances.

Children are expensive to raise, clothe and feed. An ill child can siphon off much of the budget allotted to raise a family. Schooling to send your children to receive the education to live out their dreams and aspirations can quickly become cost prohibitive. Expenses met must be viewed with a group mentality point of view, no one child can reliably hope that their special desires might be afforded or even given unique attention.

Emotionally, spreading ones self amongst many children is difficult. It is a fallacy to believe more love can be generated to love them all with the same energy and devotion. Delegation becomes key to managing the needs of the group and older children are expected to be surrogate parents and step up to help with homework, teach younger siblings how to do chores, get meals ready and be the confident of those fears and concerns that a parent may not be present to hear.

Physically the energy required to manage the basic tasks of daily living and be available for one's children are immense. Health of a parent with numerous children cannot be impaired for long for one to be able to meet the demands of working, shopping, cleaning as well as any time for teaching, loving and supporting. Parenting is a 24/7 role and pulling a couple of all nighters can quickly sap the energy of even the most robust parent if they have many multiples of children to care for. Aging parents are more acutely aware of how they no longer have the same energy they once had when caring for their oldest children.

Perhaps the most importantly quality to consider is what kind of role one sees themselves as a parent present in their children's lives. People from very large families often say, "My mom was too busy with all of us to do .... (fill in the blank). Parent's of multiple children often say," I couldn't see one child do X because I was busy taking another child to Y. There is always a little laugh with these statements, embarrassed laughing it seems, and a bit of a shrug to indicate "oh well."

Involved parents of a family with many children become group leaders skilled at organization, securing less expensive options for food, clothes, schooling and activities that meet the needs of children of varied ages simultaneously. Achieving these economies of volume become the rewards and achievements. The role of this type of parenting is similar to how teachers contribute to a classroom full of students, but this is not to be mistaken for parenting. Similarly, those children who need extra attention may easily be pushed aside, progressed in grade year after year without fully learning the tasks needed to be independently successful without the help of their peers or siblings.

All parents who look back at raising their children admit that many stages naturally have become a blur and many experiences are forgotten. However, if looking back means mostly remembering how all the children in one's family were constantly having to step up and perform those activities that parents typically pride themselves on performing, then, perhaps by having too many children those special moments of parenthood were lost. If the children also most clearly remember being junior caregivers then what was truly missed was how unique the bond between a parent and child is supposed to be.

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