The Paris Project

My Big Family

A cup of coffee and a magazine enjoyed in the recliner while the boys (the young ones and the old one) are still asleep: I'm home again. We saw it all: amber waves of grain in the Dakotas, purple mountains majesty in Wyoming and Idaho, the fruited plains and spacious skies of Montana, and the shining sea in Oregon and Washington. America is indeed beautiful, but at the moment, I'm savoring the view from my living room corner: piano, wedding portrait, contents of travel bag dumped on table, toys strewn across the floor.

I just finished Leslie Leyland Field's article "The Case for Kids: A Defense of the Large Family by a 'Six-Time Breeder." She didn't set out to have six kids, but she does, and they love their life on a commercial fish farm in Alaska. The Christianity Today editors also write about their pro-family workplace ethos and their personal affection for kids (p.6 of the August issue).

It's a great article - Fields describes the global decline in fertility (not just America and Europe), and critiques the individualism and selfishness that she believes underly the child-free philosophy. She fairly describes her point of view, and doesn't overly personalize her critiques or demonize individuals who live without children. She does imply, and so do the CT editors, that having children is mostly a matter of choice. People have children when they want them and sometimes when they don't, and don't have children because they actively avoid them by birth control or by abortion. That is true most of the time, statistically speaking. 80% of people have normal fertility and conceive within 4-6 months of trying. 70% of concepti survive the first trimester. 90-95% of second-trimester fetuses (under US health care) are born healthy. 60% of Americans adults are married, though I suppose over 90% have sex regardless of whether or not they're married.

Fields' point is well-taken, but if we reverse those statistics, another necessary side of the story emerges. 20% of people trying to get pregnant find themselves infertile. One in three pregnancies ends before 12 weeks, and around 5-10% of on-going pregnancies end in the demise of the baby. Many people want to be parents, but want to be married first and aren't. These statistics are all growing, at least in the U.S. - infertility, singleness well into adulthood, later age at marriage and first pregnancy, and prematurity are all on the rise. People like this, I'd argue, do have large families, of the invisible variety. My deceased sons, as well as the babies I was never able to conceive, influence the way I parent and the way I see the world. Fields describes how large families help children put others first, see themselves as a larger whole, and conserve limited resources. She says each additional baby brought her both love and terror, and a new opportunity to die to self. Much of the benefit she describes requires a family of living children, but still there are parallels for those of us who wish for larger families than we have. Living with longing is a spiritual practice, allowing the love you have for the babies you never had and/or the babies you lost to bless others.

When I'm out in public with my twins, people often say, "You must have your hands full with two!" or "I wanted twins - how nice to have your whole family at once." They can't see how full my mind and spirit are with more children than two, and how much I want my hands to be full with all of my children. They can't see that my living twins are actually my second batch - I already had, and lost, a whole family at once. The babies I longed for but couldn't conceive, then those I birthed and lost, are part of our family. My living boys are part of a larger story - the years spent waiting for their safe arrival and the demise of their older brothers changed the spiritual climate of our family. They live in a larger story of devastated and recobbled faith, of physical trauma and persistence, and a big community of friends and family who held out hope for their existence.

When Christians speak of valuing family and children, we musn't assume that people who don't have children don't want them, or that people with small families exercised perfect control over their reproduction. Additionally, each of us may reap the blessings of large families when we take seriously our embeddedness in our families of origin, and also of great importance, the very large human family of which we are each a part.