All this week we’ll be running classic posts in addition to our regular content to celebrate our one year anniversary on Blackandmarriedwithkids.com! Original post date: Jan. 23, 2008.
I read an article that said large families are not just for the poor. It made me think about it some more and I started to reflect back on the comments that I have received from people now that I have 3 kids and one on way. I think that some people think that you are poor and/or uneducated if you have a large family. I actually had a person say to me: “Girl if you have one more child you are going to look poor”...You will be pulling up in that minivan looking poor as can be!!” I just laughed. I knew she was playing ( kind of.)
It seems perfectly OK for rich people and celebrities to have lots of kids, like P Diddy who has 5 or 6 kids with at least 3 different mamas. But when someone like me pulls up and unloads the van it’s like here comes the Beverly Hillbillies. I can just hear some of my old classmates now: “Girl you will never guess who I saw the other day and she has 4 kids.. Yes, 4 kids.. and she was so smart in school..what happened to her??”
It seems like most middle class families today have one or two kids (definitely no more than 3.) What happened to the more the merrier? Back in the day, it used to be looked upon as a blessing if you had a lot of kids.. a symbol of your wealth. But now-a-days, it’s just the opposite. It’s ok to have a huge 7 bedroom home”...as long as you don’t have 6 kids to put in those rooms.
I have to admit, it took some convincing for me to go for the fourth kid”...but it was more about what I felt I could handle”... the job..the house”...the kids. But now that I have them, I would not have done it differently. I am looking at them now: the 1 year old just took my cell phone”.....her dad is chasing her trying to get it back. The six year old is walking around pretending she is a model.. the fourteen year old is taking a million years to clean the kitchen..there are like 2 dirty dishes in the sink. The baby in my stomach is kicking..she is like get this laptop out of your lap. Yes, this is definitely a blessing.
But I can’t be a hypocrite, I used to say all of those stupid things to people when I found out they had large families”...like : I can’t believe how you do it, I cannot even handle my two! or Are you going to have more? Now, maybe I will say”...Wow, what a blessing.