Why Big Families Tend To Be Late!

I never used to understand why large families seemed to always be late. Why didn’t they just aim for an earlier time as a cushion for little set-backs? How could they be so inconsiderate of other people’s time? Why were we just supposed to be patient and “understanding”?

Before I had my fourth child, I tended to be fifteen minutes early for everything. Now, we average two minutes late for Sunday Mass and mandatory school meetings, and a half-hour late for parties and family get-togethers. Why might this be?

Let us take the typical after-school activity. I have done all I could to make the evening flow smoothly. I have dinner on the table at 4:00; I have worked out with my husband when and where he is going to meet up with us so my children can be at different places at once; I have all the uniforms freshly laundered and laid out; the checks and order forms for team pictures have been prepared ahead of time. Yet we cannot seem to make it out the door and down the street on time.

This is a 62-minute play-by-play of my children getting ready to go to their ball games.

5:00 I warn the children we are leaving in 20 minutes. I get the baby ready and make sure everything we need is in the car.

5:20 I announce: Time to go! All three older kids still need to use the bathroom and put on their shoes.

5:22 My son runs out to the shed to get his baseball bag, which is already in the car.

5:24 The phone rings. It is the classmate of my almost-eleven-year-old. I tell her we are on our way out. Is it a homework-related emergency? Yes, she says. My daughter picks up. It turns out she just wanted to know what my daughter had written in her journal entry for tomorrow. I am quite annoyed.

5:26 Everyone is in the car. I back out and drive halfway down the street. In the rearview mirror, I notice my eldest does not have her softball hat. I turn around.

5:27 We dash through the house, looking for the hat. I remember she was not wearing it during the last inning last night, and probably left it on the field.

5:28 We are driving again.

5:32 We arrive at the field for Minors softball pictures. The coach has the hat. My eleven-year-old has been asked to fill in during a Majors game at 6:00. My nine-year-old wants to watch. I have already asked another trusted parent to keep them until my husband can get there.

5:37 I drive my son and toddler away from the field and realize I have left my pocketbook at home. I need my cell phone to keep in touch with my daughters and husband. We drive back home.

5:41 I pull into the driveway, run in, lock up, and run back out.

5:42 We are back on the road. I take back roads to avoid rush hour traffic but we still are late. I had already let the coach know we would be a few minutes late.

6:02 We arrive at my son’s baseball game. They are just getting started and he runs to join them.

Phew! Everybody has been gotten safely to their locations and I am just a little hot and bothered by my children’s inability to be ready on time. The evening goes smoothly from here.

Did you follow all that? THIS is why families with several children tend to always be a few minutes late!

The Story of the Trapp Family Singers

Before my review I must make a confession. I purchased “The Story of the Trapp Family Singers”, by Maria Augusta Trapp, for my ten-year-old daughter as a Christmas present. My two older daughters are going to be in our church production of “The Sound of Music”, so I thought the story as well as some original recordings from the family would inspire them.

My friend Leticia Velasquez raved about the book, saying it had served as a great inspiration in her own writing career. (I suspect we can look to her for even more insight into this book if she reviews it on one of her blogs.) So as I was about to wrap the book, I opened up to “The Chapter Before the First”, and by the end of the first paragraph I knew I had to read this book myself before Christmas.

First I must say that readers will be surprised by the creative liberties taken in the making of the movie “The Sound of Music”. Maria never really runs away, for example; nor did she dress the children in curtain material. I always wonder why truth must be taken liberties with, to be made more interesting. There is enough in the family’s true drama to fill more volumes than the 312 pages of carefully chosen moments in Maria’s written memoire.

The Story embodies so much that this blog is about. The Divine Gift of Motherhood was one that Maria was at first afraid to choose. But, like the Holy Mother Mary (how aptly named is Maria!), once she discovered that this is God’s Will, she humbly accepts and embraces this calling.

The children and captain captured her heart, and her theirs. Life is made up of Saints’ Feast Days, Birthdays, and Advent, with some normal days in-between. Maria brings the beauty and wonder back into these celebrations for a family that has recently been made motherless. The descriptions of the European Catholic traditions of Advent alone make this book a must-read for those mothers who wish to keep Christ in Christmas.

The once well-to-do family loses everything when they choose following principles over serving Hitler’s Regime. Thus their poor condition as refugees literally forces them into singing for the public, the gift that ultimately made them famous. How concert after concert came at the last minute to keep them out of debt is a tale of faith lived and rewarded.

Maria’s determination to learn the English language is a story in itself. She copies the Americans on the boat and in consequence misuses idiomatic speech in hilarious ways.

The miracle of a baby born despite Maria’s bad kidneys (and a doctor’s stern warning) comes shortly after the family lands in America. She writes the baby “had not been exactly planned for that very moment, and as far as being wanted is concerned, I would have gladly said many times, ‘Oh, won’t you please be so kind as to wait for just six months.’ Yes, many times on the flight, on the boat, on the bus, on the stage. But thousands of years ago God assured us – it’s in the Book – ‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways My ways.’ So if there is any planning to be done, why don’t we let Him do it?”

The Trapp Family truly is a light shining on a hill. They show us how it is truly possible to “live in the world, not of the world”, as the Gospel calls us to do. Despite the American music managers’ original rejection of the Trapp Family due to Maria’s lack of “sex appeal”, she (after a trip to the book store in search of the definition) wins their backing. The family insists on keeping to their costume dress, which is both economical and practical.

A family lodge is built in Vermont, and a Trapp Family Music Camp set up in summertime. The little girls are taken out of boarding school and homeschooled, giving them the precious time needed to sing, practice their musical instruments, and enjoy the outdoors. The family takes on a huge effort to collect and bring food, clothing, and other necessities to their fellow suffering Austrians.

A nice section talks about how courtship could and should be; and even this is managed despite the American way of “going steady”. Nice families flock to the Trapp Family Music Camp, and the children make friends with those who share their values; some find their soul mates as well.

The last section is a moving tribute to the family as they were and have become. You will have to read it to see how it turns out.

"Are Those All Yours?": A Social Commentary

When I was a child I distinctly remember my mother criticizing a driver for displaying a “Jesus” sticker on the car bumper. Sooner or later, she explained, that driver was bound to make a mistake on the road that would bear negative testimony on Christians.

Large families must recognize that they bear witness to the Culture of Life. Our very existence makes people stop and notice. Our public behavior will be the basis of others’ judgments about bearing children. Therefore I believe that we hold a huge responsibility in how we conduct ourselves.

(I include myself in the “large family” category not because I think of 4 as a large number of children – I know of several families with 5, 6, and 7 children – but because many other people here on Long Island seem to perceive us as such.)

Although I address myself here primarily to the larger family, my observations apply to those with one child or more. Misbehaving children cause strangers to point their proverbial finger and mutter to themselves or their neighbor, “That’s why I don’t want any kids,” or, “That’s why I’m not having any more.”

I recall a tired-looking father who was in front of me on the line at my local Wal-Mart with three lively, robust sons. I forget what the problem was – maybe his credit card wouldn’t go through – but he commented, “I’m such a loser.” Usually a silent onlooker, I felt the need to speak up. “Please don’t say that,” I said gently, “You have a beautiful family.” Hopefully my words encouraged him on some level.

We all have our moments of children’s misbehavior in the store or doctor’s office – some more than others. I am the last one to give you dirty looks if your child is acting up in church – my baby could be the next to cry. If you were in the optometrist’s office with me this week you might have shaken your head at my children playing with the glasses instead of sitting quietly in the separate waiting area. (Remember that even Jesus’ parents once lost him back in the Temple?) But for the most part, people come up to me and, after asking, “Are those all yours?” with wide eyes, comment very positively.

Typically it is the very senior citizen, who then reminisces about his or her five children, seventeen grandchildren, and ten great-grandchildren. “No one has large families any more,” they say. In church this Sunday a woman came up to me and said, “I just have to tell you that I’ve been seeing your family at Mass for years. You have such a beautiful family – and they are so well-behaved! I had three children and always wished I had a fourth.”

I hope our family helps to make a more positive attitude toward large families in our town. Our pediatrician loves us – “Everybody else just has two kids”, he recently said with an approving smile. When I first found a local optometrist and pediatric dentist, they would not book appointments for “so many” at once – they wanted the children to come on separate days. But, now that they have gotten to know us, we are favorites and they do not mind seeing us all at once.

I did have one negative comment made by a cashier at our local grocery store. When I was starting to “show” with my fourth, she looked at my belly and said, “That must have been a shocker.” I said, “Excuse me?” not because I hadn’t heard her – I couldn’t believe my ears. She repeated herself. “We wanted to have another,” I said (as if it was anybody’s business). “Most people would have stopped at three,” she commented with a shrug. “We enjoy our children,” I replied. There was a stony silence as I bagged my groceries and she continued her scanning.

“Most people view children as a burden,” my husband explained to me later.

How does your family come across in public? Is everyone well-rested, well-fed, and expected to behave? Or do you go out with children who are tired, hungry, and apt to misbehave? Do you appear to delight in your children – or to view them as a burden?

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.”
Matthew 5:14

Pictured above:

Photograph of the Von Trapp Family

Recommended reading:

"The Story of the Trapp Family Singers" by Maria Augusta Trapp,

1949, Harper Paperbacks, 320 pages, softcover, Catholic