Family Size

We had a mom's group outing the other night at Starbucks. The topic of family sizes came up. There are a few of us that are foster parents and another mom said that even when she was younger, she's had mom's ask her to take her children as they couldn't handle them and needed a break and she's had the idea in her head to start a house where people could drop their children off if they felt that they were losing control. Anyway, throughout the night us foster parents were asked why we decided to foster and the 2 of us that are already foster parents had pretty much the same story (we have trouble conceiving and these children need stable and loving homes and we want to make a difference in their lives) and there's one girl that wants to get into fostering that was talking to us as she can't find anything out through CPS. Anyway, one of the girls is young and has 4 children and after she left for the night, one of the mom's said that she didn't know how she did it as she was a lot older and her 2 drove her crazy on a consistent basis. Several of the girls suffered with infertility and one was just saying that she had a hard time seeing big families. I mentioned that I think everyone is programmed differently, some have more patience than others, some can handle bigger families easier than others. I didn't see anything wrong with small families, although large families have always fascinated me, but I think it's more important to stop when you feel the need to stop. Or if you feel the need to be child-free, I respect that too. It's not a path that I could see myself going down (even before Deidra) as I love children so much...but I don't think someone needs to be put down or judged by how many children, if any, they choose to have.

Someone brought up how you manage to support all those children and I mentioned that I don't think there's ever a perfect time to have children, but you sacrifice along the way and you find ways to make it work. Someone felt the need to point out to me that I get paid to do fostercare. Yes, we get paid a very minimal amount to do this...it's no where near enough to support a child on, let alone we pay for everything out of pocket first. It's not like the kids come with a check. We're reimbursed the daily right once a month and we're given a certain amount for clothing each month. But, like I said...it's not like you can totally support a child on what we're given and those of us who choose to foster parent and have the honest heart for it, are not in it for the money. We do it to make a difference in the children's lives.

I can see myself easily with 4-6 children. Andy's slowly hopping on board, but we have agreed to take it one at a time and see how it goes. I know we'll stop growing when we feel the need to. Some people feel the need to stop at 1 and that's fine too. People feel complete when they feel complete...but I just don't see why some people need to make it a competition or feel the need to put others down because of their decisions. I like my Mom's group and the people that I meet there, but I guess I was just shocked in a way that this topic came up and how judgmental some people are. When did society seem to put in place that it's only acceptable to have 1-2 children and if you go above that, you're nuts? It's a topic that I've heard come up quite a bit lately due to the Duggars having their 17th...but I never thought people would be so judgmental about other people's decisions for their lives.

God bless our families!