“The Fine Print”, by Michael
Schrader
Look
At The Freaks!
Growing
up in a family of five, I never thought twice about my family’s size being
“abnormal”. After all, my father grew
up with eight siblings, and of the seven that married, two had six children,
two had four, and two had three. In
other words, I have lots and lots of cousins.
In the predominantly Roman Catholic neighborhood where I grew up, we had
a neighbor with nine children; we had a neighbor with eleven children (eight of
them redheads!); we had a neighbor with seventeen children (incredibly, from
the same two parents!). My family of
five children just didn’t seem that unusual, except that it seemed rather
small.
I
don’t know whether times have changed that much, or if my extended family and
the neighborhood where I grew up were anomalies, but when I tell people that I
have five children, I feel like some sort of sideshow freak. First, whomever I have told makes that
“Scooby-Doo I just saw a ghost” kind of expression, which renders that person
speechless. Next, comes the inevitable
dialogue.
“You have HOW MANY
children?”
“Five.”
“Haven’t you figured
out where they come from yet?”
“Yes.”
“Did you plan it this
way?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because we love
kids. Besides, I am the fifth of
five. If my parents had stopped, I
wouldn’t be here.”
“That’s it, right?”
“Not necessarily.”
“What?! You already have five kids!! Why do you want more?”
“We love kids.”
“How many more?”
“Maybe one; maybe
five.”
“That would be ten
kids!”
“I see you know how
to add.”
I
then I spend the next hour hearing about how I am socially irresponsible for
having five kids, and why I can’t have any more.
Inevitable
in any conversation about my kids is the comment, “You must be Catholic.” For the record -- I was raised Catholic, but
the Pope does not have a hotline to my bedroom. I would have had five kids no matter what religion I was raised
in, because that is who I am.
It
is interesting to me how much one is made to feel like a pariah for having a
large family. Anytime we walk into a
restaurant, people stare. “Look at the
freaks! Tommy, look away; they may
contaminate you!” Of course, people
quietly murmur to themselves and discreetly, or not so discreetly, move to a
different area of the restaurant. There
we are, our nice little family of seven, and there isn’t a soul within four
tables. Kind of like a quarantine.
Of
course, that is if we are lucky enough to even get a table. Go to your typical restaurant and ask for a
table for seven. “That will be a
two-hour wait.” Few restaurants even
have table for a family of seven; most are designed under the assumption that
the typical family is Dad, Mom, Junior, and Sissy. At McDonald’s, for instance, we have to spread out over two
tables, which of course results in dirty looks from other patrons. (“My gosh!!
Look at those people taking up all of that room!!”) During a recent culinary outing, we were crammed
into a little booth designed for five while a family of five, who could not
help but stare at us with disgust (“Look at those people crammed in there!”)
conveniently occupied a table for seven.
We
get the same dirty looks from other motorists when we travel, especially from
owners of big vehicles. Here we are,
seven of us traveling in our wagon, with our luggage bundled up on top the
vehicle like the Joads in “Grapes of Wrath”, and the vehicle who pulls up
beside us at the gas pumps is an SUV with two people who have nothing better to
do then stare at the clown car. To them,
it is like something from the circus to see one person after another remove
themself from this “itty-bitty” wagon.
I feel like I should sell tickets or something.
Finding
a motel room is a bit of a challenge when you have five kids. On numerous occasions, motels have refused
to rent a room to my family. It’s
against fire codes, I am told. I argue
that five the seven are children under the age of twelve and not illegal
laborers, but to no avail, and I move on down the road, hoping to find
someplace with room in the inn. Having
used to work as a hotel clerk, I can understand why you would not want to rent
a room to seven teenagers or adults, as the room will inevitably be
trashed. But a family with five
children? Give me a break. There is always the option of renting two
rooms, but very few motels these days have adjoining rooms, and to be in
non-adjoining rooms means splitting up the family. We lament about the breakup of the nuclear family and the
proliferation of single-parent households, and then we put up silly obstacles
to keeping a family unit together. Go
figure.
The
next time you see a large family, don’t treat them as some sort of pariahs for
being a large family. They are not
contagious. Large families are regular
Joes and Janes like the rest of the world; there are just a few more Joes and a
few more Janes. Besides, where else can
you see a circus sideshow for free?