The Large Family: Madness or Holiness?

My grandma Amábile said that she always dreamt about having 12 children. She had 8; she miscarried 2 and raised 6 with a lot of love. Afterwards came the sons- and daughters-in-law, so she fulfilled her dream of having a large family.

This dream wasn’t only hers: the women of her generation and from ALL the generations before until the beginning of humankind always saw in the children a sign of blessing and joy. A childless family experienced a huge sorrow and suffering.

Only two generations after my grandma, this wisdom that was rooted in the depths of every human being has practically disappeared! Today children are seen as a “necessary evil,” as a burden, as a bottomless pit of expenses, as a “disease” that must be “prevented.”

To limit them to a minimum (preferably one, but two is still an acceptable number to society) is seen as the “responsible” thing to do. After all, someone who has many children, must not have a TV at home (!!) or doesn’t know how to use the thousands of contraceptives available everywhere.

The two things mostly responsible for this complete change of mentality: large corporations such as Rockefeller and Ford, and feminism. In the fifties, these corporations began to worry about the population growth, concluding that there might be lack of food, of space, if the world’s population continued to grow. If they managed to decrease the population, especially in undeveloped countries, the world would be able to avoid many wars. In order to do that, these corporations invested money into research on contraceptives.

However, with time, they saw that it wasn’t enough to invent new contraceptives, because when women wanted children, they stopped using contraceptives and got pregnant. So the corporations realized that they needed to change the women’s minds; they should not WANT to have children. In this moment, feminism took over the leadership role, aiming to put in women’s heads that to be a mother was a kind of “slavery” from which they should be released. They also said that the husband was an “oppressor,” that to be a housewife and a mother was something humiliating and then, women must revolt and abandon this “macho” view of the world.

Unfortunately, they reached their goal and we are all suffering the consequences. Europe and even the USA are facing a serious demographic crisis: simply, there are no more children to take their culture ahead. The Muslims, who weren’t contaminated by this mentality, have many children and soon will be the majority in Europe, forcing a change in the lifestyle of those people.

Sadly, very sad indeed, it seems that nobody is seeing this. The worst is that those who swim against the current, who want to show the world that having many children is a blessing, suffer persecutions from all sides, even in their own extended families.

Everybody thinks that they have the right to say something about our choices. Whoever has a fairly large family (3 or 4 children) hears all kinds of comments, many even aggressive. We are seen as “aliens” and crazy, but we, the families that want to have many children, are the ones who are trying to SAVE THE WORLD and it’s our children that will help to sustain these same people who criticize us, when they get old.

When I was carrying my forth baby, already having children ages 5, 2 and 1, people gazed at me with wonder and said: “Now you are going to have a tubal ligation, right?”

And I answered: “Are you crazy? I’m not going to mutilate myself to stop having children, to stop receiving blessings!!! Surgery is supposed to fix something that is not working well and not to spoil an organ that is working perfectly well!”

So I dedicate this post especially to you, mom and dad of a large family: DO NOT BE DISCOURAGED! Do not allow this type of criticism to affect your choices! Saint Paul said “For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength” (1Cor 1:25). Yes, we are crazy: crazy with love for our children, and the more children, the more love!

True and lasting happiness only exists when love overcomes selfishness. To think of yourself, to look for your own happiness, only causes loneliness and anguish. To love means to put the other in first place, to do everything for the good of the other. Only this way we will be truly happy. So welcoming children is the best way to be happy, because right from their conception, we are called to stop thinking about ourselves and put them in the first place; we are called to sacrifice ourselves for their sakes. And they will take us to Heaven!