So you come from a big family, you know who you are. You’re convinced the assembly line was originally created to make PB&J’s, you cringe when it’s too quiet, and nothing says home like a big family dog pile. I happen to be one of those big family gals. I grew up with an older brother and three younger sisters and I personally loved it. Long talks at night, quoting Disney movies, inside jokes and trying not to kill each other, are some of the many things that make being a part of a big family so great.
Let’s face it, coming from a large family is more rare now a days. Growing up it seemed like everything was tailored to the typical American family of four. I remember always seeing the Disney packages that included a ton of fun for the whole family...all four members. I always thought to myself, “Whelp, looks like only half of us are going to Disney." Follow me to a trip down memory lane and take a look inside the life of people with big families.
1. The noise.
One of the most notable things a person will realize when walking into a house of a big family is the noise level. I remember when I was in kindergarten I invited a friend over who happened to be an only child. After an hour of being at my house she started crying and had to go home because it was too overwhelming. In my house someone is always singing and most of the loudness comes from people trying to talk over one another. Lets not forget, every evening before dinner you have someone yelling up the stairs “Dinner time!" just like you’d see on television. Followed by mother saying, “You didn’t have to yell," retorted by sibling saying, “ I didn’t feel like walking all the way up there to say it nicely."
2. There is always someone to talk to.
Boredom is inevitable no matter what your family size is. However, when you’re in a big family you have fewer reasons to be bored because there is always someone to talk to. The best time to talk is always at night. I’ve probably stayed up late talking to all of my siblings too many times to count. The best memories are long summer nights when you can’t sleep, so you walk into a sibling’s room and talk or play dumb games for hours.
3. You will never have your own room, and your ok with that.
This may not be true for every large family, but if your family is large enough it gets difficult for every child to have their own room. Any home we have ever lived in has either had three or four bedrooms and there were seven family members total. You do the math; my dream of having my own room never had a chance. I never minded not having my own room because I didn’t know any different. As I stated before I love long talks at night and hate being alone so having a permanent roommate never bothered me.
4. People always stare when you travel as a group in public.
Wehave often been called the traveling clown car. Bystanders watch in amazement as all five of us pile out of the car. People would always ask my mom, “Are they all yours”? It was the worst when we were late to church because I always hated feeling people’s eyes on us as my family would file in, taking up an entire row.
5. You cook extremely large proportions even if there are only a few people.
Growing up I was always used to making, the entire box of pasta, all of the meat in the package and dumping an entire bottle of BBQ sauce in the crock-pot overstuffed with pork. In my house and my in-laws house more was always better. It was better to make too much then to not have enough. That way of thinking gave me some trouble when I had to go from cooking for seven to 12 people to only cooking for three people. Let’s just say in the beginning we always had a lot of leftovers.
6.Your left overs always get eaten.
The absolute worst feeling is when you had the most delicious meal at a restaurant and all your looking forward to the next day is the leftovers for lunch. That is until you look in the fridge, see your box and realize somebody not only ate all of it, but also left the box empty in the fridge. You cannot do a man dirtier than that in this world. That is why I would go as far as to draw a line of sharpie where my drink was last, to make sure no one took a sip of my drink.
7. Anyone that comes to hang out or visit gets lumped into the family.
We all have that one friend that would hang around so often with our family that even people we knew would start to question how many of us there were. My mom would always say, “After you’ve been here more than one time you are no longer a guest, you know where the food is."
8. Nothing is ever new, embrace the hand me down.
It’s a blessing and a curse, my whole life we have never bought dressers, couches and most of our clothes. The worst thing was our TV My parents bought the TV we had in 1989 before they got married. We had that TV my entire childhood, it went from having the antenna that we would stack on top of VHS movies to get a better signal. It evolved with us when we eventually got a DVD player hooked up to it. My parents finally got a new TV… after I moved out. The saying, “They don’t make things like they used to" definitely applied to our TV. For the most part getting hand me down clothes, and furniture was a huge blessing, it helped our family out tremendously. The only down sides to hand me down furniture was the evil couch we once had. There was this wooden part that would stick out and I always forgot where it was. I would collapse into the couch only to get a nasty bruise from the wooden piece sticking out #HandMeDownsGoneWrong.
9. Your super competitive because growing up everything was a competition between siblings.
My brother and I used to race to do everything. We would race to see who could eat their breakfast the fastest, who could get to the car first, who could throw the football the farthest. When I was younger it was always annoying, however when my sister and I both started running track on the same team it helped me run faster. I never wanted my younger sister to beat me, even if it was just practice.
10. Dog piles are mandatory.
This may not be true for every family but in my family a dog pile is a term of endearment. It’s more rare for all of us siblings to be under one roof now that we are all grown so a good 'ol dog pile brings us right back to our childhood. It’s always funny to trap the one person on the bottom who thinks we are too old to be wrestling each other anymore.
11. You are naturally protective because you are used to defending your siblings from anyone who tried to mess with them.
This doesn’t just apply to my siblings but also to my parents. This has to be one of the main reasons I loved being in a big family. Most parents may be prone to taking a teacher’s side or an adults side if their kid gets in trouble. If we told our parents a teacher was treating us unfairly you best believe my mom and dad would be in the principals office ready to yell at whoever did us wrong. I can’t tell you how many times my brother beat somebody up if they were teasing me or had a crush on me. My sister and I would constantly be fighting when we were younger. If someone else dare tried to fight with her or hurt her I would be the first to come to her aide, nobody hurts my sister except for me.
12. Food can and will disappear within minutes especially chips, ice cream, pizza and baked goods.
In my house we didn’t often have too much junk food. My parents had a tight reign on any junk food that did come in the house. We were those kids at a birthday party that drank 10 sodas because we didn’t know the next time we would see one of those beautifully bubbly cans. Similarly if my parents decided to get chips or ice cream for a special occasion my sibling would go crazy and it would be like a bad scene from the hunger games. It was almost like my siblings would take more than they needed just so someone else couldn’t possibly have more than them. Most importantly, beware of the night crawlers. Those that prowl on the food in the night when everyone else is peacefully asleep. This was especially true when it came to pizza. My brother was notorious for going in the kitchen late at night and finishing off the pizza.
13. What vacation?
When you have a large family vacations are basically non-existent. Vacations consist of piling in the car and going on a long road trip to go see one of your parent’s friends a few states over. But hey, if it were me I wouldn’t want to pay for seven plane tickets, hotel rooms, and every single meal for all of us scavengers. We did go on one vacation when I was 12, and we went to the beach for a week and it is one of my fondest memories.
14. Nice family pictures are impossible.
I have nothing against family pictures, in fact now that I have my own little family I am the annoying person always pushing for family pictures. When it comes to family pictures one needs to be realistic. In my family there was always that one family member that would not rest until we had at least one decent shot. Hey I don’t blame them, it just becomes very tiresome for those holding their smiles while others continue to flip their eyelids and do bunny ears. If I could go back in time I would say, “Mom, we are never going to have that adorably cute Christmas card and you can thank your mutant children for that."
15. One word: FIGHTS.
It wouldn’t be a real family if there weren’t fights. It is basicallyimpossible for seven or more people to live under one roof and never fight. The more people you have shoved into one living space the more chance you have for people to have conflict. I won’t say my childhood was riddled with fighting but it definitely happened. Fights happened all the time but the most memorable ones took place in the summer time. It was mostly in the summer time because we were all bored hanging around the house with nothing better to do than irritate each other.
16. There are no other people in the world you would have such intense anger and love towards at the same time.
My mom would always say, “Treat your sister nice, you never know if you’ll need a kidney from them one day”. She would also say “You guys are all going to be best friends some day." When I was younger and used to argue like cats and dogs with my siblings I thought, “fat chance of that happening." Needless to say, a Mother is always right. You become best friends with your siblings, it just happens. Once you are all grown you realize that when times get tough and the friends you thought would be there for you are not, you know family is blood for a reason.
