My great desire is to favor people having as many children as they want. I’m not here to impose the notion that every married couple should have a large family.
The concept of the child as a gift is biblically based. Jesus’ public life certainly attested to the fact that he treasured children. There was a time when Catholics were truly countercultural—in the fifties and sixties, during the so-called baby boom, educated Catholics experienced a 60 percent increase in number of marriages, in number of children, and a 60 percent decline in the breakup of marriage.
Shortly after that there was a national decline in the birthrate. We don’t really understand why it began or why it has continued. It wasn’t the availability of the Pill because the Pill wasn’t available when the decline started, and it certainly wasn’t abortion, which came much later. But Catholics were a part of that decline.
The role of the mother is crucial as the primary nurturing parent. She is the purveyor of gentleness, the arbiter of disagreements. One of the difficulties as a mother of a large family is that you have to spend an awful lot of time being pregnant, and that is a great obstacle to many women. But there are ways to minimize the dislocation that can happen with pregnancy. My wife was quite skilled at that.
The father in a large family is in many ways a God figure who symbolizes omnipotence and omniscience to young children. He has to be willing to accept the fact that in being the primary disciplinarian he may forfeit some of his popularity, especially with adolescent and teen-age children. But by the time they reach adulthood—and particularly by the time they begin having their own children—they fully understand and appreciate what you were driving at.
When I was aboard a ship in World War II, the only assignment the captain had was to maintain morale. The members of any closed social unit that has to operate over time must have a positive sense of unity, a sense of its interconnectedness—to the parents but also to the other children. Where families are dysfunctional, usually children will find some other place to express their morale, such as in a sports team or even a gang.
There’s a certain amount of hostility in society toward large families. I have a daughter who has 13 children, and she is challenged at the grocery store for her irresponsibility and things like that. It’s important that people who have large families sustain and encourage each other, and live close to each other if possible.
The economic aspect may also be exaggerated. Economic problems can to a great extent be overcome by ingenuity. When I was chairman of the nutrition commission of the Illinois Medical Society, I was challenged by some of my peers to live on the public aid food budget for a month. My wife and I accepted the challenge, although the kids weren’t too thrilled at the notion. But at the end of 30 days my wife actually had money left over. If you’re a shrewd and astute shopper, many problems can be reduced if not eliminated.
Living space is something social workers and agencies think is very important, but I think it’s much overrated. We only had four bedrooms in our house for thirteen children. Our children would have felt they were being ostracized or punished if they’d been put in a room by themselves. They loved to be in rooms with bunk beds where they could have a lot of fraternization.
The notion that as children multiply you love them less—that they are less individual to you or that somehow or other you cannot give them the time or interest necessary for their proper development—is a misconception. God grants the grace to accept all children and love them well. And many research projects have demonstrated that children in large families end up much closer emotionally than children in small families.