No, I’m not talking about family size. I’m talking about something perhaps even more controversial…home size.

Over at (new-improved-check it out!) Larger Families, I recently posted about housing size on the message boards (psst! See that? We have brand-spanking-new message boards! Register! Post! Ahem…where was I?)

Oh yeah…the jist of the post is that I’m curious whether living in a smaller space is maybe more than doable, but actually advantageous, when raising kids (even lots of kids). Stephanie from Adventures in Babywearing posted about this recently and it got me to thinking how much I really enjoy being in this little cottage, even though I’m used to having a lot more room to spread out.

Here’s where I’m coming from. Our space in Chicago was perfectly arranged for a family, particularly a big family. Pretty much everyone who ever came over remarked on how ideal the layout was. It was two apartments that had been duplexed together into one unit, so the living/”grownup” space was upstairs, and then there was almost as much “kid” space downstairs.

There were just two drawbacks. One: We never, ever used the fourth bedroom. Sure, there was a bed in there, and occasionally a guest slept in it or I dumped laundry on it. But mostly, it went unused. So did the upstairs office, for that matter. So basically, the six of us shared three bedrooms and seemed to prefer it that way. I’d even say the third bedroom didn’t see a lot of action, between the bigger three boys always wanting to bunk up together, and the youngest generally preferring to be with us.

The other drawback is that I’m an “out of sight, out of mind” kind of person. So if the kids were downstairs playing, I really didn’t think about what they might be doing down there until I went down and saw an outrageous mess. There was a huge toy area, and lots of space for them to spread out/spread stuff out. I had a harder time keeping on top of the small messes they made throughout the day, because I preferred hanging out in the upstairs part of the house, so I wasn’t always walking through the downstairs picking up little messes before they got to be big messes.

But I’d gotten really used to having all that space so I was a little nervous when we moved in here. The home we currently live in has two floors, but there’s really no extra space to speak of: a kitchen that opens into a dining room, a decent-sized living room and sunroom…that’s the whole first floor. Upstairs is two small bedrooms and one medium-sized bedroom.

And still, it feels like plenty of space. In fact, there are some things that are easier about it. For one thing, keeping track of where all the kids are and what they’re up to is a snap. And since there’s really just one common area in which to hang out, it’s impossible for the boys to slink off and disappear when it’s time for homework or dishes. We’ve been talking more, just by virtue of being in each other’s presence most of the time. And I find that instead of facing an unholy mess at the end of the day, I just naturally deal with stuff throughout the day as it comes up because it’s right there in my face.

I’m sure a lot of my preference has to do with my ADD-esque personality. I have a much easier time remembering to do things–even connect with my kids–if circumstances throw them right in front of me. And as we add another child to the house and my big boys become privacy-seeking teenagers, we may very well need a lot more space than a house this size has to offer. But as we contemplate what kind of house we’ll buy in the future, I have to admit that a home that’s on the diminuitive side is feeling more and more attractive. Maybe we–even those of us with bigger-than-average families–simply don’t “need” as much space as we’ve been led to believe?

Do you feel like your house is too big, too small, or just right? Is layout everything or are you more interested in square footage?

I was just going through some pictures from our trip to the Minnesota Ren Fest last fall, and got a kick out of the differences between the boys’ attitudes. Look at these pictures of William, who was 3-almost-4, with his jousting partner:

See the enthusiasm? The sweet, pure pleasure on his face?

By contrast, look at the two olders (7 and 9 at the time):

Everything about their body language and expression says “Mom, this dweeb is totally TOUCHING us.”

Look how Isaac, on the right, is leaning away, and looking to the ground as though he’s embarrassed. Jacob, on the left, is stony-faced, refusing to smile.

But once Good Sir Costumer moved away, the boys lit into each other with their swords, dueling bitterly to the last pop. I could almost see Ren Faire Employee in the cards for one of them, seven or eight years down the road.

Maybe Isaac. He was especially impressed by the pie-eating contest.

In case you didn’t figure it out from the link in my previous post, here’s my little (currently “about the size of a peanut”) surprise: Yep, I’m pregnant. Pretty soon we’ll be thinking in odd numbers again: Five kids. Seven family members. Three carseats in the Caravan. Etc.

It’ll be my first-ever spring baby (my kids currently have September, October, November and December birthdays), the first time I’ll be pregnant on Christmas or New Year’s, and so far (crossing my fingers–I’m 11 weeks) the first time I’ve made it all the way through the first trimester without throwing up.

It feels funny to announce this since as late as May we were still waffling on whether or not we wanted more kids at all. Though my life is full with four, I enjoyed adding the fourth to our family so much that it really opened me to the possibility of more. I love the noise, the chaos and the bustling feeling of a house full of kids. And when it came down to it, my two most sticky reasons for not having another were: 1) I didn’t feel like being pregnant/giving birth again and 2) As it stood, my last child would be 18 when I was 46. That felt so young and I really clung to that number in my mind as some kind of trophy. But while I think those are generally both very valid reasons to stop, for me, they just weren’t compelling enough (after all, pregnancy is over in a blink — heck, I’m almost 1/3 of the way through already and I’m still adjusting to the idea! — and labor/birth, if you’re me, is just a few hours, and relatively easy hours at that. And 49 isn’t that much older than 46, anyway.)

Once we made up our minds to give it another go, we figured the faster the better, since neither of us are getting any younger, and I like having kids relatively close together (didn’t want to have to have a sixth just to give #5 his/her own buddy) And wouldn’t you know it…I’m just as crazy-fertile as I was four years ago.

I’m just barely showing (to me, anyway–others swear that you could never tell unless you already knew) and am bracing myself for the onslaught of “What? FIVE? Are you NUTS?” But I had plenty of practice with #4, so I’ll be in a much better place to just laugh and let it slide off my back…and as much as I was dreading the preggo part, I’m quite enjoying being pregnant this time around. As with anything else, it seems experience makes pregnancy–and dealing with silly comments–that much easier. Now let’s just hope the same can be said for the fifth birth, too.

Mama Speaks is giving away a copy of Table for Eight. There’s a little about the book and an interview with me (containing a little surprise!) in Stephanie’s post.

Head over, and enter to win!

This week I’ve stumbled across a few different conversations about raising large families–two of them in relation to Katie Allison Granju’s Babble.com essay about why she wants a big family (both at Babble and also in the comments section on her blog post about it), and one in a discussion about the Ionce family with 18 children over at the Womb Within blog.

Now, as somebody who’s written a book on raising larger families, you might think I just love debating the topic. But I often regret getting involved in these conversations, where the assumption often seems to be that large families automatically become a drain on the system and (of course) that parents of many and their children are miserable, attention-starved people. Inevitably, somewhere along the line, somebody makes an assumption like this based on: a family they once knew. A TV show they watched a few times. The complaints they heard from an adult who grew up in a big family. Their income taxes, which they feel are too high and imagine are all the fault of poor, uneducated people having too many babies.

Now, I don’t mind anyone’s having or expressing an opinion–I’ve got plenty of them, and I don’t always have solid research to back them up–but what always amuses and amazes me is how vehemently some people will argue against something that they themselves have no direct experience with.

The only real fact-driven, legitimate arguments I’ve seen coming out of these debates center around environmental issues. I don’t agree that the small number of American families who choose to have bigger families is a threat (fertility levels in the US hover right around replacement rates; we really do have enough resources for everyone if our culture–big and small families alike–would take some steps to quit wasting them; overpopulation in other countries has little to do with how many children Americans have; and wait a sec, how come I never see anyone criticizing dog breeders?), but even though I don’t agree, I can still understand the argument. What I can’t understand is passionate, disgust-ridden arguments (I especially love when they use words like “litter!”) against what life must be like in a big family. Unless you’ve experienced it–and not just in your own family, but a few others, too, for comparison–how can you know what it’s like?

I don’t want 14 or 16 or 18 kids. But it only takes a little imagination to see that a home with 14 or 16 or 18 kids could very well be a happy one. It may not look like MY house or YOUR house or the typical American household, but holy canoli, whoever said we typical American parents are getting it right, anyway?

I could rail against having huge families, but what do I have to base it on? A half-hour TLC special? And even if you think the Duggar family is “creepy”, a word I’ve heard thrown about quite a bit in relation to them, how does that apply to other big families? What about all the miserable people in smaller familes…for instance, the Hogan family isn’t doing so hot; does that mean nobody should have two kids? And I know a lot of people who have complaints about their families: they didn’t get along with their siblings, felt they had too much responsibility, felt they didn’t have enough. What does it prove, except for whatever reason, the dynamics in their particular family led to an unhappy childhood?

I have experience with raising a family of four kids. My family of four kids, not anyone else’s. But I spoke to dozens and dozens of parents and kids with between four and eleven children while writing my book. Yes, a few of the interviews made me cringe, and had I had a bias against big families, I guess I could have filed them away as ammo. But the vast majority of the responses came from what seemed like loving, attentive, responsible parents in functional and happy homes. I bet I’d get a similar ratio if I surveyed a group of smaller families, too.

As for what it’s like to grow up in a family of 18 kids? I imagine it could be awful. I imagine it could be wonderful. Just like growing up with no siblings, or one, or two, there are a lot of factors at play that shape a family’s life. Truly, though? I don’t know. And unless you are one of a very, very small number of people who’ve experienced living in a very large family firsthand? Neither do you.

…about working and raising a large family, over at lotsofkids.com. Check it out.

I’ve been reading a lot about going car-free–partly in response to the painful gas prices, and partly for environmental reasons–and am wondering how people with multiple children, particularly those who don’t live right on a train line, pull it off. I stumbled across this post, for example, talking about how hard it can be to get a taxi to pick you up when you have a baby–and the blogger only has ONE child.

Anyway, I’m not turning our car in tomorrow or anything, but I’ve been thinking about ways to cut wayy back on our driving and keep running up against theoretical obstacles. I posted about them over at the Chicago Moms Blog. What do you think? Are you planning on cutting back on how much you drive, or finding alternative methods of transportation? Are you a car-free family already? If you have kids–particularly more than one–how do you manage it (or plan on managing it?)

this column is angry, but brilliant. (thanks for the link, Toni.)

My favorite line: Maybe what bothers me is how Carpe Diem Syndrome is just half of the game. Or a tenth. Hundredth. Because, the truth is, you could eat at every restaurant in the world and see every exotic wonderland and view a million great works of art and still be quite the miserable, spiritually vacant, neoconservative jackass with a world-class photo album and the soul of a cockroach. Ain’t it the truth?

His theory applies not just to life, but to parenting, too, doesn’t it? Because we can crank out kids with high GPAs and test scores, straight teeth, and flawless public behavior; we can take them to all the right classes and put them in the right enrichment activities and stock their bookshelves with the right titles and get them in the right preschool program; we can make sure they’ve been exposed to classical music and ethnic foods and art and exotic locales in their formative years; but if we don’t dig a little deeper, we can still raise “miserable, spiritually vacant jackasses with a world-class photo album and the soul of a cockroach.”

Along those lines, this week at largerfamilies.com we’re posing the question: If you could pick just one quality or trait for your children to possess (i.e. compassion, a sense of humor, honesty, etc) what would it be, and why? I’d love to hear which qualities make the top of YOUR personal wish list for your kids.

A recent article in Reason Magazine suggests that the reason people are having smaller families is that caring for kids is a big bummer. I posted about it over at largerfamilies.com this week and got some thought-provoking responses. What do you think? My column this week will address this issue in more depth, so look for it on Wednesday.

This week, faced with a last-minute shopping emergency, I took the kids to the mall, a place that, this time of year, I try very hard to avoid. After we made our purchase, I was dodging crowds of holiday shoppers with my brood in tow when they spotted him.

Santa Claus.

I’m not sure if I should be proud or ashamed of this fact, but my kids have never sat on Santa’s lap. Belief in Mr. Claus has always been a much more abstract concept in our home.

At least one gift for each child comes directly from The Fat Man himself, evidenced by different wrapping paper and “LOVE, SANTA” scrawled in block printing on the tag.

His milk gets drunk, his cookies get eaten, we read “The Night Before Christmas” and make the usual comments about how we think we hear Santa’s sleigh coming. Yada, yada, yada.

But I’ve never felt the need to cap the Santa experience by taking my kids to the mall, waiting in line to plop one of them on an actor’s lap, and then paying $9 for a crappy souvenir photo. After all, by the time most kids are 5 or 6 they’ve figured out that the real Santa is busy overseeing his midget labor force in December, not going mall to mall asking kids what they want for Christmas. As if he really needs to be told. He is MAGICAL, after all.

What intrigued me, though, was that it was my oldest kids - who by their own admission are no longer believers - who seemed the most interested in a visit with Saint Nick. “Look, Mom, it’s Santa!” Jacob said. “We - I mean William and Owen - should really go tell them what we - I mean they - want for Christmas, don’t you think?”

There’s a big part of me that was heartbroken when my oldest decided he was no longer a believer, and I wanted to indulge the little-kid side of him. Besides, what could it hurt? So the five of us headed over to Santa’s Magical Parent Trap and got in line.

But everything seemed to fall apart once it was our turn. The big boys, who had just a few minutes before seemed excited by the prospect of getting up close and personal with Santa, decided to assume a cool, aloof stance once we got there and refused to come inside the gates at all. Owen took one look at “Santa’s” gray beard - or perhaps it was the belly that jiggled like a bowl full of jelly - and refused to go anywhere near him. “No, mom, no, mom, no!” he cried, clinging to my neck as though I was trying to turn him over to an orphanage. Pointing at Santa, he tearfully declared him “‘TUPID!”

I held out hope for William. After all, at just-turned-4, Will’s at prime believer age. To him, there’s nothing at all strange about the idea that Santa could be at thousands of malls at the same time, just like there’s nothing strange about the idea that an overweight man who likes to hang around with elves squeezes down millions of chimneys in one night.

But even William wasn’t going for it. He refused to make eye contact with Santa, instead creeping up to him sideways looking down at the floor. When Santa patted his lap and invited Will to jump on up, Will looked at me with alarm and said, “Do I have to?”

“No … but don’t you want to tell Santa what you want for Christmas?” I asked.

“Can you just tell him for me?” he asked, making a hasty retreat.

“He wants a guitar,” I said to Santa, as William backed away, his eyes on the floor.

Santa nodded.

“He’s shy,” I explained, as William hid behind his brothers and Owen let out a fresh shriek. Santa just stared. Really embarrassed now, I turned and fled.

“You want a picture?” the helper “elf” called after me.

But it was too late. The five of us holiday misfits were already hurrying toward the mall exit.

Before we left, though, we spent the nine bucks we’d saved on a round of Aunt Annie’s pretzels.