Families are elastic

Most of the time new friends pull strange faces when I tell them that I have six children.

Correction.  It’s all of the time. 

One minute, we’re simply passing the time of day and enjoying getting to know each other through polite chat.  The next minute, I’ve let the cat out of the bag (so to speak) and find myself waiting for the jaw of my new found friend to drop – literally.

The subsequent conversation is then every time the same: denial (‘Did I hear that right?’ ‘How is it possible?’), followed by practical  reasoning (‘How do you manage to fit in one car?’ ‘Where and when does everyone sleep?’), followed by disguised relief (‘Well I think we’re going to stop at two’ ‘I don’t know how you cope as well as you do’).

To be honest, though, I’ve grown used to having a supersized family.  To me, six is the new normal and anything less would feel something of a loss.

Browsing through a stall at a local flea market a few years ago, I came across a children’s picture book, the title of which was enough to immediately capture my attention:  Le papa qui avait 10 enfants.

Ten children!  (Denial, practical reasoning, disguised relief…)

But in case you haven’t come across this particular story, here’s the short version.

Once upon a time, there was a dad with 10 children.  Each morning, he would prepare 10 breakfasts before getting them dressed in 10 shirts, 20 socks, 10 pairs of trousers, and 20 shoes.  Then he’d take them to school before taking himself to work.

In the evenings, he’d put all 10 children in the bath, whilst preparing a dinner comprised of 10 eggs, 3 kilos of pasta, 20 sausages, 50 radishes – and 100 strawberries for desert.  Then, after cleaning their teeth, he’d read one story before putting them all to bed.

In the evening, whilst his children were sleeping, he’d secretly build himself a beautiful boat.

When the boat was finished, so the story goes, the dad decided to leave his 10 children at their grandmother’s house and sailed off into the ocean all alone.

The first day, he relaxed.  He fished.  He went to sleep… and woke up 10 days later.

Upon waking, he mistakenly began to set the table on his table for breakfast: 10 bowls, 10 spoons, 10…

Already, he missed his children.  So he went back to collect them, in order that they could join him on his grand adventure.

The end.

I admit that, in ‘real’ life, 10 children would be a bit of a stretch.  But what I’m thinking is quite how elastic modern family life is – in fact, needs to be, these days; which means that it can be stretched into all sorts of unusual configurations, whilst still holding a meaningful form. 

Let’s say that the perfect, circular shape of mum, dad and 2.4 children does exist.  Most of us have found that our families don’t hold this form for long.  We have more children, or less.  We find we can’t have children at all, or decide to adopt.  Extended family members come and go.  Family members pass away – leaving a space where they should have been.  Families break up and attach themselves to other families.

Before you know it, we’ve been stretched by our history in all manner of directions and completely broken the mould of a traditional nuclear family.  We’ve changed.  We’ve adapted.  We’ve grown into something unique and generally used to who we are.

And if we’re honest, we probably wouldn’t have it any other way.

Comments

[olga guy]

Your Correction “It’s all of the time” is not quite true: I wasn’t astonished at all, I’ve just said : 6 it’s a marvelous number, wonderful !

If we look back to the time of empires and ‘belle époque’: every respectable family was composed in this way : parents and 5 or 6 children

And it is still so at some parts of our planet where the ‘reason’ has no yet this powerful domination on the mind

In this context I think you are a rare example of courage and optimism, simply someone who really appreciate and love the life