Big family can reward with peaceful little society

“Because I Said So” column for The Commercial Appeal

March 15, 2012

What we create with a large family, other than a large mess and a lot of noise, is our own little society within a society. It has its own rules to be broken and its own hierarchy to be either respected or usurped. It has its own ways of operating to ensure that the machinery of family and home run smoothly.

The best way to keep things operating evenly, of course, is for all of the cogs in the machine to work together, for these brothers and sisters to come together and work as a team, all with the same goal of cleaning the kitchen, agreeing on what will be watched on television or simply passing the potatoes down the table at dinner.

When there is discord, factions develop, and strife becomes the norm; war breaks out over an otherwise peaceful land, and no one is happy. Happiness, and quiet, are the overarching goals every day.

I’ve been reading “The Saturdays” by Elizabeth Enright to my 9-year-old daughter at bedtime. It’s the story of the Melendy family with four children that mirror my own — two boys, two girls — living in a Manhattan contemporary to the time of the book’s first publication in 1941. Lamenting not having enough money to do what each really wants, the siblings agree to pool their weekly allowance (a total of $1.60) and take turns privately doing what each likes on Saturdays. By the end, they realize they don’t want to go off on their own for a day, but decide instead that it will be more fun to have their adventures as a group. It’s the story of working together for a mutual cause and respecting each others’ wants and dreams … (read more)