Big Families

[Darth_Eric]

Let me begin by saying I love our faith, especially the Eucharist. I have profound respect for the teachings of the Catholic Church and I do not want to be a stumbling block to any one. That said, I am the 44 year old father of 7. Clearly my wife and I took seriously the Catholic teaching with respect to family planning. Our problem now is that our parish and school give great preference to small families and even look down upon big families. At a recent school meeting, the topic was raising additional funds (beyond tuition) to have parties for the teachers. A nice idea to be sure, but the expense was getting out of hand when some one spoke up to say that large families might have difficulties meeting these expenses on a per child basis. Some one yelled, “Well then they shouldn’t have had so many kids.” The group as a whole shot down any attempt to support the big families and reacted with a disdain toward big families in general. Even our priest, whom I love, has been speaking on the topic of money constantly of late, and he knows that the big families struggle, so we are left to sit in the back of the room as second class Catholics. On the one hand the Church teaches us not to use birth control, then on the other hand, the Church shows very great preference to small families. I love our faith, but I am very hurt and confused of late.

 

[HCC]

Let me begin by saying I love our faith, especially the Eucharist. I have profound respect for the teachings of the Catholic Church and I do not want to be a stumbling block to any one. That said, I am the 44 year old father of 7. Clearly my wife and I took seriously the Catholic teaching with respect to family planning. Our problem now is that our parish and school give great preference to small families and even look down upon big families. At a recent school meeting, the topic was raising additional funds (beyond tuition) to have parties for the teachers. A nice idea to be sure, but the expense was getting out of hand when some one spoke up to say that large families might have difficulties meeting these expenses on a per child basis. Some one yelled, “Well then they shouldn’t have had so many kids.” The group as a whole shot down any attempt to support the big families and reacted with a disdain toward big families in general. Even our priest, whom I love, has been speaking on the topic of money constantly of late, and he knows that the big families struggle, so we are left to sit in the back of the room as second class Catholics. On the one hand the Church teaches us not to use birth control, then on the other hand, the Church shows very great preference to small families. I love our faith, but I am very hurt and confused of late.

That’s absolutely horrible! I’m so sorry you’re faced with this challenge. Know that what you’ve done will provide you with unimaginable blessings.

For you–Psalm 128:3
“Thy wife as a fruitful vine, on the sides of thy house. Thy children as olive plants, round about thy table.”

 

[Robert_Burns]

Let me begin by saying I love our faith, especially the Eucharist. I have profound respect for the teachings of the Catholic Church and I do not want to be a stumbling block to any one. That said, I am the 44 year old father of 7. Clearly my wife and I took seriously the Catholic teaching with respect to family planning. Our problem now is that our parish and school give great preference to small families and even look down upon big families. At a recent school meeting, the topic was raising additional funds (beyond tuition) to have parties for the teachers. A nice idea to be sure, but the expense was getting out of hand when some one spoke up to say that large families might have difficulties meeting these expenses on a per child basis. Some one yelled, “Well then they shouldn’t have had so many kids.” The group as a whole shot down any attempt to support the big families and reacted with a disdain toward big families in general. Even our priest, whom I love, has been speaking on the topic of money constantly of late, and he knows that the big families struggle, so we are left to sit in the back of the room as second class Catholics. On the one hand the Church teaches us not to use birth control, then on the other hand, the Church shows very great preference to small families. I love our faith, but I am very hurt and confused of late.

Well when I see large Catholic families it makes me know that the furure of Our Church is in good hands. It saddens me to hear that your fellow parishioners ostracize you. And let me tell you to have courage , my friend - because you are doing the will of GOD. My wife and I only had 5 Children and we both wish we could have had more. My wife is from a family of 13 and I from a family of 6. You are blessed to have all those precious gifts from GOD. And your rewards will come with the passage of time. GOD knows its a struggle. But do his will and he will reward you - either in this life or in the next.

May GOD Bless you.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Let me begin by saying I love our faith, especially the Eucharist. I have profound respect for the teachings of the Catholic Church and I do not want to be a stumbling block to any one. That said, I am the 44 year old father of 7. Clearly my wife and I took seriously the Catholic teaching with respect to family planning. Our problem now is that our parish and school give great preference to small families and even look down upon big families. At a recent school meeting, the topic was raising additional funds (beyond tuition) to have parties for the teachers. A nice idea to be sure, but the expense was getting out of hand when some one spoke up to say that large families might have difficulties meeting these expenses on a per child basis. Some one yelled, “Well then they shouldn’t have had so many kids.” The group as a whole shot down any attempt to support the big families and reacted with a disdain toward big families in general. Even our priest, whom I love, has been speaking on the topic of money constantly of late, and he knows that the big families struggle, so we are left to sit in the back of the room as second class Catholics. On the one hand the Church teaches us not to use birth control, then on the other hand, the Church shows very great preference to small families. I love our faith, but I am very hurt and confused of late.

It is not correct to say “the Church” shows very great preference for small families. It doesn’t. What you’re talking about is a PARISH that doesn’t show much empathy for large families, and a priest who is like-minded or too timid to tell them the truth.

Time was when people who were not blessed by any children or with one or two, were among the most generous people in a parish. I have known some of those kinds. But small families now are not determined by infertility or non-marriage, but by material goals. It’s a terrible thing.

A parish in which I am a “secondary member” because of history, charges $500/year/child. Not so easy for one of my daughters who has seven children, but doable. I help out with it when needed. Tuition, of course, does not begin to pay for the real cost. But it’s a very generous parish; a country town parish. My grandchildren attend there.

The parish in which I am an official member charges several times that much without providing anything more, and the parish elected to spend two million dollars on a parish hall (adult entertainment center, I call it) and raise tuition. It’s a far wealthier parish than the one my grandchildren attend. Yet, its collections are considerably less. Of course, there are special collections for the parish hall debt, and they’re fairly well subscribed. It was needed, you see, for “fellowshipping” and such.

It’s a matter of one’s individual values, not those of the Church. Personally, I contribute more to my “seconary parish” than to the one of which I am officially a member, and do a lot more work there. Of course, the “secondary parish” has a lot more fund-raising activities to work at than does my own parish. Interestingly, the first are exceptionally well-attended, while the second are not.

Part of the reason, I suppose, for the attendance at my “seconary parish” activities is the generosity of the people who run them and contribute to them. I love working at them. Among other things, our custom is that if some little wide-eyed kid can’t hit the target with the bean bag or whatever, or ring the bottle, to get him/her in close so he/she can win. I have held little kids’ sticky hands right over the bottle, and said “Drop it now. Drop it. Oops! I told you wrong. Get it and let’s drop it again.” until the kid finally wins. My fellow workers just laugh, along with me and the kid’s parents. So what if the kid wins a “bouncy ball” or a plastic police whistle or a little fuzzy bear? Some parishioner will have paid for those things anyway, and didn’t mean for us to be jealous with them. Various lottery prizes have included a gold Kreugerrand somebody donated, a fed steer, a classic car some parishioner restored himself, a bottle of wine that retails for $700, a certified bank check for $1,000 and so on. One guy sells funnel cakes every year, and pays for all the stuff himself. Even bought the deep fryer equipment for it. Brings it back and sets it up every year. The parish gets the money. Another old man and old woman make homemade ice cream, right on the spot, at their own expense, and sell ice cream cones. That’s expensive stuff they’re using. Real homemade ice cream is expensive to make, and they sell a lot of it. But the parish gets the money. And those are country people donating things like that. And no, nobody gripes because it pays for the school. And nobody gripes if some single parent gets to put his/her kid in for less or for free. They’ll make it right some way and someday, if only to show up after school to make “sets” for the Christmas play.

There are big, big differences in parishes as well as in people.

 

[rben20]

Let me begin by saying I love our faith, especially the Eucharist. I have profound respect for the teachings of the Catholic Church and I do not want to be a stumbling block to any one. That said, I am the 44 year old father of 7. Clearly my wife and I took seriously the Catholic teaching with respect to family planning. Our problem now is that our parish and school give great preference to small families and even look down upon big families. At a recent school meeting, the topic was raising additional funds (beyond tuition) to have parties for the teachers. A nice idea to be sure, but the expense was getting out of hand when some one spoke up to say that large families might have difficulties meeting these expenses on a per child basis. Some one yelled, “Well then they shouldn’t have had so many kids.” The group as a whole shot down any attempt to support the big families and reacted with a disdain toward big families in general. Even our priest, whom I love, has been speaking on the topic of money constantly of late, and he knows that the big families struggle, so we are left to sit in the back of the room as second class Catholics. On the one hand the Church teaches us not to use birth control, then on the other hand, the Church shows very great preference to small families. I love our faith, but I am very hurt and confused of late.

Don’t listen to their hisses. I want a big family one day and truly being part of a big family is amazing…it’s a gift from God. It’s saddening that people view children in economic terms and actually it’s not just saddening, but also disgusting. They are God’s creation that we share in. Never let anyone make you feel like that…not even a priest for that is not what the Church teaches at all, it is simply his OPINION which you can disregard like the trash it is.

 

[Barbkw]

Darth Eric,

Thank you for having deep faith, conviction and trust in God with your family.

IMO, teachers should be throwing a party for families (not the other way around).

If they require extra money from you to throw this party, reduce the amount you put into Sunday’s collection. (Rob Peter to pay Paul).

 

[Milesius]

You are in a bad parish, you have my sympathies, don’t make the mistake of thinking your parish speaks for the Church, it doesn’t.

There are a lot of parishes in the US it seemed to me last time I was there that only seem to be concerned with making money I was quite appalled to find everywhere solicitations for money constantly even in the priests sermon week in and week out at one parish.

I wouldn’t even mind so much if it wasn’t wasted so much.

So don’t let these worldlings get you down, they represent the world with their behaviour not the Church.

 

[Rocky]

It is not correct to say “the Church” shows very great preference for small families. It doesn’t. What you’re talking about is a PARISH that doesn’t show much empathy for large families, and a priest who is like-minded or too timid to tell them the truth.

Time was when people who were not blessed by any children or with one or two, were among the most generous people in a parish. I have known some of those kinds. But small families now are not determined by infertility or non-marriage, but by material goals. It’s a terrible thing.

A parish in which I am a “secondary member” because of history, charges $500/year/child. Not so easy for one of my daughters who has seven children, but doable. I help out with it when needed. Tuition, of course, does not begin to pay for the real cost. But it’s a very generous parish; a country town parish. My grandchildren attend there.

The parish in which I am an official member charges several times that much without providing anything more, and the parish elected to spend two million dollars on a parish hall (adult entertainment center, I call it) and raise tuition. It’s a far wealthier parish than the one my grandchildren attend. Yet, its collections are considerably less. Of course, there are special collections for the parish hall debt, and they’re fairly well subscribed. It was needed, you see, for “fellowshipping” and such.

It’s a matter of one’s individual values, not those of the Church. Personally, I contribute more to my “seconary parish” than to the one of which I am officially a member, and do a lot more work there. Of course, the “secondary parish” has a lot more fund-raising activities to work at than does my own parish. Interestingly, the first are exceptionally well-attended, while the second are not.

Part of the reason, I suppose, for the attendance at my “seconary parish” activities is the generosity of the people who run them and contribute to them. I love working at them. Among other things, our custom is that if some little wide-eyed kid can’t hit the target with the bean bag or whatever, or ring the bottle, to get him/her in close so he/she can win. I have held little kids’ sticky hands right over the bottle, and said “Drop it now. Drop it. Oops! I told you wrong. Get it and let’s drop it again.” until the kid finally wins. My fellow workers just laugh, along with me and the kid’s parents. So what if the kid wins a “bouncy ball” or a plastic police whistle or a little fuzzy bear? Some parishioner will have paid for those things anyway, and didn’t mean for us to be jealous with them. Various lottery prizes have included a gold Kreugerrand somebody donated, a fed steer, a classic car some parishioner restored himself, a bottle of wine that retails for $700, a certified bank check for $1,000 and so on. One guy sells funnel cakes every year, and pays for all the stuff himself. Even bought the deep fryer equipment for it. Brings it back and sets it up every year. The parish gets the money. Another old man and old woman make homemade ice cream, right on the spot, at their own expense, and sell ice cream cones. That’s expensive stuff they’re using. Real homemade ice cream is expensive to make, and they sell a lot of it. But the parish gets the money. And those are country people donating things like that. And no, nobody gripes because it pays for the school. And nobody gripes if some single parent gets to put his/her kid in for less or for free. They’ll make it right some way and someday, if only to show up after school to make “sets” for the Christmas play.

There are big, big differences in parishes as well as in people.

Your daughter’s parish is the exception and not the rule. $500 per child per year for tuition is unheard of around here. Our daughter has 4 children two of whom are school age (gr. 2 & K) and she and her husband pay $4,000 for each child. She is already afraid that they will have to pull their children from the school because they will not be able to pay the $16,000 (or more with future inflation) per year for all 4 of her children to have a Catholic School education.

For some people homeschooling would be the answer. Our daughter is a wonderful wife and mother who is well educated, but temperamentally would not be able to homeschool.

It was a sacrifice for us to send our four children to Catholic schools but it was doable. Now it seems that my grandchildren will not be so blessed.

 

[Keegan524]

I teach in a Catholic school, and I’m glad we’re able to give steep discounts to families who have more then 4 kids. I think they are free or very close to it. It’s the families with 2, 3, and 4 children who seem to feel the $3500/yr./child squeeze. We have several families with more than 6 children, and I’m glad they’re able to get some sort of relief from tuition with all their children.

Sometimes I feel the other way - that judgment rains down onto my family because I “only” have two children. People assume we use(d) birth control, or chase after material goods instead of having children. This breaks my heart because I always wanted many children, and it hurts when people make assumptions as to why I “only” have 2. I would hesitate to pass any judgment on the amount of children any family has…because we don’t really know the reasons. I had my first baby 9 months after our marriage, and our 2nd came the next year. Then…nothing. We’ve lost 4 babies in the last 7 years, and now our boys are 13 and 14 and then there is this big empty spot (several) in our family and our hearts.

So, while I am empathetic to you, that people would be so uncaring and insensitive about your large family, rest assured there is just as much judgment coming to those of us who do NOT have a large (or large "enough) family.

 

[zab]

I teach in a Catholic school, and I’m glad we’re able to give steep discounts to families who have more then 4 kids. I think they are free or very close to it. It’s the families with 2, 3, and 4 children who seem to feel the $3500/yr./child squeeze. We have several families with more than 6 children, and I’m glad they’re able to get some sort of relief from tuition with all their children.

Sometimes I feel the other way - that judgment rains down onto my family because I “only” have two children. People assume we use(d) birth control, or chase after material goods instead of having children. This breaks my heart because I always wanted many children, and it hurts when people make assumptions as to why I “only” have 2. I would hesitate to pass any judgment on the amount of children any family has…because we don’t really know the reasons. I had my first baby 9 months after our marriage, and our 2nd came the next year. Then…nothing. We’ve lost 4 babies in the last 7 years, and now our boys are 13 and 14 and then there is this big empty spot (several) in our family and our hearts.

So, while I am empathetic to you, that people would be so uncaring and insensitive about your large family, rest assured there is just as much judgment coming to those of us who do NOT have a large (or large "enough) family.

You are right. There is enough judgement and misunderstanding from all sides. And I am sorry to hear about you losing 4 babies.
I can understand the OP’s situation. We usually had 3 or more in Catholic school for several years. All ten of our children went to Catholic school. (And it wasn’t free or close to it for our family anyway.) We often missed the cut off when applying for scholarships through the archdiocese. There was assistance through our parish as well. There were a few years when we applied but many years we did not even apply for assistance. And it wasn’t just large families that were able to get assistance if they needed it and qualified. While I am empathetic with the OP’s situation, I can understand the need for his pastor to be asking for money. The money to run the parish and upkeep has to come from somewhere. We have contributed to large fundraisers and building funds, building a new school and a major church renovation as well as tithing and giving to the annual catholic appeal. It is just part of our duty.

 

[BernadetteM]

My grandchilren go to Catholic school in a wealthy area. There are four, but the school only charges for three of them. Also they have been having financial problems and the school helped them financially. I guess it depends on the Pastor and principal.

Regarding large families, my parish is pretty traditional and the largest family I know of has 15 children. They are a beautiful family and all the children are very well behaved.

I would say that the average for many of the families is 5 to 8 children. The children are all very well behaved and even two year olds genuflect. It is lovely to see whole families at Mass.

Yours in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary

Bernadette

 

[MerryCatholic]

Let me begin by saying I love our faith, especially the Eucharist. I have profound respect for the teachings of the Catholic Church and I do not want to be a stumbling block to any one. That said, I am the 44 year old father of 7. Clearly my wife and I took seriously the Catholic teaching with respect to family planning. Our problem now is that our parish and school give great preference to small families and even look down upon big families. At a recent school meeting, the topic was raising additional funds (beyond tuition) to have parties for the teachers. A nice idea to be sure, but the expense was getting out of hand when some one spoke up to say that large families might have difficulties meeting these expenses on a per child basis. Some one yelled, “Well then they shouldn’t have had so many kids.” The group as a whole shot down any attempt to support the big families and reacted with a disdain toward big families in general. Even our priest, whom I love, has been speaking on the topic of money constantly of late, and he knows that the big families struggle, so we are left to sit in the back of the room as second class Catholics. On the one hand the Church teaches us not to use birth control, then on the other hand, the Church shows very great preference to small families. I love our faith, but I am very hurt and confused of late.

hmm well, i grew up in the 70’s and we have a huge family believe me. but we never had a problem either. i also go to a parish where there is no preference for smaller families. can you talk to the local bishop and see if there is a particular school for your not so large family? 7 to me is not large. its just right