10 Things we love about large Mormon families

My friend (mother of five) posted this on her blog and I thought it was pretty funny. Since most of us grew up in a large family, I thought there may be some things here that we can all relate to!

1. Never a dull moment: With so many warm bodies around, there is always someone to play with, talk to or pick on. The possible play/fight combinations are nearly endless. So are the messes: avalanches down the stairs, forts built out of blankets and chairs, mud pits in the backyard. Or someone is getting hurt; trips to the E.R. for stitches or arm casts are always fraught with adventure. The already overburdened car breaks down in exciting places. Appliances, weary from overuse, do things you never would have imagined, like explode. It's better than cartoons.

2. Hand-me-downs: Not a benefit, you say? You didn't enjoy wearing clothes that, by the time they arrived on your back, were patched and stapled together? The clothes tell a tale by themselves -- they carry the fiber of summers on road trips, of winter snowball fights and remnants of crisp autumn leaves wedged under the collar. The pockets hold chewed-up gum and melted chocolate from a different era. By the time the shirts reach the last child, the cotton is worn down smooth as silk and thin as crepe paper. Pure class.

3. Humility: There is nothing better to knock you off your junior high cheerleading pedestal than to witness your mom pulling up in a rusty suburban so filled with kids that limbs and heads are hanging out the windows. Or when your family goes out to eat at Frontier Pies and little brother overeats and pukes on the floor. Repeat performance by little sister at wedding reception. The hymn entreats us: "Be Thou Humble." Done, without even trying.

4. Laughter: More kids just means more comedy. When my son accidentally fell in the toilet yesterday, his brothers were in stitches. I had a sister who, at family talent shows (held almost nightly), would give a new definition to the term "ballad" with her made-up songs. We sat with pillows over our faces to muffle the laughter. We made music videos and laughed ourselves silly. Every large family has a kid or two with perfect comedic timing and who stores up those good family memories like a time capsule.

5. Noise: There is no greater way to learn how to concentrate in chaos than to grow up in a home where the piano bangs, trumpets blare, violins screech and EVERYONE sings. It is like living on the set of a musical, and if you want to read, sleep or study, you teach yourself to block out the mayhem. You learn to tune out the crying babies and wails of siblings fighting. The big Mormon family takes the scripture "make a joyful noise" to an entirely new level.

6. Character building: When there are many hands to give to at Christmas, the packages are much, much smaller. And they usually come from second-hand stores, or the dollar aisle. So you learn to find beauty in gifts like jewelry boxes that have been ripped on top, or coats sporting cigarette burns. If you want a bounce house for your birthday, your mom pulls out the crib mattress. You request a swim party, and your dad fills up the plastic kiddie pool and turns the camping tarp into a slin 'n' slide. You ask for a Cabbage Patch doll, and you receive the generic knock-off that comes, not nestled in a lovely cardboard cabbage, but in a plastic bag. You know that while your parents don't have the means to help you grow your baseball card collection, somewhere, somewhere deep, they are helping you grow a strong character.

7. Abandonment: Anyone else left standing on the steps of their junior high school after a basketball game, just waiting, waiting for your parents to remember to pick you up? Have you circled the halls of the church 15 times after Sunday meetings only to find that your entire family went home without you? Growing experiences, I tell you. Character shaping. And muscle-building too, when you find that your only option is to walk home from church, in Sunday shoes, on ice.

8. An audience: If you like turning heads as a child, and I did, nothing attracts more notice than an family of eight in matchy-match jean shirts sitting at a booth in a restaurant. I would beam with pride: This is MY FAMILY. This was cool. Later, during those awkward teen years, the attention still came, when the WHOLE family came to support games and performances. By then, I would rather slide under a rock than be seen with ALL those kids who were unmistakably related to me. But by the time I settled into my own skin, it was cool again. When all six kids could finally stand onstage and break out in six-part King's Singers harmony, that was attention worth receiving.

9. Low-calorie life: In a big family, if you want the good stuff, you learn to grab it fast before it is gone. Food, while never scarce, is a hot commodity. It is a great way to diet. Fruit roll-ups and granola bars have a shelf life of about five minutes. Same with ice cream and Doritos. However, there are always PLENTY of bananas, apples, carrots and saltine crackers for the unfortunate siblings who don't learn that most of the goodies never even make it on the full ride home from the grocery store.

10. Healthy neglect: No helicopter parenting here. There simply isn't the man- (and Momma) power. So you get to wear your pants backwards and go to church without shoes. You learn to make your own toast at the age of 3. Entertainment means locking each other in a trunk, or creating a haunted house in the basement to scare your sisters senseless. You try to fly off the top bunk or the garage roof using bedsheets and clothespins. You look back on your glorious childhood and wonder (a) Where on earth were my parents? and (b) How did I get to adulthood alive?