This series is dedicated to expounding on the benefits of a large family. So often, we are bombarded with the “disadvantages” of having children, but no one talks much about all of the incredible benefits! It’s high time we place the value of children in its proper place. Feel free to leave your comment about your favorite benefit of having a large family, or just benefits to having children in general. Of course most of these benefits are based on the assumption that the children are raised in a Christian home, and trained properly according to God’s standard of child-rearing.
Today’s benefit is:
A large family supports the common adage that “many hands make light work.” It is so true! Every time someone gasps at all my children and says, “I don’t know how you do it! I can barely handle my two!” I assume they don’t have a clear picture of what a large family can look like.
I have done less house work in the last few years than ever in my life. And the work I do is less boring because I have so much little help. Now, unless you are about to scoff at my “slave-driving”, let me clarify. Work is GOOD for children. In our entertainment-centered culture, that theory is becoming less popular, and parents are often accused of heaping unfair amounts of work on their poor, deprived children. I’m not denying that somewhere, some family requires too much of small children, but most of the time that is not the case.
In most families, the work and play and fun is healthily balanced and the children learn proper responsibility, while sharing the work load and developing a bond of unity between the members. Any time people are a part of a team, having a common purpose with a common goal, those people develop of sense of closeness that is unmatched by any other. Working together as a family accomplishes that level of unity.
A child as young as 1 or 2 can begin to pick up things off the floor, and straighten their rooms under the direction of an older child. If all the chores of a household are divided between mom and three or four or five children, nobody has to do a lot of work. My five year-old can completely clean the kitchen by herself, from the loading/unloading of the dish washer, hand washing, drying, putting away, sweeping the floor and wiping down the cabinets. What’s even better…she LOVES it! She begs to do it! (Grab that while it lasts.) And though she won’t always beg, we do hope that by the time she is less thrilled about her work, she will recognize its value and feel the contentment from a job well done.
6 comments
I think that a lot of those with one or two children by choice will also choose to do the majority — if not all — of their housework alone, not requiring the help of their children. Then they do see that as a burden, rather, and it often takes up much of their Saturdays, or else it barely gets done enough. We are all different, though, and have different priorities. Some can manage time and clean up, etc., better than others, no matter what the situation. It is excellent training for the children in responsibility and integrity, earning self-respect, and in strengthening family bonds. I think it’s better training than working at Taco Bell, or the like, if there is a choice to be made.
I cannot agree with you more!
I am amazed at how much our ‘small’ family of 5 can get done in a day when we all work together, and the older they get the more wonderful it is!
I often wish God would have given us a house full of boys! ;o)
Wish you would address the benefits of a large family again… 🙂
I wish you would too!
Just tonight we got another laugh from our youngest. As our oldest was leaving the house to meet the parents of the young man she is courting, our littlest yells out to the young man…” And DON’T kiss her!” Of course we all burst out laughing as we know where that statement comes from. She equates kissing with sharing germs and is so grossed out. He blushed as red as a beet and as they drove off I said again…”that’s the beauty of a large family…the little’s can say the cutest things for the benefit of the older’s.”
I beileive this is so TRUE! I come from only a family of four but we moved a whole house with six people, 4 were kids in about three days and had everything clean in the old and new house in two. Delgating work and having an older sibling teach the skills saves mom a lot of time.
[…] a large family forces the parents to engage the children in all household duties. In smaller families, it sometimes seems easier and quicker for a parent to just do the clean up, […]