You sure have your hands full!

Ok if you are a mom at all, I am guessing you've heard this. As I approach having 4 kids instead of three I find myself getting kind of self conscious about the whole 3 going on 4 idea. I guess I hear "You've sure got your hands full" so regularly when I've only got 2 with me (I hardly ever go anywhere with ALL of them) that I think to myself what they might think if they saw me with all my kids, and even better, when this baby comes, what they'll be thinking as they pass me in grocery store aisles on those days the kids are giving me a run for my money. I guess I just feel like 3 or less kids is considered normal and once you break that number, people start to wonder if you know what birth control is. I think maybe I should just wear a name tag that says "I'm a Mormon" so people won't have to wonder and I won't have to explain.
However, today I was thinking about just that... being "Mormon" and having a lot of kids because people do associate large families with Mormons so it comes as no surprise when they find out you actually are Mormon as if that's an explanation for why you are carting your excessively large brood around. Unlike orthodox Catholicism (I made that term up myself) Mormon's are "allowed" to use birth control but at the same time the culture encourages large families because of the commandment "multiply and replenish the earth." I think most people think we feel we have some duty to fulfill that commandment to the letter and thus produce numerous children, I actually don't believe this is the reason there are so many large LDS families. After all, the commandment doesn't actually specify number of children. You could have one kid and still be fulfilling the directive. So I found myself analyzing why exactly we do have that many children. For one thing, large Mormon families have been around so long that large families are "accepted" and "normal" so people who want large families don't have to feel self-conscious about having them. I don't think that's entirely it though. I think it is more a result of the LDS focus on family in general and how we are taught to believe that our greatest joys in life come through our relationship with our family. LDS women, especially, more than any other religious or secular culture, believe in their purpose as the bearers and nurturers of children. We believe and are told over and over how important our work is so I think there's a greater sense of fulfillment in motherhood if you are LDS. It's natural, if you feel that way about raising children, that you would want to have many kids. When you associate yourself with a culture of people who see raising children as a divine work and the people around you encourage you to see and appreciate your children SO much, and you do it, you just want to keep doing it. It really is all true which is why I think large families continue to be found in our church. We've got something special I think, as LDS women and LDS families. And it's not something you find often anywhere else. So despite getting those telling looks from old ladies at the grocery store and feeling like everybody is watching me sit my youngest down in the shopping cart for the 5th time while the other ones are whining at me to let them get this or that, I love being the mother of almost 4. I get to share my life with 4 more spectacular people and when I'm old and gray, the chances of some of them living near me is fairly high. They will always be in my life in some fashion and the more the merrier I think when it comes to family. I'm so grateful for mine.