Posted on 08/17/2011 11:17:55 AM PDT by NYer
ROCKVILLE, MD, August 16, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) — The astonishing story of a Maryland family with 11 children, ranging in age from 1 to 12, has been featured in a back-to-school piece by the Washington Post Newspaper. The August 10 story chronicles the Kilmer household's day-to-day life and details how they manage to stay lighthearted and have fun while balancing what some might consider an impossibly difficult lifestyle.
Read the Washington Post story here.
In an interview with LifeSiteNews (LSN), Larry Kilmer, a native of Halifax, Nova Scotia, said he viewed speaking with the Post about his family as "an opportunity to show that large families can exist and survive in the Washington area."
"It was a chance for others to see that with some sacrifices it can be done," he said. "Despite the fear that 'you cannot survive,' we wanted to show that it is possible."
The article introduces readers to Larry, a high school teacher, and his wife Jen, a stay-at-home mom, as well as children Christina, Joe, Michelle, Julie, Tommy, Steven, Matthew, John Paul, Larry, Rosemary, and Peter, none of whom are twins or triplets.
The feature chronicles the Kilmer family's daily life, from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. It notes the many challenges the family faces, but also highlights the many blessings, including the tight friendships shared by the children and the role that the "rock of Faith" plays in the Kilmer household.
"A large family helps to instill in a person many of the strong values and virtues that a society needs in order to survive and continue," Kilmer told LifeSiteNews.com. "In my opinion, the issue of putting others first is at the heart of a large family as you work and exist with other human beings in a close-knit environment."
Commenting on the Washington Post story, Jenn Giroux, founder of Speaking of Motherhood, who is also the mother of a large family, told LSN, "This is an incredible and fair portrayal of this beautiful large family. It is rare to get this perspective from a liberal media outlet."
"Large families have a positive impact on society," Giroux said. "At a time when our national birthrate is dangerously low, large families are producing the future workers that will sustain the elderly in the very near future… They are raising the next generation of Church and political leaders."
"At the heart of large families is the surrender to God’s supreme rights over our lives and an embrace and love of His gift of children," she said. "Unfortunately, this is a foreign and/or unknown concept that has been gradually lost over the last 50 years."
"It requires ‘blind trust’ in God in times of difficulty," Giroux said. "This is a difficult concept for a contracepting society where those today seek to control everything from the day they conceive to sometimes the very sex of their baby."
Read the Washington Post story here.
For some reason known only to yourself, you feel compelled to make crazy claims - aka "lies" - and insist that they are true. You seem upset and angry, and I don't get it. Making gigantic and hideous straw men and claiming they belong to everyone else is not a rational discussion method.
It was neither a lie or a strawman, it was sarcasm, which was apparently lost on you.
You forgot the /sarc tag.
Weren’t large families more common back in the old days?
Al Gore says, “A pox upon this irresponsibly large family! BLASPHEMY!!!”
Maryland PING!
I have to admit I find these stories to be kind of funny. Pull into the back lot of our church any given Sunday and you’ll see all the 12-15 passenger vans parked back there. Our church is full of huge families like this one. It’s a perfectly normal everyday occurrence. I forget that it is newsworthy to some. We’re one of the smaller families in our homeschool community!
AFDC, WIC, food stamps or any other similar welfare programs.
Oh I’ll gladly like to be reimbursed for the money confiscated from my check for SS.
But I’m a Gen-Xer, so I’m not holding my breath.
I guess large families are more common in Missouri. This is Maryland, where you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a no-more-than-2-kids liberal commie progressive.
I am the youngest of 14 kids. We never even got so much as a free block of cheese. Dad owned a gas station, Mom was a dietician at hospital. She baked homemade bread, made her own noodles and they saved the old grease to make lye soap. All went to Catholic school (they did get a discount after 3 kids). All siblings graduated, never out of work and not one penny of welfare or aid from anyone. To this day, we are extremely close. Love big families.
“It’s pretty damned simple: Anytime the government takes money from Person A on behalf of Person B to pay Person C, it’s freakin’ welfare.”
Which would include social security. Which would also include payments made to pay for the police officer that patrols your neighborhood.
The point is that by raising 12 children, these folks are in effect providing a future subsidy to you. Who do you think is going to pay the taxes that are going to repay you even that small portion of the amount that you were taxed as part of the social security scam? Who do you think is going to attend to your needs when you are no longer able to? Who do you think is going to be providing the future growth in your investments? If the cost for that future benefit is some pittance in EITC payments today, then frankly it’s not all that big of a deal to me.
There is such a thing as cutting off your nose to spite your face.
As for the lamentation that you’re arguing with conservatives about welfare, lets make sure that we’re talking about all welfare here. Including corporate welfare. The amount of money that is paid out in WIC or AFDC is chump change compared to what went out the door as a result of TARP. Yet you don’t see many conservatives railing on about that set of welfare queens.
“There are positives both ways.”
Huh?
Now it looks like the kids bring their lunches to school, so that they are likely not enrolled in the program.
Fifty years or so ago it wasn't at all unusual to see families with six or more children, NONE of the mothers worked and NOBODY wondered if they were on welfare. The difference is that nobody thought it was strange that these families didn't buy new cars every couple years and for their kids when they turned 16, nobody thought it was strange that these families didn't take multiple luxury vacations every year or eat in fancy restaurants several times a month.
Far too many Americans have traded children for materialism; however, while they certainly have every right to do this, they need to understand that there are still many people who aren't driven by avarice.
Well said!
It's pretty damned simple: Anytime the government takes money from Person A on behalf of Person B to pay Person C, it's freakin' welfare. You can't seriously compare taking money you earned and money I earned and giving it someone else in the form of a rent voucher to pay a landlord. You (I'm presuming) and I would have to pay for the same housing out of our own pockets.
Ditto for food stamps. When someone takes the money from you and me to pay for someone else's groceries it's freakin' welfare.
I'm curious, have you established yet that this family receives ANY public assistance or are you simply assuming that they are because that fits your agenda?
EVERYTHING you posted on this thread yesterday was based upon assumptions that had no foundation in truth.
The only "benefit" that we can be certain this family receives is that they pay less income tax than a childless couple with exactly the same income and living in exactly the same house would pay. Are you opposed to people taking advantage of tax deductions?
How much more do you think it costs to raise eleven children as opposed to one child? You seem to be operating under the assumption that it costs eleven times as much and that's simply wrong.
I don't get a damned thing out of the money taken from me and given to welfare queens.
Why don't you start a thread about actual welfare queens because that description simply doesn't fit this family. The Octomom NEVER WORKED, this man has a good job. The Octomom would have probably been a terrible mother with one child, every indication is that these parents are wonderful. The "welfare queen" mentality develops over generations; multiple uncared for children is just one facet of it; it isn't the cause.
We need them, regardless. The Moslems are outproducing us 2:1, at least.
The Washington comPost says so. If they didn't, the comPost would make an issue of it.
so that they are likely not enrolled in the program.
No, not likely at all. It's a matter of mentality. Some people see a shortage of money in their family, and think "I need to go down to the welfare office, find out every program I qualify for, and get my piece o' the pie. I'm entitled." Some people see the same shortage of money, and think "I need to earn more and/or spend less". Everything about this family, as presented in the comPost article, suggests the latter attitude. There are similar big families in my extended family, and they display the latter attitude as well. I can't imagine these people sitting in line waiting for a handout.
I just don't think many families today could imagine having a stay at home mom that does not drive.
I live in the Kansas City area. We have tons of liberals here! I can’t leave the house without someone commenting on the number of kids we have. When we’re at home and everyone is doing their thing it really doesn’t feel like we have a lot of kids. It’s simply our life! There is never a lack of sweet baby hugs and kisses at our house. But when we go out in public other people make us feel like a freak show. We could start a new thread on all the ridiculous comments we get from total strangers about our reproductive choices. Truly mind-boggling!
Back in the early 70s, we lived in a high-poverty area of Southern California. One year, the state decided to provide free lunches for everyone in our school rather than identifying individuals by income. Some days my brother and I took our lunches, others we ate at school ... especially the days when the Mexican-American cooks made Mexican food!
It never occurred to my mother that this made her a “welfare queen,” I’m sure, any more than my father’s VA benefits and Navy pension make them “on the dole” today.
I would summarize the attitude - obsession, almost - as “Somehow, even if I can’t figure out how, those people’s existence must be taking something from me!” It must be very bad for the digestion ...
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