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.
That’s beautiful.
Did you go to Key West for that? My mouth is watering. I hope Wagglebee passes this one up too! (Psst. Looks like it has bananas in it.)
:) Only Key limes can be used. A traditional Key lime pie is not green.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_lime
Lunch?
So one day I'm over at her house in the afternoon when kids are getting back from school, and she sees her neighbor across the street pulling his mini-van into his garage, and his kids (4 or 5, in their Catholic school uniforms) tumbling out, kinda skipping and jostling and buzzing hither and thither, like kids do.
"Gosh that makes me mad," she remarked to me.
"What?"
"Just evey day, it makes me angry to see them."
"What? (Blink.) I mean, why?"
"Because it's so selfish. It's so selfish and irresponsible for them to have that many kids!"
"What? (I'm thinking adjectives: abundant? plentiful? generous? Are those sysnonyms for selfish?)
And then cautiously: "Why do you say... selfish?"
"Because they're taking more than their share. They'll need more of everything. They'll compete. It's unfair for them to compete like that against my Kenneth."
Well, that floored me. I don't think I said anything after that. But it stuck with me for (sigh) probably almost 40 yeats. Competing against her Kenneth? Competing for what? Schools? Her Kenneth wasn't going to a Catholic school. Money? They had none of hers. Marriage partners? One of those girls could end up being his bride (Heaven Forfend!) Jobs? But don't "people" also represent customers, clients, producers, developers, suppliers, colleagues, employers, vendors, --- every other category of people who comprise an "economy" once you pry yourself away from that one irksome concept, "job competition"?
What she was angry about was "human society" --- that little slice of human society she could see out of her front wondow. A.K.A. "other people".
Back to the thread. I haven't read it, and ain't gonna because...
Yes, what we're seeing is baby-hatred and it's sex-hatred (disgust for sex which is normally functional, which makes a bond and takes root and is fruitful and multiplies)and particular contempt for the female procreative role. I've seen FReepers use the phrase "popping out" babies (that makes me see red.) I've even seen "farting out" babies (that makes me see red with bolts of lightning).
Yes, it's misogyny, and it's misanthropy actually. "Bah, people. Walking on my earth. Breathing my air."
So one day I'm over at her house in the afternoon when kids are getting back from school, and she sees her neighbor across the street pulling his mini-van into his garage, and his kids (4 or 5, in their Catholic school uniforms) tumbling out, kinda skipping and jostling and buzzing hither and thither, like kids do.
"Gosh that makes me mad," she remarked to me.
"What?"
"Just evey day, it makes me angry to see them."
"What? (Blink.) I mean, why?"
"Because it's so selfish. It's so selfish and irresponsible for them to have that many kids!"
"What? (I'm thinking adjectives: abundant? plentiful? generous? Are those sysnonyms for selfish?)
And then cautiously: "Why do you say... selfish?"
"Because they're taking more than their share. They'll need more of everything. They'll compete. It's unfair for them to compete like that against my Kenneth."
Well, that floored me. I don't think I said anything after that. But it stuck with me for (sigh) probably almost 40 yeats. Competing against her Kenneth? Competing for what? Schools? Her Kenneth wasn't going to a Catholic school. Money? They had none of hers. Marriage partners? One of those girls could end up being his bride (Heaven Forfend!) Jobs? But don't "people" also represent customers, clients, producers, developers, suppliers, colleagues, employers, vendors, --- every other category of people who comprise an "economy" once you pry yourself away from that one irksome concept, "job competition"?
What she was angry about was "human society" --- that little slice of human society she could see out of her front wondow. A.K.A. "other people".
Back to the thread. I haven't read it, and ain't gonna because...
Yes, what we're seeing is baby-hatred and it's sex-hatred (disgust for sex which is normally functional, which makes a bond and takes root and is fruitful and multiplies)and particular contempt for the female procreative role. I've seen FReepers use the phrase "popping out" babies (that makes me see red.) I've even seen "farting out" babies (that makes me see red with bolts of lightning).
Yes, it's misogyny, and it's misanthropy actually. "Bah, people. Walking on my earth. Breathing my air."
Excellent post, Mrs. D.
People like Kenneth’s mother are a mystery to me. I would never want to know first hand what makes them the way they are, but I still can’t help but wonder. To me, they are an unsolvable mystery.
Well I’m baking a ham for dinner. I have some rhubarb I’ve been meaning to make a pie with, but I’ve decided I just don’t fell like rolling out a crust. So I’m going to try a rhubarb and honey glaze for the ham. I hope it turns out good.
“Well, I was going to respond, but I hit the ‘back’ key in the middle of a copy/paste, and it all went away.”
Been there, done that. I usually take it as a sign from God that I shouldn't have posted the post in question, anyway.
“So, to summarize, I will say I’m sure we agree more than not, and that chasing details around in circles is probably not helpful to anyone at this point.”
I think it is not only helpful, but vital to clarify the discussion as I've tried to do.
The folks in the article seem like upstanding folks.
Folks who suggest otherwise post unworthily.
But conflating or equating recipients of Social Security with recipients of welfare is wrong.
And suggesting that recipients of Social Security haven't fully earned what they get is wrong.
And suggesting that folks are possibly hypocritical when they frown upon those who make careers out of taking welfare for illegitimate babies and then the folks go cash their Social Security checks is wrong.
That's all.
sitetest
Thank you for sharing that (really ;-). Sometimes I think I’m nuts, that I’m the only one who senses a deep and personal hatred for ME, as a woman, as a woman who has babies ... as if having babies were not the natural outcome of what used to be natural human life. Everything is modern life starts from the “default setting” that sterility is the norm, and that divergences from this norm had better be carefully planned and thoroughly justified to everybody “out there.”
Even writing that’s supposed to be positive about motherhood still treats every child as if the mother had chosen to order him or her from a catalog, rather than simply was feeling a little positively about her spouse. “You decided to have this child for X,Y, Z motive, so now you have to ... blahblablah stick a metaphorical knife through this book and have a few drinks.” No, actually I had the few drinks and thought, “You know, I remember why I liked this guy!”
(rant off ... the byos are shredding to get my attention)
Quite so. Have some crickets and a dish of sushi rice.
Not sure what this is supposed to infer but my DIL's father is a pastor where they also have a school. He didn't even get a discount for his children to attend the school, however, you pay full for the first child, get a discount for the 2nd, etc. By the time you get to the 11th, you most likely don't have to pay anything.
I’m so happy you’re able to have this large family and make it, even if you have to pinch pennies.
I love when I see people have large families these days, it’s so rare.
There are some, I remember a neighbor, she had 7 kids and her husband up and left, wonderful woman. Yes, she was on the dole BUT I would not begrudge one penny given to that woman, that’s what welfare should be for, there is no way she could have worked and paid enough for child care for her kids. She played the organ at church, she was a wonderful mother and all her kids grew up to be normal, productive citizens.
My only wish is that cases like this were taken care of locally through churches and local funds, any time the federal government gets involved, total waste of taxpayer money is involved.
She was stating, as the article had stated, that the children did not attend public school.
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