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.
Thank you! :)
There are always lessons to learn, even with memories.
Forgiving those who have done or meant me harm, is just one of many.
(((BIG HUG BACK ATCHA)))
Every life has sorrows - they’re meant to soften our hearts towards others.
Thank you!
Bless you, friend. :)
The welfare state only increases the number of people who think like the woman in your story, Mrs. Don-o. I don't recall hearing many complaints about large families growing up. I do now.
I understand people are upset by single moms whose children have multiple fathers, and the mother and children are supported on welfare. But not when the parents are married, the children have the same father and the family is self sufficient. It's too bad people immediately assume they must be getting government assistance.
Thank you for yours, TAdams.
It breaks my heart to read your story, LJ. So tough to cope with a mother like that. It is truly amazing some people have the all right values despite the fact their parents didn’t.
It’s that precious free will - making a choice even a little towards God can make a huge difference after a while, kind of like a 2 or 3 degree change of direction - after miles, you’re in a totally different place than you would have been.
Each soul always has choices, every minute.
(Never a dull moment - my motto.)
Er, maybe this weekend. Tom has fixed my camera: James did something to it so that everything was massively out of focus, even when it wasn’t moving.
But it’s not the same since his father shaved his head ... not the same at all.
Yes, but it makes it all the harder to make moral choices or even see them when our own parents encourage the opposite. Otherwise how children are raised, would cease to be a topic of importance. But we all know, it’s crucial to the development of moral adults and in general a moral society.
The same to you, Mrs. Don-O!
NO! Tell me that isn’t so! Those lovely curls are gone?
My mother just rolls her eyes at me (by email, these days), but she did say once that she didn’t realize how much good I was doing until many of her friends or guests mentioned that, having two, three, or even four children of their own, they didn’t have any grandchildren!
I know my aunt and uncle were about to despair before one of my (three) cousins finally had a child, not long before Frank was born. And they were born Catholic, too, not wandering in through the dimensional gullet. (That’s from another thread ...)
Tom plans to make sushi. He might have tried it tonight, but he forget to get the seaweed at the Asian grocery store, so it will have to wait until he gets back from his weekend campout. He can practice with the rice, first, anyway. A useful ambition, imo ... and the Asian grocery will sell him a live fish out of the tank, once he’s mastered some techniques using “krab.”
Totally. They’ll probably grow back, though, when he gets out of the dirt-on-the-head stage. Pat’s do, if we let him go too long between haircuts, and Bill has perfectly styled wavy locks of which he is insanely proud.
We've never made sushi, but I don't think it's terribly difficult. I think the tricky part is mastering the bamboo thingy that resembles a placemat.
We got the bamboo thingie. The ingredients of “California rolls” are cheap, so he can practice ... and if it turns out wrong, it’s krab-and-rice salad.
Yes, he can always grow it back if he chooses. All of your children have great hair. I wonder how that happened? :)
I love having avocado as part of the ingredients. It’s luscious. I also like having caviar on the outside of the rice. It’s pretty and adds a nice salty snap. Most children probably wouldn’t care for it, though.
You are totally right, TAdams. Although children are not completely “blank slates” - they each are unique right from the start, and their own particular flars and gifts manifest in course of time, raising ill or well makes a huge vital difference in how they turn out.
There are alwasy some who turn out ill despite the best efforts of parents etc, and some who turn out well despite a terrible upbringing or bad influences.
But the general rule applies in the vast majority of cases. And those with malignant upbringings often carry scars, or keep working out the bugs (so to speak) for decades.
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