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.
I make very plain sushis every now and then - hub and I love them, the bamboo roller things are very easy to master, just make the rice sort of sticky - often mochi or sticky rice is used, actually, and wet the very edge of the nori piece where it will stick on to itself, if you get my meaning.
I used to make them and sell them on trays, I would make the rice and then add a bit of soy sauce (IIRC), honey or sugar and rice vinegar mixed, stir it into the hot rice in a bowl, and mix it. Then when room temp I’d roll them up, with bits of stuff in the middle.
Since I’m a vegetarian, I’d put strips of carrot, daikon (white radish), strips of fried tofu and I can’t remember what else, it’s been a long time since I made them for sale. I’d also make what they called cone sushis (there is a Japanese word I suppose but I can’t remember) in which sushi rice is stuffed into little cones made of pressed fried tofu.
Maybe I’ll go make some rice for sushis right now. Yum - a good filling food that can be eaten cool, good for hot weather.
I'm sure that this family did not set up the system. You don't like it blame the government not the family.
Tom found a “How to make sushi rice” video on YouTube. We can get him a lot of ingredients to work with at home, for the price of one meal of sushi at a restaurant.
Exactly right! As always you state it perfectly. :)
My parents came from large families, particularly my dad. I have many first cousins. We all grew up with the notion, large families were a blessing, and were always proud at the size of ours.
No one had to wait long for grandchildren. That's rarely the case any more. I'm sure you won't either, TC.
Vegetarian sushi appears to be rather popular these days. I’m a fan of wasabi, but it can be lethal!
Some of my grandparents came from large families. Mom’s father was one of 13, on a Northern Ireland farm not much bigger than my suburban house lot, and Dad’s mother was one of five, so they each had many cousins. Numbers had dwindled until my family unexpectedly grew, though!
My oldest daughter is 20 and embarked on a Coast Guard career, with several more years committed. However, I don’t think yon Tom, #3, the teenage sushi chef, will want to get past his mid-20s without children. He’s been crazy about babies since he was a preschooler himself. (Brilliant boy, can be a successful lawyer or politician to support a large family, plus reptiles ;-).
I’m not too anxious about grandchildren, since I’m still having babies myself. Several of my friends over the years have had children after grandchildren were born, just like the Hatfields and the McCoys. “Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the sons of one’s youth; happy is the man who has his quiver full of them! He shall not be put to shame when he confronts his enemies in the gate.”
We have a picture of my great-grandfather (dad’s dad’s dad, gave us my Bill’s middle name) with his 7 brothers, a couple of sisters, and his old mother, most of them holding rifles. If we go back to frontier conditions here, I’ll have my private army, too!
Wasabi - owie! I’m a wimp about heat.
I love the heat! :)
I grew up in Bethesda, and there were more than a few Irish Catholic families with 10 kids or so. I always thought that was pretty neat.
“However, and I’ve said this many times, the truly fatal blow to Social Security occurred in January, 1973. We have killed 53 MILLION people and most of them would have contributed to Social Security.”
Amen, brother. But I’ll take you one further. The primary reason we are in a depression is because of infanticide and excessive levels of contraception.
Look, young people are what drive an economy. They buy the homes, pay the higher food bills, buy clothes for their families. They also create the new business ideas which develop wealth, and take business risks. While it’s true that older people take business risks as well, it’s not so much wired into their makeup. Being a risk taker and yes, reckless, are part of being young.
So not only have millions of would be consumers been wiped out, the population curve has been shifted and we’re an older population on average than we would otherwise be. One that isn’t so eager to take personal and business risks. One that doesn’t need the houses, who isn’t buying so much of the consumption good that fire an economy.
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