I had a bajillion kids and feeding them is hard!

[longskirtlotsakids]

From the "i love my large family" FB group:

"I have 7 kids-g-16, b-14,13, 11, 10, 8 & g-7! I can't seem to keep up with them when it comes to food! My boys eat constantly and I've even had to locked foods up to keep them out if it. They have never gone without food so I am not sure why they are doing this. My youngest child was born with a rare genetic disorder and she is very tiny so she eats all the time per dietitians request! I don't know what to do! We are a one income family. Hubby just took a pay cut transferring to a different job closer to home(he is in law enforcement)! Any ideas? Thank you!!"

See, this woman's family planning reminds me of Emily. Hve a bajillion kids close in age. I am not the brightest buld in the tanning bed, but I am guessing that around the time of boy number three- let alone boy number FIVE- that you might just sit and think, gee, these boys are going to grow up someday and be teenagers. Feeding them MIGHT be expensive.... lets see, get a job to buy your kids more food?

THe responses are fabulous.

"Oatmeal 50 pounds and 50 brown rice another food stretcher"- really? That's your solution? Feed your kids like they were in Africa?

"Buy some indoor fruit plants."- unless you have a mutilayer hydroponic garden that fills a 12X12 room, there is NO WAY a few plants will feed FOUR PRE or TEENAGE BOYS.

DO the fundies just not get it? That a lot of mouths eat a lot?

[eowyn1217]

Idiot. Seriously....idiot. If you can support multiple children, GREAT. Not my problem.

My problem is people like this who LOCK up food! Either you have a developmental problem in your child - not understanding things like "don't get into this cupboard" or you are starving them. I just don't get it. Don't you feel bad, esp when you have teenage boys who EVERYONE knows are going to eat more, and you are locking them out of food? I would totally bust my butt and get a job just so that my children would not have food locked away from them. Yikes. But no....please.....just go back into the bedroom and make another baby you can't afford to feed. Cuz that's the Godly option here.

[ILoveJellybeans]

Maybe her answer should be to get a job herself. All of those kids are old enough to go to school, so she should send them to school and get a part time job.

Locking up food is sad :( Surely that means she should be feeding her kids more as theyre starving.

[Lillybee]

She could ask the Generation Starvation lady for advise.

[frumper-rump]

My oldest is about to turn 14 and my little is 14 months old. My grocery bill is ridiculous right now, but large amounts of good food is high on my priority list since my teenager is underweight (eats like 2 grown men) and my baby is, well, a baby who is literally growing before my eyes! There is no way a parent can be that short sighted to not know it's going to be expensive to keep up with pre-teen and teenage appetites! I feel for those children.

[chaotic life]

The grocery budget of a passel of teens was ONE of the reasons that went into my choice to go back to work part-time. The reality that I wanted to continue to provide allowances, extra-curriculars and HEALTHY food options were more of that decision process.

I can feel total empathy about the food budget. Mine are 17-4.5 and the boys just don't eat more than the girls. They are all like hoover vacuum cleaners and NEVER STOP EATING. I am not about to lock up the food, deny them food, nor use starch fillers and not give them real, adequate nutrition.

[JenniferJuniper]

The grocery budget of a passel of teens was ONE of the reasons that went into my choice to go back to work part-time. The reality that I wanted to continue to provide allowances, extra-curriculars and HEALTHY food options were more of that decision process.

I can feel total empathy about the food budget. Mine are 17-4.5 and the boys just don't eat more than the girls. They are all like hoover vacuum cleaners and NEVER STOP EATING. I am not about to lock up the food, deny them food, nor use starch fillers and not give them real, adequate nutrition.

I only have one boy, 11 1/2. He hasn't hit his major growth spurt yet and it's unbelievable how much he consumes. No comparison between him and his older sisters. I fear the future. When people have baby boys, I tell them to never mind college, open a food savings plan account as soon as possible.

[niagarahauls]

I only have two boys 7 and 9 yo but when they are in their relentless eating machine mode it can be startling how much food they go through. I remember when my older brother was 12, he grew about 11 inches in the course of one year. He used to drink a gallon of milk a day and eat two sandwiches for a snack an hour after dinner. It was like he was a starving person. It would be cruel to lock the food away or fill him up with cheap filler.

[HoneyBunny]

Fundies like to diss single moms for making poor life choices, but, really, so many of them are even worse. Not every big family is like the Duggars. In fact, probably 99% don't have their money. Common sense says that, if you can't afford these gifts from God, maybe you shouldn't have the "birthday party" that invites the gifts.

And speaking of boys and food...I used to be able to feed the twin boys (little friends of mine) breakfast out for the cost of two donuts. Now, breakfast at Waffle House for them (I just had coffee) was $22. These kids can EAT. And they're only nine. It's going to get so much worse.

[doggie]

what god does not feed her children? must not have the right or enough faith.

[Sumeri]

When my boys were all home and teenagers, I would spend hundreds of dollars on food per week. The three of them would drink two gallons of milk a day IN ADDITION to all they ate. Dinner was often two chickens plus whatever we had on the side. Even then they would be up in the kitchen poking around for more an hour after dinner.

I think I've shared the story here of the time I made 3 dozen cookies for a bake sale, ran to the store to get something, and when I got home they had eaten them all.

So what I did, crazy as it sounds, is go to work, often more than one job, so that they could eat. Crazy, right?

[dairyfreelife]

Maybe it has to do with the way the male body grows or something, but my teenage brother is like a baby. The kid literally has to eat every two hours. Like he comes home at 3:30 from school or thereabouts, eats a meal, eats again around 5-6 and again around 7-9 and often snacks again between 10-12, depending on school the next day. Yes, teenagers, especially male teenagers, seem to suck up food like a vacuum, which means sucking up your food budget also. In my experience working with tots and school-age children, they go through spurts of wanting to eat a lot also. Sometimes I wonder where they put it all in their little bellies. I swear some days a five year old can eat more than me when they hit a growth spurt.

[lorem ipsum]

We have 3-year-old twin boys who currently eat 3/4 or more of an adult serve at meals (they aren't remotely overweight, just extremely active). When people ask if we're having any more children, one of my joking responses is, "No, we're going to have to get second jobs just to feed the two we have once they're teens!"

I remember how much my brother ate at that age -- denying a growing teenage boy (or girl for that matter) of good healthy food when you have an alternative is just wrong!

[KBepote]

I have two preschool-aged boys who can out-eat both me and their extremely active father at every meal - and snack in between. With the imminent arrival of boy #3, I am terrified of their future consumption. I can't imagine feeding 5 boys.

[Syd+Marky]

I have 2 kiddos-d.16,s.11.They have fairly normal appetites when they aren't going through a growth spurt, but even when they aren't eating ravenously they still eat 4 meals a day.I make 'after-school dinner' and 'late-dinner'.They're hungry when they get home from school.I remember that I was always starving by the time school was out, too.Thats why I started making a one-course meal (like pasta or stir-fry) for when the kids got home from school, then around 7:30 we eat protien and veggie meal.It's not always exactly like that-we do take-out and pizza sometimes, and bbq alot in summer.I can't imagine having to feed 7 kids when feeding 2 is so expensive.Locking up food just isn't something I can really fathom.Birth control makes much more sense to me.

[freesarah88]

Forethought and planning. It apparently didn't happen for this person.

[Conuly]

It's not just boys who get like this when teenagers. I remember that age, standing in front of the fridge with my foster sister literally shoveling food into our mouths. I don't know about her, but I felt like I would NEVER be full, and I was ALWAYS tired. And I had already hit my adult height at that point! But I was still filling out, and that took energy.

If your kids are hungry all the time you can add more fillers like rice (pro tip: if you really have to stretch the meal, make some sort of very spicy or very salty or very sour dish that goes with rice and cut the meat SMALL. They'll have to eat more rice to handle the sauce, and everybody will feel like they got a lot of meat) and it is always healthier to eat more beans than meat anyway, so you can make more food altogether. You can encourage your kids to eat more foods that are dense with protein and fats and thus filling. (Eggs! Avocados! Avocados baked with eggs in the pits!) but that only goes so far. Growing bodies need to eat! If we really couldn't feed the nieces, you can bet we'd all be doing whatever it took to earn the money to feed them! I would be at the food pantry every week, and asking my neighbors for any help they could spare, if it really was that bad, and you can believe that we'd go hungry before they would! They're growing! How do you get SEVEN kids before you work out that growing bodies need a lot of food?

[Sydney Fox]

I have three kids - girls 14 and 6 and a boy almost 3. My kids are very tall, but very skinny, and they eat good food constantly. We live in northern Canada, so food is expensive. Mr. Fox and I usually don't eat much fruit because we save it for the kids. Our monthly food bill is about the same as our mortgage. I would never dream of locking up the food because I want the kids to eat when they're hungry.

Fundies like to brag that they have so many kids in their quivers, but they don't seem to enjoy actually caring for and raising them.

[Tator Tot Tubby]

People can be so shortsighted when it comes to kids. They have a baby and see the cost somehow staying steady. I think fundies have it extra hard because they're so caught up in the new babies constantly that they don't always have the time to step back and really comprehend how many children they have until it's too late.

[notsocommon]

I have a 10 year old girl child that eats everything in sight...except veggies. Those are icky! :lol:

We keep a basket of healthy snacks stuff in the pantry that she's free to graze off of. That, alone, costs a fortune!

[Antigone]

Sev and I don't drink milk, but Sevy goes through two gallons or more a month at 6. We end up shopping at Costco and winco to cut some of the costs of feeding that kid, but we would never lock away food. We save all of the "good stuff" for her, and I mostly eat the crap food or small meals to stretch things out if things get thin at the end of the month.

I shudder to think what our food bill will be like when she is older (she is tall and active, and quite social: won't stop growing and always having friends over. Sigh). More incentive to plant that damn vegetable garden I keep thinking about. We already have three types of fruit, and that works to help keep costs down during summer... and I only have that one. People who have more than one are brave.

[NoneandDoneinCali]

This is fucking crazy - if your mentally "healthy" children (and by that I mean as healthy as possible under the extreme legalism they live under) still scrounge for food at night, that means they're not getting what they need at meal time.

Look, I am a graduate student. My grocery bills are usually (okay, I may overspend at times:/) about $30/$40 a week. And I have full care of my pre-school-aged niece about three days a week. Granted, that is one kid and one adult, but my monthly income hovers around $400 and I have all my other bills to pay. However, I always always always have apples, bananas, and oranges around. Oatmeal from Costco (NOT the gross stuff you boil forever). Whole wheat bread and Peanut Butter. Rice (and various sauces/garlic for flavor). Beans. Cheddar cheese for snacks. And we do just fine. It's like $3/$4 for a bag of fruit! I'm a terrible cook - my oven doesn't even work right now. We eat frozen veggies. AND I'm a vegetarian! And my niece is perfectly happy grabbing an apple (AUNTIE! PEANUT BUTTER TOO!!) for a snack between meals (and p.s. she can have a healthy snack any damned time she wants). Our biggest splurge is the giant carton of Goldfish crackers (jeez - $12 for crackers??). Peanuts are pricey, but I put like a teaspoon of them in with her Goldfish and Voila!! trail mix.

My point is, why do they have to lock the fridge? Why not just cut down on whatever gross frozen/pre-made crap they eat and leave healthy stuff for the kids? Carrots are cheap - throw in a little ranch or italian dressing, and there you go. Fresh fruit ... a tub of beans (I don't slow cook mine, but you can to save money!! Just some garlic powder and hot sauce and you're good to go) and some corn tortillas for midnight burritos. WTF, guys. Stop controlling every single aspect of your children's lives. A hungry kid will eat something healthy and cheap if they don't have the option of Hot Pockets.

I will never understand these assholes. :wtf:

[sewingmom2]

A good friend of mine has 10. The first five are 1 girl/4 boys and the next five are 4 girls/1 boy.

They live in the country with a cow, chickens, huge garden, and so forth. They purchase in bulk from a Mennonite store and buy beef from a neighbor. She also shops at Costco and Sam's Club. She's a great manager and has always fed them nutritiously. One of her favorite "tricks" is to serve up a homemade oatmeal or apple cake every afternoon around 3 pm, along with several pitchers of fresh milk. The kids scarf down the cake and milk and are "good to go" until supper, when dad gets home around 6:30 pm. She cannot afford typical snack food but the kids love the cake/milk combination and the two she makes have more nutritional value than brownies or chips or cereal bars.

It is possible to feed a large family on a budget, especially for women who have "old-fashioned" skills like gardening, canning, cooking from scratch, raising chickens/goats/calves/rabbits, and so forth. They are hard skills to learn if one has no experience and "second nature" for those who grew up practicing them.

My great-grandmother raised 14 (no losses) during the late 1800's, with no running water, no central heat, and no "grocery stores" for supplies. It's not a life most of us would want, but it isn't necessarily a bad life, imho.

[Mama Mia]

I had a client once who had several teenagers who were on probation, she also had an open case with CPS. The teens would skips school and hang out all day eating while mom was at work. There would be nothing left by the time she got home, and no money to get more till payday. So probation told her to lock the food up. Then CPS came over when the food was locked and almost scooped up the kids to foster care again, because they couldn't get to the food ! Poor Lady, stuck between a rock and a hard place.

[lizziesmom]

Guess what fundies -- having all these children is expensive. Maybe instead of praying for more, you should focus on praying for loaves and fishes ....... :angry-banghead: Or, better yet -- the adults should get jobs and so should the older kids to help with the income needed to provide basic necessities of life, like sufficient food for all the mouths you brought into the world.