Non-Fundie Megafamilies?

[Jana814]

I agree, the definition of mega-family really depends where you live or in what culture I think.

Before knowing about the Duggars, I used to think I came from a big family. I am the last of 5 children and it was very uncommon to find other people with so many siblings when I was in high school. Considering most families in my area consisted of two children and two adults, my schoolmates were often surprised by the size of my family. I had one friend in high school that was also one of five. Her family was sunni muslim but certainly not fundie. All the kids went to public school, they didn't have restriction regarding clothes, listened to mainstream music and tv, her and her siblings all went to college afterwards ($$$ I know!), you know, very secular stuff.

Now that I know about the Duggars, Bates and other fundies, my little family of five seems rather small though. :P

Interesting about your friend. My classmate had a brother (who I was also friends w/) who was 13 months older then her. After him her parents decided to have her cause they did want him to be lonley, cause the closest age kid to him was 6 when he was born.

[calimojo]

My kids have been fully public school educated and have thrived. It never crossed my mind to Homeschool and in my community, I could never understand why someone would because our schools are pretty damn good. It is likely that my community is not representative of a lot of public school systems, so I recognize we were very fortunate.

For those of you who chose to HS for non-religious reasons, what went into your decision?

[Quiverfullofit]

My girlfriend and I are both the youngest of 7. Her family is closer in age though, (her closest in age is 2 years older, mine is 15) and neither of our families are very religious. Her grandmother had about 12/14 but I'm not sure how many lived to adulthood.

But I agree it depends where you live but also how old the children are. 4 under 4 isn't the same and 4 under 20.

[calimojo]

my dad was the first of 8 children but it had nothing to do with religion and more to do with lack of education, poverty and no access to birth control. My grandmother had 2 or more miscarriages in between her live births as well. The lived in the deep south and often "farmed" kids out to various relatives because they could not afford to raise them. With 1 exception, all the kids grew up to be educated, employed, kind and decent people. One son followed his father into severe alcoholism, and some small time criminal activity and he died in his mid 30's, somewhat suspiciously. But 7 out of 8 went on to advanced degrees, married and had more "normal sized" families.

My BIL is from a family of 13, strict Catholic ( not fundie, but definitely didn't use BC). I don't really think it was "Choice" to have that many, it was just expected that they would not prevent pregnancy. The last one had profound developmental issues, and was never able to live independently after her parents died. She died soon after from likely a broken heart, imo.

The remaining kids all married and had normal sized families. I don't know most of them well, but they seem like good hard working people. My BIL certainly has fond memories of growing up in their small little house, 4 kids or more to a bedroom, and often to the same bed. Despite that though, he did not want more than 2, and my sister managed to eek a 3rd one past him before he got snipped.

But back then Large families weren't celebrities like they are now. I mean, in my small town, we had a family of 11 and I guess they were pretty well known for that, but they weren't getting newspaper or radio interviews or leading the little town's thanksgiving parade. They just were living life the best they could, like the rest of us.

[neuroticcat]

We homeschool. Out here in the NW, there are a lot of secular homeschoolers. Before the fundies took over homeschooling, there were a lot of liberal homeschooling pioneers homeschooling for philosophy of education reasons. I think as homeschooling becomes more accessible, we might see more non-fundie homeschoolers again.

However, I have a good friend who homeschools in the south, and she struggles because almost every homeschool family she comes into contact with is either fundie or fundie-light.

[docmom]

Sparkly Lauren unschools and she is most definitely no longer fundie

[Alexandra]

My kids have been fully public school educated and have thrived. It never crossed my mind to Homeschool and in my community, I could never understand why someone would because our schools are pretty damn good. It is likely that my community is not representative of a lot of public school systems, so I recognize we were very fortunate.

For those of you who chose to HS for non-religious reasons, what went into your decision?

My daughter began experiencing health issues in middle school. She begged to be homeschooled because she was so sick. Now that she is better, she just really loves HSing.

A little bit of background would be that my DD was already very pro-HSing prior to this because we almost HSed her the year before because she did not want to switch school districts again. She ended up changing her mind, though.

Now, I cannot speak for my DD, but I will say that she really wants to HS her own kids one day.

Based on what my DD says, for her it is now how good or bad the schools are, she just thinks that extra time with her children would be precious, and in addition, she feels that child-led learning is superior to any school district in the early years.

[neuroticcat]

I still am ambivalent about homeschooling, but this is our second year doing it. My son went to traditional kindergarten and by the end of the year the teachers were designing individualized curriculum for him to do to keep him challenged. We did not ask for any of this, by the way, it was just what they felt was best for him. At the end of the year reading evaluation we were told he was reading at a 5th grade level and they didn't know what they would do the following year.

I say all this not to say: look how brilliant my son is! But actually because I really hated that he was being labeled that way. I've come to feel that traditional education has the potential to do a great job educating kids who fall within certain parameters. But it doesn't do so well with the outliers on either end, and I really didn't like that the limits of classroom instruction were putting him in this separate category. His teachers affectionately referred to him as "The Brains" which really bothered me. I get that it's not technically a negative term, but I really didn't want my son labeled, and I really didn't want him to start internalizing: I am smarter than other kids. I take the approach that learning should be organic, and I was really uncomfortable with the comparison/evaluation that is kind of the default of the system.

So, for me, I saw that if this was going on in kindergarten, it was going to be a long road ahead with independent learning as well as him being labeled by others as "the smart kid" and, in the end, perhaps labeling himself that way. I figured, if he was going to have instruction tailored to him anyway, I might as well do it at home and forgo all the labeling. It's worked out really well so far. The public schools here have alternative learning programs that are more like university-models. So we go to "school" once a week for several classes, and as he gets older he could enroll part time or even full time if that suits. And I like the flexibility it affords, because I have other children who may not take well to homeschooling. They are in preschool, so we'll see.

**edited for grammar, which is embarrassing when you're writing a post about educating your kids - ha!**

[Jana814]

My kids have been fully public school educated and have thrived. It never crossed my mind to Homeschool and in my community, I could never understand why someone would because our schools are pretty damn good. It is likely that my community is not representative of a lot of public school systems, so I recognize we were very fortunate.

Do we live in the same area cause its the same where I am. I know of families who live in smaller homes in my area just so their kids will get a top notch education.

[dairyfreelife]

I forgot that I have a friend who is the 8th of 9 children. His parents had five children and then waited several years and had four more. So, he mostly grew up in a family with four children, but had eight siblings. Not fundie at all. One died of alcohol poisoning, two are in jail (of the eldest five). The other two he really never talks to or about. I believe his mother had a drug and alcohol problem as well when he was a child,but did sober up by the time he was a teenager. All, but one of the younger children smoke. Only one of his siblings went to college. She is an LPN. His mom got pregnant with his oldest sister when she was barely 14. She had another baby before getting married at 16. His closest sisters had children in a relationship, but not married. His younger brother has lots of mental health problems sadly and will always need someone to take care of him. My friend dropped out of school at 16 and is now trying to get his GED. Dropping out of school is his biggest regret and I have zero doubt he will not allow any of his own children if he ever has any to drop out. I know he would give his young nieces or nephew hell if they ever considered dropping out. He has nieces and nephews older than him, but does not speak to them.

I also went to school with a family who had eight biological children and close to 20 adopted children. I am not sure the exact number as it was always changing. I believe they were all foster adoptions. Some of the children were happy in the large family and others hated it. I think they were Christians, but the children led "normal" lives. Most went to public school and a couple went to a local Christian school for periods. The children played sports and they had a big house with like nine-ten bedrooms and a large play-set and trampoline and multiple vans in their driveway. Everyone knew that was their house. The family with way too many children. :lol: So, yeah, all the mega-adopted families we read about...most of the people around them most likely think they are nuts for having so many children and are always wondering how many children they actually have because the number keeps growing every time they see them. And no, I don't believe all the children love it or are happy to be in such large families. I went to school with the children in that type of family and trust me, some of them were miserable. Yes, some were thrilled and loved being part of a family who loved them and cared for them and about them and did not care about the large size. But I do not believe everyone in them is as happy as the blogs make them seem.

[Mama Mia]

My kids have been fully public school educated and have thrived. It never crossed my mind to Homeschool and in my community, I could never understand why someone would because our schools are pretty damn good. It is likely that my community is not representative of a lot of public school systems, so I recognize we were very fortunate.

For those of you who chose to HS for non-religious reasons, what went into your decision?

3 of our 8 ( blended family, but this definitely put us in very big family territory :) ) were homeschooled for part of Jr. High and/or High School. 1 because school had always been a huge, huge nightmare due to severe ADHD. Despite all the appropriate interventions. He was still treated like absolute garbage at school from Day 1. And once he started Middle School it got much worse academically - because there were so many different things to manage and remember, and, rightly, kids are expected to be more independent in managing their own schedules and teacher interactions and work. And he couldn't. We went back and forth through an in-school based home school program, a charter school, back to regular Jr. high, started at Regular High School, ended up doing home school program sponsored through the school district that he graduated from. I am about 99.9% sure he would of dropped out in 10th grade from regular high school. To say he was involved in risky activities is an understatement, but I think that it would of been worse if he hadn't home schooled.

One other kid who whom schooled had a fairly similar course, except she was more academic in general - but had a lot of other issues. She did fantastic at independent study though. Very self-motivated to learn.

The third kid only home schooled for most of a year in high school, due to some really complicated things I don't want to go into here.

For curriculum, mostly we were very fortunate that the school districts in our area offer various types of free home school programs. The best one allowed for almost complete curriculum and type of activities personalization that was developed between the assigned teacher, the student and the parent. Each semester you would come up with a plan of what courses the kid would take, how that subject would be learned, and the kid would meet with the consultant teacher once a month to go over the work and get suggestions. Credits were awarded by the district and the diploma was as valid as any other through the high schools. You could use textbooks or the sites library materials and other resources for free -- or use your own finds. They also offered a variety of optional workshops, field trips and enrichment classes.

I used a combination of materials, both when going through the district program and when just independently home schooling. Some textbooks, novels, college textbooks, a religious practical math series of workbooks I got off ebay( because they fit what I needed for the particular kid) . On-line courses -- one through BYU , I think because the subject matter interested the kid. Others through secular independent learning sites. For the very hands on kid there were also lots and lots of projects.

If I had been a SAHM I would have definitely HSed the one kid who was miserable from day 1 in public school. In fact if I had one thing to do over I would of found a way to be a SAHM and HS the struggling kids in their early years.

The other kids mostly did just fine with public school.

[lilwriter85]

I also had a friend growing up who came from a family of 7 kids. There weren't too big of a family. His parents were mostly lapsed Catholics. They had all of the kids baptized and all made their First Holy Communions. But only the three older ones had confirmations.

They never homeschooled and both parents worked.

[Cheetah]

I don't homeschool, but I'm part of a community of parents of profoundly gifted kids and a lot of them do homeschool because the public schools don't meet their child's needs and private schools either don't either or are too expensive. People in this group use a lot of various sources but there are a number of online resources for homeschooling gifted kids such as onlineG3, athenasacademy.com, artofproblemsolving.com for math, youthdigital.com for programming classes, Stanford Online high school (not cheap!).

[Mama Mia]

I still am ambivalent about homeschooling, but this is our second year doing it. My son went to traditional kindergarten and by the end of the year the teachers were designing individualized curriculum for him to do to keep him challenged. We did not ask for any of this, by the way, it was just what they felt was best for him. At the end of the year reading evaluation we were told he was reading at a 5th grade level and they didn't know what they would do the following year.

I say all this not to say: look how brilliant my son is! But actually because I really hated that he was being labeled that way. I've come to feel that traditional education has the potential to do a great job educating kids who fall within certain parameters. But it doesn't do so well with the outliers on either end, and I really didn't like that the limits of classroom instruction were putting him in this separate category. His teachers affectionately referred to him as "The Brains" which really bothered me. I get that it's not technically a negative term, but I really didn't want my son labeled, and I really didn't want him to start internalizing: I am smarter than other kids. I take the approach that learning should be organic, and I was really uncomfortable with the comparison/evaluation that is kind of the default of the system.

So, for me, I saw that if this was going on in kindergarten, it was going to be a long road ahead with independent learning as well as him being labeled by others as "the smart kid" and, in the end, perhaps labeling himself that way. I figured, if he was going to have instruction tailored to him anyway, I might as well do it at home and forgo all the labeling. It's worked out really well so far. The public schools here have alternative learning programs that are more like university-models. So we go to "school" once a week for several classes, and as he gets older he could enroll part time or even full time if that suits. And I like the flexibility it affords, because I have other children who may not take well to homeschooling. They are in preschool, so we'll see.

**edited for grammar, which is embarrassing when you're writing a post about educating your kids - ha!**

I have one very gifted child who went through a lot of that. He really didn't have a whole lot of internal competitive drive, so in the end, I think in some ways public school was kind of a disadvantage for him. It was just too easy. He never had to work or struggle with anything from kindergarten through high school graduation. Even in advanced classes. He would be barely paying the slightest bit of attention in class and have all the answers off the top of his head. And he was that way in all subjects -- so it wasn't like he had something he really had to work at. Very, very fortunately he ended up making a very good living -- but there was a time there where it really seemed like he wouldn't be able to make the transition to actually having to , you know, apply himself to basic real life requirements. On the other hand, I think he benefitted greatly from the social interactions that public school provided.

Having a bunch of kids , with a just ridiculous range in academic and social strengths and challenges -- the big drawback to public school, IMHO , is they are great for a certain type of kid ---average to very bright, motivated, rule-oriented, structured --- but not so great for other types. Especially now, as they become more and more lock-stepped ( or at the least the ones in my area are.

[2xx1xy1JD]

A number of my child protection files involved marginal parents having many children. We're talking "going into labor with #11 in the middle of the drinking binge after losing custody of your first 10 kids" degree of dysfunction. Substance abuse, multi-generational dysfunction, sexual abuse, violence - there was a whole lot of rotten stuff that would go into creating those situations.

[church_of_dog]

I remember a mega-family that was in the news in the 70s -- mostly adopted kids, I think many with disabilities. I don't remember anything about them being religious, but then again that's not the kind of thing I was attuned to back then, so I might not have noticed. Anyone remember their name? They had magazine articles about them, but I don't remember them being on tv.

[Sobeknofret]

For those of you who chose to HS for non-religious reasons, what went into your decision?

1. The schools here are less than good. There are a few really, really good schools, but we're either outside of their area, or they're charter schools.

2. Ds went to first a really, really good Jewish school, but it was only preschool and K. After that, he enrolled in a private montessori school, which was great for the first two years, but after that, it sucked. He was 8 years old and couldn't read a three letter word. For 11k a year, I expect much better than that, and it was clear that he wasn't going to get it. Also, the 11k a year was painful to try and come up with.

We pulled him out of school in December, and I was planning on homeschooling him until I could get him enrolled in a charter school in the fall. Ultimately, it worked out so well for us that we just kept going. Darth Kid also has sensory processing issues that have been easier to deal with at home, and he's really thrived with the one-on-one attention and the ability to slow down or speed up his studies as he needs. We spent *months* working intensively on reading, because that was a real problem for him, almost to the exclusion of anything else for awhile, something that would not be possible in a regular school, or many private schools for that matter. It's paid off hugely- he's not a fanatic reader, but he's at grade level and he can handle his school texts easily.

It's hard, hard work, and a lot of sacrifice- not gonna lie about that- but it's been really worth it.

[SoybeanQueen]

We have an excellent public school with fairly small classes near us, and some of my kids go to school there. My reason for homeschooling my son was that he needed more one on one attention than any school could provide. He focuses better with more individual attention.

[Marianne]

A number of my child protection files involved marginal parents having many children. We're talking "going into labor with #11 in the middle of the drinking binge after losing custody of your first 10 kids" degree of dysfunction. Substance abuse, multi-generational dysfunction, sexual abuse, violence - there was a whole lot of rotten stuff that would go into creating those situations.

It's what I knew in foster care. I remember a boy - his mother have had more than 25 pregnancy (with a lot of different father), something like 15 living childrens (the death children all died in horrible condition, before they turned 2), a lot of FAS, two living children with the same name (who was the name of one of the death children), and only 3 children living with their mother - the other were in foster care because of neglect, alcohol, drugs, etc... Oh, and the mother was something like 35 years old - first pregnancy at 14.

[garciarodrigez]

I remember a mega-family that was in the news in the 70s

-- mostly adopted kids, I think many with disabilities. I don't remember anything about them being religious, but then again that's not the kind of thing I was attuned to back then, so I might not have noticed. Anyone remember their name? They had magazine articles about them, but I don't remember them being on tv.

The debolts and where did they get 19

children?

[chaotic life]

We have 9 children. Our foray into Fundamentalism was a direct result of having a large family, not fundamentalism dictated we had a large family. I went in search of practical resources for the daily functions of managing a large family and fell down the fundie trail, at the time the only place I could find resources on things like managing laundry, meal planning, etc.

I never homeschooled for religious reasons, that too came before the foray into Fundie-land. When my oldest came home at 7.5 with no education, my choices were to put him in second grade and make him feel stupid for being so behind academically, put him in Kindergarten and make him feel stupid for being so much older than his classmates, or homeschool him. Over the years, there were very good reasons to homeschool all of the kids and I was always strict to use secular curriculum or design my own if none was available.

Today, we have transitioned and live in a great school district. All but one child are public schooled. The last homeschool has dyslexia but extremely high IQ. The school systems cannot give him the highly individualized education he needs and thus we keep him home.

[Grimalkin]

I was seriously looking at homeschool and even joined an email group of HS in my area. My desire came from my complete hatred of school as a kid and the fact that despite all that, I love learning. I wanted my kids to love learning too. I was dismayed to find pretty much all the homeschoolers I spoke with were very religiouse. I tried to form a group for my son. Three of the women were young moms in their twenties that looked older than me. They had a severe harsh look about them and home churched. The other mom was lovely and a nice lady. Her child had some severe contact allergies. That is why she chose to HS. She was also a teacher. I decided that it wouldn't work if I didn't have an adult support group.

I recall attending an open play date, and a few moms stood around talking about HELL. Not my cup of tea. I also heard of Bob Jones for the first time.

[church_of_dog]

The debolts and where did they get 19

children?

That was them! Thanks so much for remembering -- I kept trying to google-search but wasn't getting anywhere. :worship: :worship:

[for_the_Kitties]

don't forget the Hayes family from TLC's table for 12. 10 kids, two sets of twins and one set of sextuplets. They are Christians, attend a Lutheran or presby church, but NOT fundie, at all.

[Jana814]

don't forget the Hayes family from TLC's table for 12. 10 kids, two sets of twins and one set of sextuplets. They are Christians, attend a Lutheran or presby church, but NOT fundie, at all.

I remember them. They r not Fundie (I thought they were Catholic). They live in NJ (in one of the best areas to raise kids w/ some of best public schools in the state).