ED SAID - It’s a numbers game – but it’s not really a game

Funny, but when one talks about families in large numbers people immediately see you as Catholic. This, of course, emanates from the non-contraception era and, though personally not Catholic, numbers generally breed numbers and those numbers are perceived differently from generation to generation.

Last weekend we took delivery of our last granddaughter. Not just the latest but what will most likely be the last giving us a total of 15 grandchildren – a number many people find hard to come to grips with. Though the wonders of IVF tell us women in their 60’s are giving birth, apart from asking ‘why?’ I doubt any such thing will be happen in our family though we do have one grandson thanks to modern science.

My father was one in a family of 11 children, not uncommon through the early 20th century. Though most of them only produced ones and twos, I became one of eight offspring – quite a sizeable brood for the 40’s and 50s. When Del and I produced five during the 70’s this again left some aghast when anything more than ones and twos was seen as over indulgence.

I’m not sure if it’s a record but on the first day of winter sport this year we had eight grandkids participating at the same complex – two playing rugby, one playing soccer, two playing hockey and three playing netball. It can add up to quite a few sausages in the end.

So now we have two daughters with four each, a son and daughter with three each, and another daughter with one, a mixed rugby team of eight boys and seven girls,the oldest being fourteen, and that’s when the fun starts. No, literally, that’s when the fun starts.

Unlike many, we do have the luxury of having our family all living within an hours travel radius and being barbeque people spend a lot of summertime with each other and there are few things that warm the soul like three generations of “kids” playing happily together.

Sure, we well know the old adage “it’s only fun till someone gets hurt” and rough and tumble games invariably bring a few tears, sometimes through minor injury or from youngsters who can’t quite keep up with their more boisterous siblings. Life, however, brings its own trials. 

One family member turned a very mundane activity into a broken neck leaving him predominantly wheelchair-bound but fortunately still able to be a functional family member. One toddler was very fortunate to survive a vehicle accident, and we have the usual smatterings of broken bones, slow readers, mortgages and the usual angst that besets all families but the pluses far outweigh the minuses. Realistically, and while it doesn’t bear thinking about, in todays world the odds of getting this number of children safely to adulthood are long indeed.

However, we like to think that ‘somebody up there likes us’ and are simply thankful for all we have heading into summer and like all other families out there we look forward to enjoying the sun, sand and sausages (hopefully not mixed), and hope others are similarly optimistic. 

Cheers from the team,

Rob