Based on some recent Hollywood remakes – including “Cheaper by the Dozen,” “Cheaper by the Dozen II” and “Yours, Mine & Ours” – one might assume that the average American family has between 12 and 18 children.
In fact, the average family today has only two children, which is half the size of the average family when the original “Cheaper by the Dozen” was released in 1950. No wonder the remake’s advertising slogan – “The more, the scarier!” – resonates with today’s parents.
The popularity of these recent movies might reveal nostalgia for the large-family lifestyle. But I can attest that living in a big family is an acquired taste.
I already had two brothers and a sister when my mom announced at the dinner table that another baby was on the way. The news hit me like a foul-smelling diaper. A few months earlier, I helped my parents give away the last of our well-worn baby supplies, clothes and furniture to celebrate the fact that my 2-year-old brother no longer needed such things. Another child meant restarting the now familiar process of spoon-feeding, potty-training and baby-watching.
At age 13, I felt I was getting too old for these sorts of chores. My mom, who was over 40, undoubtedly shared my reluctance and worried that her last child would be born in a different millennium than the others. But two days before the New Year’s ball dropped, Patrick was born.
Our family was now more than double the size of the average American family – an alarming fact that manifested itself each time we tried to find hotel accommodations, booked tables at restaurants and shopped for groceries.
I now found myself sandwiched between two car seats in the van. Upon piling out at our destination, we ran the risk that strangers would mistake us for a school group. It was almost impossible to find TV programming that everyone agreed upon, or to avoid stepping on action figures. Most disturbing was the pile of dinner dishes that my brother and I had to wash.
As I grew older, however, I began to see over the stack of dishes and recognize how invigorating it was to be part of such a crowded dinner table. I enjoyed the constant activity, helping the “little ones” balance on their bikes, and re-reading my favorite childhood books aloud. Every time we went on excursions without our parents, I developed a greater sense of responsibility while my younger siblings enjoyed a sense of autonomy.
Whether it’s advising the kids on which houses are the most promising trick-or-treating candidates or relating to their social dilemmas, siblings can relate to and learn from one another in ways parents cannot, no matter how involved they try to be.
Having young siblings has taught me much more than I anticipated. They inadvertently school me to be fun-loving, curious and patient. I’ve dramatically improved my bargaining skills by trying to persuade them to eat their broccoli or turn off the television without starting a civil war. They invite me to recount, and re-live, my own childhood experiences each time I walk them to my former elementary school or cheer for them on the soccer field (they wear the same uniforms I once wore).
Their contagious laughter and voracious appetites for popcorn makes watching old Disney films bearable. Furthermore, Santa, the tooth fairy and the Easter Bunny still deliver gifts to me after all these years!
All five of us now have our own unique positions on the after-dinner dishwashing team: some wash, some dry and Patrick bangs the pans together. Without calling a single friend, we can field teams for squirt-gun fights, backyard basketball and hide-and- seek. With so many options, we are rarely bored, and never lonely.
While I once tried to hide the fact that I was one of five siblings and 52 cousins, I’m now proud of such alarming statistics.
We may not be as successful as the Kennedys, or as harmonious as the von Trapps from “The Sound of Music,” but we still enjoy the support and safety of our numbers. Call me old-fashioned, but I still like to think “the more, the merrier.”
Michael Koenigs (mckoenigs@hotmail.com), a graduate of Denver’s Regis Jesuit High School, will be a sophomore at Harvard in the fall.
