This is my attempt to de-bunk some common myths as I know them.
My answers are my answers only and are just based on my knowledge from experience as I know it to be true and not on clinical trials. (unless sited)

* for this particular post, I am using the most common comments and questions that I have been asked through the years.

1. Are they all yours?
This is by far the most often asked question. Because my kids are different races, I will often be asked this in a backwards kind of way, IE “they can’t all be yours, are they?”.
I also always find it interesting that people feel they have the right to just come up to me and ask. It’s not like I walk up to them and ask them personal questions about themselves.

2. Do you have a favorite?
Yes...
I really, really like Jill aka Scary Mommy’s response to this question:
My favorite child is the one who is annoying me the least at the moment
Ok, to be honest, I am sure all of the kids (except Will) would say that Will is my favorite and by favorite, they mean he’s special, to me and to all of us.
He just is,
no way to avoid it.
But, it doesn’t make him my favorite, it just makes him extraordinarily special to each of us.

3. You must be a saint.
Hardly.
Faithful yes, but saintly, absolutely not.
I lose my temper.
I yell.
I make an idiot out of myself because I don’t always know the answers.
I’m not perfect,
Very far from it.
But I do my best and try to enjoy it every day.

4. You must love kids.
Yes.
I better or I would be crazy

5. Are you rich or something?
If you mean financially, then no.
Honestly, most large families I know tend to be middle class, just like us.
It’s all just a matter of balancing your life and figuring your priorities out.
For us, it means taking less extravagant vacations and buying clothes at Target or WalMart or using hand-me-downs. But it also fits the kind of family we are…. we would much prefer spending a night outside around the campfire or hanging out at the lake rather than a weekend at an amusement park.
And, don’t get me wrong, we do things like that with our kids… movies, or out to dinner, or amusement parks. It’s just that we don’t do it often and I think the kids tend to really appreciate it when we do because it is so rare.
Now, if you aren’t meaning financially rich, then yes, I absolutely do feel rich.
I feel blessed by the life I have been given and feel like God had rewarded me greatly with wonderful children.

6. Your house must be a mess.
Sometimes, but most of the time it is organized chaos.
I am very big on organization and honestly, I think in order for most mega families to run “properly” there needs to be a sense of balance and togetherness.

7. Your grocery bill must be insane.
false.
I would bet my grocery bill is not much bigger than a lot of families because I tend to cook everything from scratch and buying pre-made foods tend to cost a heck of a lot more.
And, what I do buy, I always buy on sale, with coupons, or in bulk.

8. How many sets of multiples do you have?
This one is sort of crazy. I have been asked this one for years, even before I had twins. I think it’s just assumed that if I have lots of kids that there must at least be one set of multiples.
While I know the likelihood to have multiples increases with maternal age as well as births, I know LOTS of mega mamas that don’t have any multiples.
Mine came via medical assistance.

9. Do you want to be the next Duggars or something?
It always makes me laugh that people assume that whatever flavor of the week happens to be popular (the Duggars right now, Jon and Kate a few years ago) that mega families would of course want to be just like them.
While I do truly respect how organized and well behaved the Duggar family seems to be, I can not say that I have ever wished to be followed by cameras and ripped apart by the media for my life choices.
No thank you.

10. You and your husband must “get busy” all the time.
Gonna get honest here…
5 of my kids are adopted, so I didn’t really have to get as “busy” as a bunch of my mega mom friends have
However, I will say, before the affair, and partly why it “stung” so badly was that yes, in fact, Russ and I did have a great intimate relationship. We always have and honestly, I think it has to be necessary in a family that is so centered on family.  If all we ever focused on were our kids, our marriage would collapse.
It is completely necessary for a husband and wife in any family to have a healthy relationship, to remain happy and focused.
(we lost that, for a while, when Russ cheated, and if not for the fact that our love has always been constant, it could’ve destroyed us. )
I will add, though, that as the kids get older, it does become more and more complicated to find alone time without flat-out just telling the kids they need to leave us alone so we can “get busy ”

This is a new series of posts I have started. I’ll be de-bunking myths from my experiences.
Future posts: adoption, foster care, autism, raising boys, homeschooling… to name a few

Previous Myth Buster Posts:
Myth Busters ~ Infidelity
Myth Busters ~ Republicans