Suzanne wrote on the home from college post:
If you are interested in sharing more, I am curious about how the year went in general… how the kids adjusted to life without Rob at home… how it was for you and Paul with only four kids — was there a noticeable difference in… anything? … how William felt about being the oldest… Well, those seem like potentially boring things that you might not want to talk about, but *I* think it would be interesting. I am so fascinated by changing family dynamics, especially when it comes to multi-kid families.
I noticed it was easier to make meals. William started a job this year working two dinnertimes per week, and they were both MY dinnertimes (Paul cooks two days a week), so twice a week I was only cooking for three kids. That’s WAY fewer English muffin pizzas. But even on nights William isn’t working, four kids feels like significantly fewer kids to cook for, and there’s a lot more leftover taco meat.
There were grocery items that apparently Rob uses more of than anyone else: tortilla chips, shredded cheese, bread, lunch meat. For awhile after he left, I was buying things at the usual rate and they were really building up. Now that he’s home, I notice I’m having trouble keeping the supply up again.
I noticed William was a lot more chatty. When Rob is home, he talks a lot with Rob. When Rob wasn’t here, he started talking with us and interacting more with the younger kids. It’s been nice. The first few times he came up and started a conversation, I almost didn’t know what to do!
William definitely missed Rob, and is happy to have him home. The younger kids didn’t seem to notice or care that Rob wasn’t here or is now home. I mentioned this to Elizabeth, who said it’s not like they interact with him much when he’s here, so *big shrug*. I think that can definitely be a thing with big age gaps between siblings: he’s six years older than the twins and eight years older than Henry. I wonder if they’ll miss William more, since the age gaps are smaller.
We’d wondered if we’d want to rearrange the bedrooms. I don’t know if you remember, but long ago we had one big kid and one little kid in each room. (Elizabeth has her own room.) This was because Rob and William used to not get along at all, but both of them got along fine with the younger kids. So Rob and Edward were in one room, and William and Henry were in the other. Awhile back (two years? three?), Rob and William were getting along GREAT, but Henry was driving William crazy, so we rearranged: big kids in one room, little kids in the other. This meant it was theoretically perfect when Rob left for school: the new eldest kid had his own room. But we did ask William if he’d LIKE to share with a younger brother, for loneliness reasons. He declined.
Paul thought maybe we could put all three remaining boys in one room and put storage in the other room so that he could expand his workshop into the part of the basement we currently use for storage, but I thought that was nuts. Even with a kid “off to college,” that kid was still home a LOT: half a week at Thanksgiving, several weeks at Christmas, a week in spring, and now May-August. Maybe that will change next year, but right now he is still using his bedroom for nearly five months out of the year.
I noticed the household was overall more peaceful. Rob is [Good Kid and We Love Him Disclaimer], but he can also be tiring to live with. Long ago, the school system wanted him referred for testing to see if he might have Asperger’s Syndrome; the neurologist said Rob did not qualify for the diagnosis, but that he was close enough to that area of the spectrum that we should expect similar issues. He’s also a 19-year-old college boy. He can be the kind of conversationalist who asks you a question you have a partially emotional answer to, and then tries to poke holes in your logic to show you how irrational you are. He’ll pick away at your argument without furthering his own argument. He sometimes WILDLY misinterprets behaviors and emotions and statements, leaving me uncertain how to even EXPLAIN how wrong he is. He is driven crazy by the sound of other people chewing, and he tries to solve it by forcing everyone around him to chew in a way he can’t hear, which turns out to be impossible but that doesn’t stop him from trying. (I’m sympathetic to a point, but he thinks of this as OUR problem rather than his, and that’s when he loses my sympathies.) He can be rigid and critical; he is not good at understanding that different people have different strengths and abilities. He doesn’t always consider other people’s strengths/abilities to BE strengths. It can be, as I say, tiring. I have hopes that this will improve with time: I think of the “arguing for the fun of it” stage as being particularly intense during the college years. Plus, it’s easier to deal with tiring behavior when it’s for shorter periods of time. And back to the disclaimer, which is actually true: he can also be talkative and pleasant and funny, and he’s nice to his younger siblings, and he’s responsible and he does chores uncomplainingly, and so forth. So it’s not like he’s NOTHING BUT tiring to live with.
At first it was noticeable that we’d lost a driver. Even though William got his license at around the same time Rob left, I felt a lot more comfortable having Rob drive younger siblings than having William do it—and not only because Rob had two extra years of driving experience. Rob is one of those kids who was a full-grown adult even when he was an infant, very interested in Safety Rules as a toddler, etc.; it didn’t feel weird to have him driving siblings after the initial weirdness of it wore off. It’s not that William isn’t a careful driver, it’s just that he seems more like a CHILD than Rob ever did. But we got used to not being able to have Rob drive anymore, and we got used to sometimes asking William to do it (though I still prefer not to have to).
Before Rob left for college, we had two clumps of children: the Bigs and the Littles. We frequently divided them that way: “Okay, the Bigs work on X, and the Littles work on Y,” or one parent might take the Bigs somewhere while the other parent does something with the Littles, or the Bigs take turns helping with dinner but the Littles take turns unloading the dishwasher, or the Bigs have one bedtime but the Littles have an earlier bedtime. The gap between one group of kids and the next made for a natural change in rules/responsibilities/activities. With Rob gone, it felt like that fell apart. It made it so uneven to have one Big and three Littles, it stopped being a thing. Well, or I guess we might still say “Okay, which of you Littles wants to come along to the library?” (because we never asked the Bigs because they’re not up at that time of day anyway), and William still has a later bedtime than the others, but it’s just not as much of a thing. And with Rob gone and William working two dinnertimes a week, we needed the twins to start being dinner helpers, and that further blurred the gap. I’m interested to know if it’ll start being a thing again over the summer.
Fascinating.
Also, misophonia: I have it. We used to have to have the radio on during family dinners. It’s miserable. It’s better if I’m also eating but if I’m not I sometimes want to jump out of my skin. I have zero experience of being a teenage boy but I can empathize with this part.
My husband also has this and for YEARS I frankly just thought he was being kind of a jerk. Then I read an article explaining it was an actual neurological condition and that helped me feel less hostile about it. H has also learned to either just leave the room or take some deep breaths before yelling at the kids for chewing too loudly so that helps too ;-) I have no doubt that a teenager would handle this . . . less well…
I’ve also read that people with this condition (like myself) are geniuses, so there’s that… ;)
I also suffer from it. It took me a long time to stop requiring people to change their actions (although I do require they acknowledge it is a Real Thing and I’m not just being a jerk) and start taking steps to limit my exposure to triggers. Chewing gum is my biggest trigger, so I avoid crowds. In places I can’t avoid, like church or the movies, I have to sit on the back row. It makes me sad that I can’t go to ballgames or concerts, but it is what it is
As an only child, I could read things like this every single day. Facinating!!
I was coming here to say the exact same thing!!
Me too, Chris! I have no siblings and no children so I find this all endlessly fascinating!
Yeah I too am an only child, and have no children, but I loved reading this!
Ditto on the misophonia. I fully admit it’s my problem, but that doesn’t make it any easier to solve for. Larger groups of people makes it easier, especially if there is a lot of conversation. But sitting at a table just with my mom and I want to fully peel my skin off.
My mom is the most difficult one for me too. Probably because we spend so much time with our mothers throughout our early lives? I remember having the issue from early childhood, but it took probably close to 10 years of marriage for my husband to bother me. I also find that hormones (period/pregnancy) magnify the effect to near unbearable levels. Also unfortunate is that my husband is a near constant snacker (another problem in and of itself).
I didn’t know misophonia was a thing! The commenters here are a wealth of information! I would have said it was just a kid being kind of jerky, something I expect from kids every now and then. My 9yo is already starting to occasionally act like I’m just an old fogey who doesn’t know or understand anything. If she’s anything like me, she will only get more judgmental and annoying in the next 10 years before the self awareness kicks in.
I only have two kids, both girls ages 15 and 11, but this post was just so great. It makes me see how this summer (which has only been in effect for a week) is a prelude to when my older daughter gets a job/goes to college/etc. She’s asked to go somewhere with friends every single day since school has been out, again, it’s only been a week. She’s going into her sophomore year of high school but has made some ‘older’ friends. These friends drive and so I’m not being asked to take her anywhere but it still feels a little weird to have my daughter, my CHILD be gone for hours every single day. My younger daughter, on the other hand, will probably live at home forever so that widens the gap between them even more.
All that to say thank you for sharing this post.
I found this post RIVETING. I have one older sibling, four years older than I am, and I only have one child, so the mere idea of having a family that is big enough to divide into GROUPS is so fascinating to me. I could read about your family dynamics, household logistics, and the details of each person’s personality for a VERY LONG TIME and never get bored.
Same!
So funny. I hear the simultaneous missing them and finding it easier without them. I have six.kids, and we often break things down as oldest (14 yo girl, going on 30), middles (12,10,7) and littles (4,1). The 4 year old swings up occasionally, but is still a baby in a lot of ways..Sometimes the boys are a unit
(12, 7,4) but never the girls (14, 10,1)…Too big a spread and personality conflict. wonder how the dynamics will change as they grow. I always say the thing that surprised me about having this many kids is how different the dynamic is spending time with different combinations..And the hardest is the fact that there are SO many relationships for each person, which in this house anyway seems like a lot of room for fighting…
I could listen (read) to you talk about this all day.
Yes, having them home can be hard once you’ve gotten used to the new dynamic – and I only have the one.
The chewing thing? I totally get. But it’s weird that the only person chewing that makes me insane is my husband.
It is interesting for me to hear about Rob’s not-quite-Asperger’s diagnosis (or lack of one). My mom has speculated that I have “a touch of Asperger’s” and I have wondered about it, too. I have a lot of sensory issues (sounds and textures), the lack of coordination, and have a lot of social anxiety. Regardless, now I am in my mid 30s and grew from a child who refused to speak to most of her own family to a fairly socially competent adult! Rob may continue to become more comfortable with small talk as he gets older!
I also found this fascinating! I only have three kids 10, 8, and 5, but the oldest two are VERY close and I anticipate some issues when the oldest goes to college. They’ve always wanted to do everything together. I’m interested to know how things change over the summer and to see how this fall compares to last fall.
Ooooh I LOVED this! So fascinating!!
I could read about large family logistics and dynamics forever. I read and reread the Cheaper By the Dozen books as an only child, fascinated by their bathroom schedules and chore rotations. I now have two kids who are unfortunately six years apart-so fundamentally only children. As a SUPER extrovert, I think I could have really enjoyed having a large family. Life circumstances and my husband’s (borderline aspergers and super introverted) temperament meant things didn’t go that direction, but I still love reading about it. Thanks the update!
I would be VERY interested in knowing more about how introversion/extroversion can influence parenting styles. I am an introvert and I think I am done with two children, in part because just socializing with my (extroverted) three year old is ENOUGH for me most days.
Also, Swistle, have you ever wondered if Paul has autism spectrum tendencies? It could certainly contribute to his huge obliviousness re: Mother’s Day and stoves.
Agreed that this is really interesting! Though I think that it’s partly because the topic is inherently interesting and partly because you are a very, very good writer so you can make even fairly mundane topics fascinating.
Wow, this is so FASCINATING! I especially loved Elisabeth’s response because it seems like something my brother would have said/thought when I left to college. We never “hung out” so to speak, so I don’t think he was missing much when I left. My brother is 7.5 years younger than me, so while I am not an only child (though I was for 7 years), we were both at such different stages in our life that we we were raised independently of each other.
I love the idea of having your own built in ‘gang’ of sorts that is your family. While I”m sure the stress level rises and the resources dwindle with each subsequent child, the fun of it all is SO enticing to me! I’m not sure if you’ve addressed this in the blog before, but what factors went into your decision to have a larger family? I’m curious to know if you and Paul were always on the same page when it came to having a large family, did one partner have to do a little more convincing to make it happen, did you factor in financial situation prior to, etc. I apologize if it’s too personal of a question.
Right now, my long term, hopefully-soon-to-be fiance, BF and I are not on the same page when it comes to kids. I could have a whole gaggle of them, but realistically would stop at 3 or 4 (and if I could somehow convince him of a 5th, I wouldn’t protest), and he thinks 2 is a nice manageable number. His arguments for 2 kids are very *logical* and make A LOT of sense, and I can’t come up with anything other than “but I wannttt a lot of kids.” The financial situation and logistics of it all is not on my side to make an appealing case that would win in court. What especially made me ornery about the whole situation is he said that he would have a third if the first two were girls as a one last shot to have a boy. He was mischievously grinning through the whole thing so I *think* he was just ruffling my feathers, but I am in a mood to be ornery so I’m going to be ornery lol.