“If we look back over a longer period of time, we see: families with many children have succeeded in changing the stereotypes about them.
I would say it was largely due to the country’s third child policy and positive campaigning.
At the moment it is also a matter of prestige
Nowadays, being a family of three children is almost a matter of honor, for some even a proof of wealth status. It has also become a matter of prestige.
Families with three and four children no longer have to complain about being perceived as disadvantaged in some way, in which children are separated from their parents’ attention, etc. The attitude towards families with three and four children is very positive.”
The attitude towards large families is also improving
But how does it feel and what is the situation with families of five, six, seven or more children?
“It must be said that the society’s view of families with five or more children is also improving every year, however unflattering opinions about these parents as uneducated or backward in previous centuries flash in the background. True, it is not so common for families to divorce because of so many children.
Some women lack social skills
It is clear that there are about 2-5% of mothers of many children who have a large number of children and who could be defined as people with insufficient social skills, including in raising children. This is a problem, there is a large and extensive work for local government social services.
I would not call them families with many children, rather women who, due to their own choices, fate, circumstances or environment, have gone down such a path that many children are born, there are several fathers of children, the right to care for children is taken away, etc. I would rather separate these women from the story of large families.
A pleasant surprise for especially large families
Most large families are normal families in which parents take care of the children even more than in families with one or two children, because these families have consciously chosen the mission of raising a large group of children.
“Honestly speaking, before I got involved in the movement of large families, I had very little contact with families with five or more children. The last few years have given me the opportunity to get to know these families.
I am pleasantly surprised at how amazingly efficient the families with seven, eight and even 11 children in our circle are!
Their daily routine is made up of the duties and common traditions of each family member. Each member of the family has their own respectful place and role, but the key to everything moving forward is precise teamwork. The internal self-help mechanism works well there, not only on the part of the parents, but also on the part of the children.
These children know how to cooperate and help
Children from these families are often successful because they are more disciplined. They grow up with a good education, with good social skills, with the ability to cooperate. Of course, each other can be traumatized, that the living space has been smaller, that there has been little free time, because brothers and sisters have to be taken care of.
But I would unequivocally say that society needs more people like that who grew up in an environment where you had to count on a brother or sister, brothers or sisters. These people are more collaborative.”
We need more cooperation and trust
Treija admitted that one of the biggest problems of Latvian society is that we rarely communicate, trust and cooperate with each other.
“It is a big problem of Latvian society. The more children we have growing up in large families – new members of society who are born to cooperate, share and trust, the more united our society will be and its contribution to the creation of the common good will be greater.
We will be able to listen to each other, help each other, trust each other, which is very important, and rely on each other.”
Nav is not utain, not blusain
The chairman of the board of the association of large families agreed that nowadays the idea of large families has changed significantly. In general, they are no longer considered poor, dirty, lousy, flea-ridden and ravaged by various addictions, as was once thought.
“First of all, it’s not like that. But even if it happens somewhere, it can be explained by particularly unfavorable coincidences and circumstances.
At the moment, even if the family has such conditions where they have really little income and they live in regions where the parents did not have the opportunity to get a good education in order to be able to get adequate compensation for their work, the state and local government support mechanism works enough for the family to function normally also with many children, as long as the parents are able to cooperate with their municipality.
Everything must be done to at least get the children out
The extreme cases when this does not happen are most often related to the fact that the parents are not able to cooperate with the helpers. Their social skills are too lame for them to do that.
Working with such people is the field of work of local government social services. Often parents cannot be pulled out of the environment they are in anymore. It is necessary to try very hard to at least get the children who grow up in these families out.”
The more children, the lower the income per person
It cannot be denied that families with a large number of children (especially where there are more than five children) have hand problems.
“The greater the number of children, the statistically lower the income per family member. Of course, this cuts off the possibilities of meeting many needs. However, everyone has their own idea of poverty.”
Not enough money, but not poor
There may be a family that lives on an almost subsistence farm, functions with home-grown products and sees very little physical money in their wallets. However, neither they nor the people around them consider them poor.
Their lack of money is more than compensated by the children’s love, self-confidence and their shared opinion that they are rich because there are many of them, that they are a team, etc., Treya said.