Nine children sounds like a handful to any mother, so it’s hard to believe that there was once a time when Northland mum Paulette Venables wanted to have 12 children.
Before Paulette (40) started her family with husband Craig (40), she dreamed of a large family – a very large family.
“I always wanted a big family. I wanted 12 – an even dozen – but now that I’ve got nine children I feel like my family is complete.”
on the eve of Mother’s Day, Paulette has shared some of the parenting secrets she’s learned from bringing up, and homeschooling, her large family.
Firstly, she’s convinced that women will get the number of children destined for them – although they may not all be born.
“I think everybody has their number, but some people don’t actually reach it for various reasons. That number may be one and if so, that’s great for them.”
Ironically, at one stage Paulette and Craig feared they may not be able to have children because it took them 18 months before their first son, Zachary, was born.
They were actually happy to stop at three, but they had an unexpected arrival, and then Paulette suffered the loss of her fifth baby, oichel, who the grief-stricken parents had a yearning to replace.
“After four, you can’t add to the chaos – you’re already busy and another doesn’t make much difference. We’re not planning another one, but if it happens, then it happens,” she adds.
“You get opinions when you have one – people ask, ‘When are you going to have the next one?’ You get opinions when there’s two, because people feel you should stop. You get opinions when you have three because you’ve suddenly broken the norm and then the opinions get a little bit harder to cope with until about seven, and then everyone expects you to have another one anyway,” the busy mum explains.
The hardest period as a mother was when she had four children under five.
The couple had always intended to homeschool their children, but bowed to pressure from her family and enrolled her eldest son in primary school. However, three months later she pulled him out.
“We gave it a go, but I was dealing with four under-fives and the school we put him in started at 8.30am, and trying to get three children and a very little baby out of the house was impossible. We went back to what we wanted to do, and that’s been very successful.”
All her school-age children have easily picked up reading and writing, and her older children happily complete their correspondence school work. Now that some are teenagers Paulette gets a chance to travel to Auckland to study theology and counselling.
Craig, who is a trained pastor at a Baptist church, works full-time as an auto-electrician and the family also gets Working for Families which helps them make ends meet.
“Some weeks are tight – some weeks aren’t. But we certainly have more than enough. We have money for music lessons and girls’ and boys’ brigade fees.”
They don’t go without, but Paulette is careful with the shopping, and until recently made most of the children’s clothes herself.
“We don’t have huge birthday parties, but we will do something special for that child.”
The family lives in a five-bedroom house in Whangarei, where four of the girls share a “dorm” room, with mattresses and their own sectioned-off cubicle of the room.
Paulette happily admits having nine children can be chaos, but adds there’s also plenty of love to go around.
There’s no TV in the household, but the family can’t do without their dishwasher. The children have computers, use Facebook and watch DVDs, but they aren’t allowed a cellphone until they’re 14 years old.
“We don’t have the luxury of fussy eating,” she adds.
Paulette says it’s important to bring up each child according to their personality.
“Each one is totally unique – we treat them as individuals. The parenting you use for one is not what you use for the next.
“I’ve got a great relationship with my older two. I’ve loved being able to see the adults they will become.
“You also need to take time for your relationship and spend time with your partner away from the children – if you don’t take that time then the pressures of a large family can drive you apart.
“I learned the concept of being a good enough parent last year – you don’t have to be perfect – you just have to be good enough, and if you strive to do that the chances are you’re going to get there.”
