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LARGE FAMILIES: Endangered Species
Monday, October 14, 2002
By JOHN PRZYBYS
Las Vegas Review-Journal
Hanging in Art and Marsha Goldberg's kitchen is a standard-issue dry-erase board -- the kind you'd see in any office -- that, for all its pedestrian simplicity, serves as the household's nerve center. On it, six of the couple's 10 kids who still live at home can see the household tasks they're assigned to do. Symbolically speaking, the chore board illustrates two qualities the heads of a few of Southern Nevada's larger families say are vital in running super-sized families in these downsized times: organization and a well-defined division of labor.
Large families have become an endangered species in the United States. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average U.S. household has shrunken steadily during the past four decades from 3.33 people in 1960 to 2.62 in 2000. In 2000, according to the census bureau, 10 percent of U.S. households >were made up of five or more people. That's down from 21 percent in 1970.
Yet, some parents continue to manage households that many American parents would consider too large for comfort. Many are blended families -- call it the Brady Bunch Syndrome -- fashioned when Mom and Dad make one large family out of their own average-sized ones.
When Jack and Sherry London married four years ago, they brought into their newly combined household a total of 10 children. Still, Jack says, the prospect -- and potential problems -- of creating a jumbo-sized family "never really came into our minds."
Other large families are created by design. "I wanted a lot of kids, growing up," Marsha Goldberg says. "I was the middle of three children, so I didn't come from a large family. I just thought it'd be fun." Where did that notion come from? "Insanity?" Marsha answers jokingly. By the time her first marriage ended in 1997 after 27 years, Marsha Goldberg and her ex-husband had borne 10 kids. When she met Art Goldberg, eight of them still were living at home. Art -- who also has a 19-year-old daughter who lives with her mom -- says people have one of two reactions when they learn he willingly leaped into a large, ready-made family. "One is, `What were you thinking?' " he says. "The other -- which my wife hates to hear -- is, `This man is a saint.' "
Fernando and Clara Villanueva also created a large family during their 29-year marriage: 10 kids, seven of whom still live at home. "One thing about it is, it keeps the family ties very close," Fernando says. "Especially with the older ones. "Not only that, but the young kids look up to the older ones. They're sort of like heroes to them."
Sheila and Gary Mohler, who've been married for 35 years, have 14 kids, five of whom still live at home. People are, Sheila says, "a little surprised" when they hear those statistics. "When I was younger, the other comment I heard when I was pregnant was, `Don't you know what causes that?' and things like that," she says. "But more and more right now, it's more amazement and `That's great' and `More power to you' and this kind of thing."
However they begin, there seems to be a few basic rules that govern large families.
Rule No. 1: Providing for a large family takes money.
"The choir fees, the athletic fees, all those things," Sheila Mohler says. "It's not cheaper by the dozen." "When you have a family this large, you never really can quite afford it," Marsha Goldberg says. "That's the reality. There's always some financial drain on your pocketbook."
"This year, I have two girls at UNLV. They're on Millennium scholarships, but that doesn't cover textbooks, transportation and all the other things they need to have to attend school. And there's never -- I say this all the time -- never enough money. Ever." Take something as routine as back-to-school supplies, Jack London says. "Look at the list they give you and multiply it by five times."
London's multiply-by-five rule also holds for other household costs. Food, for instance. "I always tell people when we're coming to Sam's Club, `Ladies and gentlemen, the London family is here' and they've met their monthly quota," London jokes. "No way we can get out of there without spending $300 or $400. That happens quite frequently. I have to tell these children, `You have to stop eating.' " "Grocery shopping is an unending task, but I've got it down to a science now," Sherry London says. "I always buy in bulk. We have a refrigerator inside and a freezer in the garage and we always keep that fully stocked."
Marsha Goldberg estimates grocery bills in her household total about $1,200 a month. Clothing costs probably come in at $450 to $600 a month, Goldberg adds, "but it's usually in spurts. You have big spending this time of year and in the spring. The rest of the year, it's like we go through socks like there's no tomorrow."
Money has been particularly tight in the Villanueva household since Fernando Villanueva was laid off almost a year ago from his job as a room service clerk at the MGM Grand. Villanueva had worked at the hotel since it opened. For a time, he also was self-employed as a tennis court builder and resurfacer. Now, he's looking for another job and trying to re-establish the family business. In the meantime, his wife recently took a job as an attendant with a gaming company. It's the first time Clara Villanueva has worked outside of the home during their marriage, Fernando Villanueva says. On the upside, Villanueva figures the family's currently precarious finances helped his college-age kids receive good financial aid packages. "So it was an opportunity for them to go to college because of the large family situation," he says, and "once these kids graduate, they'll be able to help the younger ones."
Rule No. 2: Running a large family requires the organizational skills of Napoleon on one of his better days.
Marsha Goldberg keeps her day planner on an island in the kitchen. The kids, she says, know that it's their job to enter into the planner their appointments, practices, games and other activities. "I've told them, if it's not in there it doesn't exist," she says. Each member of a large family has to participate in doing the tasks it takes to run a large household.
For example, Sheila Mohler says, "once the kids got to be 12, they did their own laundry." And, she says, the older children were expected to help the younger children with such tasks as homework.
"Once they get to drive, that makes a great deal of difference," she adds. "They can run errands and shuttle people back and forth. That's a big relief." For parents, Mohler says, "I think one of the largest challenges is just making sure that everybody is treated equally. And they keep you in line that way. They let you know what you do for one and didn't do for another."
Rule No. 3: While organization is important, flexibility's good, too.
"It's a fine line," Marsha Goldberg says. "You have to be flexible and also have to try to stick with the program, because you find that you're easily outnumbered with that many children at home."
"I don't think you ever get used to it," Jack London says. "One thing we say in our family is that one thing is certain. Things will change."
Rule No. 4: Dinner together is to be treasured when it happens, and made allowances for when it can't.
The parents say they try to gather their clans for dinner but, realistically speaking, coordinating so many schedules can make that difficult. Art Goldberg notes: "The nights that we do have staggered schedules, we try to make a meal that will sit well, like pasta or salad as opposed to a meal like steak. "Steak or barbecued chicken, we'll only do that when we know everybody is going to be home at one time." The kids handle their own breakfasts during the week, Marsha Goldberg says. "If they carry their lunch, it's their responsibility to make lunch the night before."
And, over at the London household, "I've made it mandatory they learn to cook," Sherry London says. "So we try to take turns in the kitchen."
Rule No. 5: Discipline is important.
"You've just got a greater number (of kids) to deal with," Art Goldberg says. "It's not a question of potentially disciplining two kids, it's the potential of disciplining six kids." "When it's just you and a brother, you might have one kid not doing homework. But when it's six kids, you might have six kids not doing their homework." "The important thing is to be uniform," Goldberg notes, because "if you let someone off for something, the other five know someone got off for something and want the same break. It really keeps you on your toes."
On the upside, Sheila Mohler says, kids in a large family have a greater opportunity to "learn from each other's mistakes. They begin to know what the standard of the family is, what's tolerated and what's not."
Rule No. 6: There's no such thing as a spur-of-the-moment vacation. Or, for that matter, a spur-of-the-moment anything. "I have to laugh," Sherry London says. "When we go on vacation, I call and say, `Do you have a group rate?' " When the family takes a vacation, they'll rent a beach house or a condo, rather than stay in hotels. "I try to look at places where I can bring breakfast and lunch food and we go out to dinner," she says. "Otherwise, all you'd end up doing on vacation is eating and spending money." Even taking a trip together in town "becomes a caravan sometimes," Jack London says. "Sometimes when we're all going to meet for dinner or we're going to some event -- even to church -- it's usually a two-car minimum and sometimes three."
Rule No. 7: Quiet time never just happens in a large family. Rather, it must be created. Marsha and Art Goldberg begin each day with a half-hour or 45-minute walk, both for exercise and as a means of having some time alone. "I think the biggest demand is just finding time for the two of us," Art says. "And when we have time together, it really is precious."
Rule No. 8: Life in large families can be pretty neat. Sheila Mohler remembers when one of her children had a birthday party and the turnout was disappointing. Yet, she says, "he had all his brothers and sisters there and they were so excited. So he had a built-in party right there. They always have a friend or someone to talk to."
"On the days when life is really tough, when I struggle with one of the kids, where somebody is raking me over the coals or putting me through the wringer, I will sit and think, `Where did I think this would be fun?' " Marsha Goldberg says. Still, Marsha continues, "I don't regret it. I don't think I'd do anything different." She laughs. "I just would have made better provisions to be richer the second time around."
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