Today we have more from the letter “L” in our Transracial Adoption ABCs.

Large Families – Large families is a topic I write about fairly often, because it is one that is near and dear to my heart. As the mom of 10 awesome kids, married to one amazing man and living a life that is unspeakably better than I ever could have imagined or dreamed, I see a large family as a wonderful way to raise kids.

While large families used to be very common, in the past few decades in the United States the average family size has been continually shrinking. However, as adoption has become more of a “norm” in our society, there have become increasingly more large, transracial adoptive families.

Someone warned me back when we were starting our first adoption that adoption was “addictive”. I laughed out loud, because at that point we were knee-deep in paperwork, adoption debt, anxiety and stress, and I could not imagine how on earth ANYONE could want to adopt more than once. I swore once we got our baby girl home we were DONE.

But once we got our daughter home and experienced what a blessing adoption could be, and after seeing first hand just one orphanage overflowing with children that were all alone in the world and knowing this was just one of countless such places in the world, my heart changed.

Somehow, my priorities, my desires for my life, the way I looked at the world, the way I looked at “needs” and they way I looked at my family all changed with one tiny baby in a Vietnamese orphanage.

I have talked to many adoptive parents who have adopted one or two children and then continued to adopt and build a large family.

Once you’ve seen first hand the children that are waiting, just waiting and waiting for someone to love them, and once you have seen how “doable” it is to adopt, it becomes really easy to embrace the concept of “one more”.

For me, it is not a desire to change the world, or because I suffer from some unhealthy addiction like an old woman that hoards cats or any other reason like that (although I have been accused of both).

For me it comes down to the fact that I love children. I love being a mom. I am good at being a mom. I have a dedicated husband who is an awesome dad, a large house, a large car, plenty of food, piles of clothes and great amounts of patience and energy.

I have a heart for orphaned children, and know that while I cannot change the world, that I can change the world for a small handful, and that they in turn change my world for the better.

I believe that more people in this world need to care and look out for their fellow humans.

I believe that being a mom, by birth and adoption, and being a mom to a large family is my true calling in life. It is what I enjoy, what I am good at and what I believe I was put here to do.

Having a large family takes a bit more time, dedication, money and organization than having a small family, as well as a lot more laundry! But there is also a lot more laughs, a lot more people to play with, a lot more hugs and kisses and a lot more love.

Others often judge us parents that choose to have large families. People think we can’t possibly be good parents to that many children, or that there must be something wrong with us to want that many children. Some have even accused me of having some sort of magical secret.

Having a large transracial adoptive family is certainly not right for everyone, but for those that it is, the joys and blessings are incomparable.

I have written lots about large families. You can find those posts in my “Large Families” category here.

There are quite a few other moms of large families writing for Adoptionblogs.com.

Go check out Tana, Mary, Holly, Teresa and Cindy.