Nadya Suleman, the first woman to successfully give birth to eight children in the U.S., is surrounded by controversy on a daily basis. The question on everyone’s mind is how many children is simply too many? The delivery is complete, and the important question remains. What about the children? This is an area I know a bit about. Setting aside leaving it all up to God, and the very controversial frozen embryo issue, let me just say from my own experience, that 14 children are too many. I cannot fathom what lay ahead for a single unemployed mother. I do however know what it is like to be in a family large enough to make people question it.

As number 7 in a family of 11 children, I can say that often, chaos reined supreme. Believe it or not, you could often feel lonely in a crowd of so many. While my father would work 12-hour days in Los Angeles, my mother would be the present adult in the house. My mother was a night owl, and a late sleeper, so it was often up to the older kids to get the younger kids ready. This is not an unusual system, as most large families work this way. Even the Duggar clan with 18 homeschooled children works this way. You learn to pair up, and team up.

Sibling rivalry takes on a life of its own, where one sibling may team up with a few others to oust yet another. Choosing alliances are hard, as they can change by the day, and sometimes even the hour. It is even more challenging when the mother would prefer to be the friend over disciplinarian, which I have the feeling Nadya Suleman is. My mother was rarely “Geneva” on any given battle, and would often side with the child that she preferred.

My parents tried to give one on one time, and they would take a child or two to special nights out at the yacht club. And indeed it did feel special, if even for the night.

As a child of a large family, you were often labeled. “Oh, I know you, you are the smart one, or the pretty one, or the athlete, or the one that sailed around the world.” I never really felt like an individual, but always part of “one of them.”

As I look back, it was what it was. Good times, amazing times, and devastating times.

The most devastating time in our family was when my mother with seven children still at home decided she wanted to quit her job. She up and left my father, her father (who lived with us), and those of us still in the house. She married another man for a time, and that was the death of our family, as we knew it. It was never the same, and never quite recovered. For the four that were already out of the house, it might not have seemed that bad, compared to those of us still at home.

Many would sympathize with my mother. “Well of course she left. The poor woman had 11 children. She must be sainted.” My mother was far from sainted. She chose to have 11 children. Like Nadya, she was an only child, who was very lonely. A big family seemed like such a good idea at the time. But alas, cold hard reality always comes along to bite you on the butt, and what seems like a good idea becomes really hard work.

Eleven personalities enmeshed with the two parental personalities. Too many kids to focus on in a group, let alone meeting the individual need one at a time. They easily slip under the radar. Before you know it one or two may be experimenting with drugs, one may become a father sooner than you expected, and you the mother decide when the going gets rough that you didn’t want that life after all.

But what about the CHILDREN?

In the case of the Duggar’s, because all of their children are schooled at home, there are very few outside influences. I am standing by however for the day the children have a mind of their own. But gosh, they meant well, and God did give them so many children will be their argument. Coming from a large brood, I can say for certain, that you should not believe everything you see on television. Our family could act out perfection with the best of them. I don’t doubt that if times were different, and it was an option, we would have been a reality TV. Family.

And this brings me back to the Octomom. It is going to be a road that I would not wish on my worst enemy. She will be stressed to the limit. Her little six years old said, “I don’t want all of those kids, because my mom will always be stressed out.” What six years old knows the term “stressed out”, unless it is used by her mother often. She intends to go to school in the fall, and leave the kids in the college day care. That alone is funny. What makes her think the daycare has that kind of room?

What happens when she sits in a pile of laundry (cause it will not ever not be a pile), and she wants to cry for putting herself in this situation? When it all falls apart on any given day, who will step in to care for 14 children less than seven years apart?

My mom had loving relatives around to pitch in, and a husband to foot the bill, and parents often willing to pick up the monetary slack. Nadya has Nadya. Her parents have turned on her. In the end, my question remains.

What about the children?