You'Ve Got to Be Kidding! Real-Life Parenting Advise from a Mom and Dad of Nineteen

Introduction Nowe're not kidding! We have nineteen children. That's right. Nineteen. You should see mouths fall open and pupils dilate when we drop that bombshell on unsuspecting new acquaintances. It happens every so often at a dinner party or other social gathering where we've just met someone for the first time. After we've chatted about the weather, the Orlando Magic's latest game, our jobs, or current events, the conversation almost always gets around to children. "So...how many children do you have?" We try to be as nonchalant as possible. "Nineteen." "Pardon me? I don't think I got that." "I said nineteen." "You've got to be kidding!" Pat will often add, "I have parented nonstop, day-by-day, for thirty-two straight years and gone to Little League baseball games for twenty-one years without a single year off!" At this point in the conversation, we've experienced a number of interesting reactions. Some people slap their ear with the palm of their hand as if there must be something wrong with their hearing. Others have sprayed us with a mouthful of whatever they happened to be drinking at the moment. But most people just say something like: "Good heavens! Why?" The best answer we can give is, This is what God wanted for us. "You're joking...right?" Nope! Having nineteen children is no laughing matter. "Did you plan on having nineteen kids?" Of course not. Nobody would plan on having that many children! "Are you two crazy?" Crazy, no. Stressed and frazzled sometimes, you bet. Someone has said that having three or more children is like having a bowling alley in your brain. You can just imagine what things are like in our brains! This is when the challenge comes: "What are your children's names?" The person who asks this question always has a look on his or her face that says, "I bet you can't do it." But we canand usually without even stopping to try to remember whom we've left out! There are Jimmy, Bobby, Karyn and Stephanie, Sarah, Andrea and Michael, Thomas, Stephen and David. Then there's Peter, Brian, Sammy, Gabriela and Katarina, followed by Daniela, Richard, Caroline and Alan. That's a final scoreso farof eleven boys and eight girls! At this point, after our new acquaintance's initial shock has worn off, we're always asked, "What's it like?" Well, it ain't the Brady Bunch! It's wild, it's crazy, it's frenetic, it's a never-ending stream of soccer, swim meets, tennis, volleyball, football, cheerleading, basketball, church youth groups, homework, skinned knees, broken hearts, carpools, runny noses, trips to the dentist, doctor visits, braces, parent-teacher conferences, and... Well, you get the picture. With nineteen kids, we celebrate lots of birthdays. (Seven in the month of July alone.) And with all nineteen of our kids growing rapidly, we've had to shop for clothes about as often as most families shop for groceries. Thank goodness Ruth works for the FranklinCovey organization, where she spends a lot of her time teaching and coaching business executives how to get their lives organized. We have called upon every bit of her expertise to keep things running smoothly in the Williams household. Still, having nineteen kids around theWilliams, Pat is the author of 'You'Ve Got to Be Kidding! Real-Life Parenting Advise from a Mom and Dad of Nineteen', published 2004 under ISBN 9781578567034 and ISBN 1578567033.