People will always have an opinion. On everything. And most of the time they’re more than happy to offer it up without any prompting. For some reason the size and ratio of your family seems to be something that people love to have an opinion on. Sometimes they’re quite vocal about it, and sometimes you can just feel the silent judgment. Why do people do it? Does it really matter to them if you have one child or ten? Why do they assume you were trying for a boy or trying for a girl?

but you already got your boy!

Two years ago we were unloading our crazy hoard of kids from the car when it happened. Another couple got out of their car with their two children and struck up a short and familiar conversation with Mike. It went a little something like this–

“Four girls?! Well, at least you got your boy!”

“Actually, we had our son first and then had more!”

“But you already got your boy!”

As if one child was more worth having than another. Or as if the only reason someone would have more than two children was because they were trying for a certain gender.

we weren’t trying for a boy

Yes, we have six children. We had our son first, followed by five girls. Never were we “trying for a boy” or hoping for any particular gender. And honestly, I bet if you asked around most people would agree with me.

I’m one of four girls myself, but even when we were pregnant with out first I wasn’t hoping for a little girl any more than a little boy. We were just praying for a healthy baby. I am a firm believer that Heavenly Father sends you the children you’re meant to have.

Would it have been nice to give our son a brother? Absolutely. He really wanted one and took the news of baby sister number five hard. At least for a couple hours. But we had a long talk about how special it is that he gets to be daddy’s little buddy. We also talked about how important it is that he’s the big brother of so many sisters.

So please, don’t assume that the only reason we have six kids is because we were trying to give our son a brother. In fact, just stop making assumptions about other families in general.