Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Adult Gifted women raising large families?

I was wondering: are there any other gifted women out there who have chosen to stay at home and raise large families? I am the mother of seven children (one that has yet to be born - due Aug. 30 :), five biological and two adopted from foster care (ages in utero ;), 22 months, 2, 3, 4, 5, And 7). I am gifted, my husband is gifted, and all of our biological children are either gifted or show strong signs pointing in that direction (referring to the 22 month and 3 year olds). I stay at home with all of the kids, and �formally� homeschool the oldest two (although our version of schooling is so far from the traditional model, and it works for us).

Each of us are intense individuals, making everyday life an extreme adventure! While I love the path we�re on, I don�t personally know any other families in our position (gifted mom chooses to forgo a traditional career and stay at home with her large family), and it can feel isolating at times. : /

While I am intense, I am also intensely introverted, so dealing with the logistics of a large family has been pretty tough at times. All of our children are extroverts, minus the five year old. My husband is also an extrovert.

I look for advice, or just anecdotes from families in similar situations, and I have literally found nothing as of yet. Almost every large family I find, either a. the mother is not gifted herself (which is evident through her writing - both content and grammar wise... not trying to sound pompous, btw, just trying to be concise with what I�m saying in hopes of gaining better feedback?), and/or b. she is an extrovert who is getting along just fine with the explosive dynamics of a large brood.

Anyone sympathetic to my plight? Lol... Thanks for reading, and for anything offered hereafter

You may want to check out the Well Trained Mind forums. There are some really bright moms with large families there.

Amy Harrington's blog or Facebook group may help you! I can't seem to find her blog, I don't know if it is still active! Her Facebook group is Gifted Unschooling. There are about 3,000 in the group so there must be some introverts in there!

I'm not so much an introvert, but I have a chronic illness that leaves me needing to refuse many activities and stay home. I have 2 kids. I've had to put my oldest (10) in public school because it was getting to a point where I couldn't meet his needs - he was getting beyond what I could teach him and he needed to be around people. Most of the "crazy" is resolved by delegating those needs out to someone who can so it more easily. My youngest is 2 and loves people, so we'll just see what happens there.

My best friend has 3 kids. She is both extremely introverted and has chronic illness. Her oldest is 9. He is an extreme extrovert, so she decided to put him in public school this year so he could get his "peopleing" done without draining her. Her middle child is homeschooling and youngest is preK age.

Just remember you don't have to do everything alone. If one of your children's needs (or the needs of one of your children) are pushing you to a breaking point where you're not able to recharge, it's okay to delegate and pull back. It gets a lot easier when kids get older and activities are "drop off"!

Hang in there. Momming is hard. ((((Hugs))))

Hello!

I am highly gifted and have five children (9, 8, 6, 4, 6 months). My kids go to public school, but I do a lot of volunteering at their school when DH can stay home with the little ones. I find myself applying the rage-to-learn aspect of my giftedness reading educational research articles and forums like this to try to figure out the best way to help my kids learn, both in and out of school.

I used to consider myself very introverted, but have come to realize that a lot of that was due to many negative social experiences including social exclusion and bullying throughout my school years. It's something I'm still working on overcoming, but as of right now, I'd say I'm fairly moderate on the introverted/extroverted spectrum.

I have kids that go both ways. DD9 is very extroverted and doesn't have a shy bone in her body. She always wants to be the center of attention. DS8 (grade skipped, so they're in the same class) is very introverted and doesn't care about the social scene at school at all. He goes to school to learn, and then comes home to unwind. DD6 is very, very close to a small group of friends and incredibly shy and quiet to everyone else. DD4 frequently says she doesn't like to be around a lot of people, doesn't like to have a lot (more than one, lol) of friends over, etc. She's happiest when it's just one-on-one me and her, which admittedly doesn't happen often with her being the 4th of 5 kids. DH is very introverted, and rarely gets to know people outside of our family well enough to remember their names, unless they're coworkers or students. It's definitely an adventure to balance everyone's personalities and needs.

We don't have that large of a family ourselves, but I do come from a larger family where all of the siblings are ID'd gifted, from HG to PG, with both parents putatively gifted (both have terminal degrees, and were early graduates). My mother chose to stay home, leaving a tenure-track position to parent and afterschool (she homeschooled the youngest for a portion of K-12 education (the rest of us pre-date legal homeschooling)). She is more of an introvert than otherwise, while my father is an extrovert, with a range among us siblings.

FWIW, both I and my SO are introverts (although I'm closer to an ambivert), while one of our children is an extreme extrovert. And yes, even just one is exhilarating/exhausting. We also homeschool, but split at-home parent time. In our case, the sense of difference probably comes more from the fact that I work in public education, so our circles consist of many people who don't really understand why we homeschool, and many others who don't quite see how we can support public schools.

One assurance I want to offer is to validate your decision to invest your energies and intensity in your family life. I am immensely grateful to my mother for the choice she made to turn her gifts to the holistic nurturing and education of her children. I was well on the road to adulthood before I began to understand that her choice involved real sacrifice, because it was so clearly a free and joyful choice on her part. We never felt that she resented the demands of motherhood, or regretted the path not taken. In fact, she likes to describe parenting as the supreme research experience, with each child a new and endlessly fascinating field of study, far more intriguing than what she might have pursued in the lab, but with much higher stakes in affection, relationship, and the potential positive impact each one can have on the world.

You are engaged, as all parents are, in an immeasurably valuable long-term enterprise, the true reach and productivity of which will not be visible for decades. You may not see the fruit of your labor for many years, but know that you are deeply appreciated.

Thank you, all, for your helpful advice and insight! Doing this parenting thing truly is a day by day process (or attempt for survival...haha :), and I�m learning to be satisfied with little bounds of progress here and there - rather than expecting a sort of perfection all at once.

Our almost two year old - our only little girl until baby arrives in August - is one of the most intense of the bunch, wailing and crying until she gets what she wants, when she wants it...! Our adopted four year old likely has severe ADHD, earning himself stitches last year, and gifting a few to our five year old yesterday after hurling a light saber at his face. Our oldest is also extremely intense, and his tics are currently at an all time high. (We�re not sure whether he could have Tourette�s, or if his overexcitabilities are manifesting themselves partially through tics...) I have a deep need to analyze everything, while at the same time am becoming overwhelmed by all of the stimuli I�m constantly engulfed in...

Not trying to throw a pity party for myself - I hope I�m not coming off that way! It sometimes just helps to air out my head a bit, whether or not my musings are worth a reply or not.

I can relate a bit! My 2 (almost 3) year old is a master tantrummer. DS11 is intensely stubborn and passive aggressive and ADHD. He is home from school today because he chose to pull passive power yesterday and waste 4 hours not doing a chore and didn't get the rest of his stuff done (music practice, homework, basic hygiene, pack a lunch) even though he was up until midnight. Oh my. Children are so overwhelming!

DS11 (DS10 earlier in thread, birthday happened) asked to be homeschooled today. LMAO! Because he has spent >10 hours on his math assignment and I have to watch him continuously? That will make me want to homeschool him?!

Uggh, I have so much work I can't get done today because of him. I can leave the room or even go around a corner! Missed my dentist appointment today because of him. Might keep him home from school again tomorrow to help with the chores that need doing. I need to have my house and barn clean(ish) by tomorrow night for appraisal photos. Can't get that done when I can't move because of an intensely stubborn child.

These kids are tough. It helps to talk about their intensity. Eases the crushing loneliness of parenting outliers.

I only have one and she nearly does my head in! Haha. She's super intense, energetic and makes noise CONSTANTLY. I'm an introvert, she's an extrovert. Hubby is... I don't know. He's very talkative but also pretty much hates people. Hubby tested PG in high school, and I hit the ceiling so we'll never know, but neither of us has done anything exceptional nor academic with our lives. And I've been a stay at home mum since I was pregnant with DD5. I used to think I'd like a big family, and I could just watch all my kids play and sit back and observe the chaos, but that was before I realised that as the mum I don't get to observe anything, I am expected to be at the centre of it and involved in it. And my calm, quiet, introverted mind doesn't deal with that well. So yeah, big props to you for managing seven. Seven!!!! I can't even wrap my head around that. Haha.

Thank you, ladies, for sharing and sympathizing!! I don�t know about you all, but I am also super idealistic - which, I think, helps me �keep on keeping on� at times, but other times I can feel so crushed and burdened by these glowing visions I have for myself and my children. I recoup and regroup during nap time and in the evenings, and I feel like the next day will be the day that everything will start to fall into place and be �okay�...but most of those �next days� turn out being just as hard as the last, if only in different ways.

On a slightly different note, do any of you ever feel very critical of our educational systems, and feel inclined to go a different route? We homeschool, so that�s a different route already, but I feel so different from even most of the homeschool crowd out there. I�m very resistant toward adhering wholeheartedly to any sort of curricula - I tend to be much more of a �natural learning� proponent, and want my kids to have tons of free time to pursue creative interests...and just to have time to themselves to formulate thoughts, ideas, etc. It seems that the world we live in is bent on scheduling kids to death, and that there is virtually no time or energy left for free play or individual musings. I assumed a good bit of homeschoolers would feel similarly, but all of the ones I know are filling their kids� lives with activities/clubs/classes/lessons just as much as anyone else. <Sigh...end rant >

You might check for an unschooling community in your area--sometimes you can just put out a call on any local boards or meetups.

I would agree that many b&m and homeschoolers alike fill up their children's days with a lot of activities, with little time to breathe, play, explore, or be. As homeschooling parent who is also a professional working in the public school system, I have plenty of criticisms of our formal and cultural educational systems., but I also see the good that caring adults do in all sorts of educational settings, when they appreciate and nurture children as individuals (even when they have to work within constraints).

I agree...we all have to work within our own constraints, and good can occur in many different situations. I just feel for kids who are boxed in by so many factors.