By the way thoughts

A couple of days ago, my mother began reminiscing about her own mother, bringing alive memories of the 1950s. Back then, the number of siblings was never less than two. In some cases, they would be in double digits. Visualize seven to eight children in a house? To me, the word that could best describe the scene is Chaos, or complete chaos! Imagine the youngest crying for food and the eldest pleading for uninterrupted sleep. A mother tending to an infant while thinking of the toddler, adolescent, and teenager. One crawling around, another in school, and the eldest preparing for higher studies. Different ages, different needs, different choices, all under one roof. Parenting in the early times seems mind-boggling to me.   The family kept growing – children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. As is the case with my grandparents, they had eight children. By the time their youngest became a toddler, their eldest was already a parent. My grandmother, after raising her own ch...