Strong Stuff: Mothers' Stories

JULIA CADEAU

Age:43

Julia has eleven children, ages one to nineteen: four boys followed by two girls, followed by five boys. Julia’s philosophy of raising children weaves in and out of the stories she tells. Having so many children has profoundly changed her. Here is a small piece of the story she tells in Strong Stuff, Mothers' Stories:

I’d always have two afternoons a week no matter how little money there was, when I could get off just to have some time alone. I’d go to the mall or something. Sometimes I’d get there and realize I was too tired to go in, and I’d just sleep in the car all afternoon.

I had no preparation for all of these boys.... I feel very lucky to have the two girls. I had begun to despair. Before I had a family I always used to think I’d have just two girls, and I’d put ribbons in their hair, and on rainy days they’d go through my jewelry box....

Children come with such varied baggage. Having a lot of children has freed me from feeling responsible for how each child behaves or the way each child is. With one or two children I think there’s more temptation to ask yourself what you’ve done wrong. “Why haven’t I made him more civilized,?” or “Why is he so self-centered?”

I have some children who are really very easy. They basically like to please. Others could care less what I think about them, and, in fact, if they can annoy me, all the better. There’s just something in them that’s not so attuned to approval! I could say, “I am so upset with you that I’m going to put you in your room for the rest of your life.” “So? Is this supposed to be a big deal to me?” That’s the kind of thing that sends steam out your ears. You wonder, “What’s going on here?” But after seeing many variations on a theme, I realize that they come that way.

As a parent you have to work with what you are given. If a child’s basic tendency is to be lazy, for example, you have to help the child work against it. Some kids in the summer want to go out and earn money and have it in the bank. Some want to buy things. Our situation is not affluent. We have food and clothes and everything we need, but when somebody else is getting a mountain bike for his birthday that costs $450, my sixteen-year-old is not. Some kids will say, “Oh, I can use the old bike,” or “I can borrow someone’s bike.” Others will be like, “I don’t think my life is going to be worth living, because I don’t have the stuff that other kids have.” Kids just come that way -- some of them like stuff more than others!

You can’t let yourself think, “This child is going to be so materialistic. That’s all that’s ever going to matter. There’s not going to be that balance in his life, or real integrity, or character.” That’s not true. It’s just something that they have to work with.

I probably had five or six kids before I figured that out.