Challenges come along with raising large family
Don Peery, 72, says “we’re all still pretty close as a family.”
“Between the eight kids, there’s roughly a 20-year spread. I have three sons and five daughters.
“Before we got married my wife said she wanted a dozen, but I thought she was kidding. Apparently, she wasn’t kidding. When we got to eight I said, ‘I think that’s enough.’”
What were the biggest challenges with a large family?
“Financial, in the sense of trying to provide for everybody’s material needs. That’s a lot of providing. Emotional, because everybody had their own problems. There was a lot of tension. A lot of pressure on us and the kids, too, having that many growing up at the same time. We didn’t eat out very much. We couldn’t afford to. And trying to be fair about everything was a real challenge. Especially the emotional part. What do you do when your kids are crying because they want something that you don’t have the finances for?”
— Don Peery
(Update: Don passed away in June 2017.)
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