“If You Think Your Family’s Wild… Try Being One of Twelve”
When people find out I am one of twelve siblings, they look at me like I just confessed I grew up on a commune with goats and homemade butter.
And honestly? They’re not far off.
Growing up in a family this size is its own ecosystem—its own small nation—with rules, alliances, troublemakers, and at least three internal conflicts before breakfast.
My relationship with my siblings may not look like the classic TV Walton’s. We live in different cities, different states, different time zones, and sometimes even different planets mentally. Some of us are closer than others, some relationships ebb and flow, and some are still “under construction.” And that’s okay. Because the cord that binds us together? It’s stronger than the frazzled threads that always threaten to tear us apart.
But, life has a way of quieting the noise, scattering people, shifting priorities, and making you look back like, “Wow… how did we all survive each other?”
Some families have personalities.
We had layers of personalities.
Stacked. Overlapping. Colliding.
And occasionally combusting.
Just when we thought the family headcount had tapped out at eleven—when we assumed my parents were done with all the multiplying—they did the unthinkable.
They adopted one more.
Yes, they took one look at the chaos, the laundry mountains, the dirty dishes, the endless noise, and the fact that the last of us were entering our teenage eras and said:
“Let’s add another one.”
Who does this?? Were my parents saints with hearts the size of Texas…
or gluttons for punishment who thrived on mayhem like it was caffeine? To this day, I still don’t know. I’m convinced it was a holy cocktail of both. Because only angels—or humans with very selective hearing—would look at a house bursting at the seams and say,
“You know what? We’ve got room.”
In our family birth order, I landed smack in the middle as child number seven. That meant my older siblings escaped most of the chaos we younger ones brought to the table. They were halfway out the door by the time we were running around breaking lamps and lying about it with confidence.
But don’t get it twisted.
Those older ones tasted my parents’ struggles in ways we younger kids never could. They lived through the early years when money was tight, stress was high, and Mama and Daddy were learning parenthood one mistake at a time.
So yes—they dodged some of our chaos…but they lived through storms we were too young to remember. We all got different versions of childhood under the same roof.
As for me? Baby, I can tell you, I was an avoider. A professional. A scholar in the art of staying out of mess. Avoiding chaos. Avoiding drama. Avoiding whippings. Avoiding anything with consequences attached. And yes, I was a rule-keeper. A couple of my siblings like to tell me, “You never got in trouble.” Well let's circle back around, honey—I wasn’t innocent.
I was strategic. Staying out of trouble was my ministry. And I served faithfully.
Meanwhile, a couple of siblings could not resist giving my parents the eternal two-for-one special in backtalk. Every. Single. Time. And you already know who lost that match.
In a huge family, kids naturally form little familial gangs. Some crews are two or three. Some are four. And occasionally? Eight. You’ve got the siblings destined to be besties forever—ride-or-die since kindergarten. And then you have the siblings where you recognize the DNA, wave politely, and still avoid them like someone just asked you to wash dishes. After watching the older, stronger sibling gang run the house like a neighborhood empire, you learn quickly when to stay in your lane.
As we got older, I realized we weren’t just a small nation—we were a politically divided one. Democrats. Independents. Republicans. All in the same family.
All reading the same Bible. All convinced they were the enlightened one. Those conversations? Like watching people negotiate peace treaties with themselves.
And then there's the modern battleground: The family group chat.
I always imagine how fast my siblings’ fingers must be typing as they argue their point. The passion! The speed! The typos—oh, the typos—tell the real truth. Nothing says “I’m heated” quite like:
“YOURE NOT LISENING TO WAT IM TRYNG TO SAY!!!”
And me? The lifelong avoider? I don’t argue. I don’t scroll up. I don’t even reread messages. I simply block the chat for 8 hours or quietly exit like I’m slipping out the back door of a party I never wanted to attend. Self-preservation, darling. It’s a calling.
Now that our parents have passed…and we’ve lost a couple of siblings… and we’re all scattered in different states…I find myself wondering sometimes:
When you grow up in a house overflowing with noise, footsteps, laughter, and arguments about whose turn it is to wash dishes, you assume it will always be like that. You assume the noise will never stop. You assume closeness is permanent.
But life shifts. People move. Time reshapes everything we thought was unshakeable. Suddenly the big family that once felt like a full population…
is quieter. Smaller. Spread out across the map. And I find myself appreciating the chaos more than I ever did while living in it.
But just when I drift too far into my thoughts, here comes a sibling lighting up the group chat with ALL CAPS and five typos. Someone else threatens to leave. Another jumps in with commentary nobody asked for. And me? Blocking it like clockwork. In that moment, I realize:
We’re still us.
Older. Scattered. Bruised by time. But stitched together by something deeper than distance, whether we like it or not.
💛 Mama Wisdom Reflection
Families like mine don’t fit neatly into Hallmark commercials.
We are loud. We are layered. We are loving in the most chaotic, sideways, mismatched ways possible.
Because here’s the truth: Time changes people. Distance tests people. Loss humbles people.
But love — the gritty, unglamorous, no-makeup-on, “I still know your childhood nickname” kind of love — that’s the stuff that sticks. And maybe that’s the beauty in it all.
We don’t get to keep every moment. But we do get to carry what mattered:
The lessons. The bonds. The reminders that even the most complicated families are stitched together with something heaven-woven.
So when the group chat erupts, when a sibling types in all caps with an attitude you can hear through the screen, when somebody storms out and someone else storms in…
I laugh now. Because it means we’re still us. Imperfect. Messy. Opinionated. But still connected. And maybe that’s the blessing, that even scattered across states, even bruised by time, even shaped by different seasons…
We are still a family God saw fit to weave together — in all our noise, all our nonsense, and all our never-boring glory.
Scripture: Ecclesiastes 4:12:
“Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”
Now listen…
If three strands are hard to break, imagine the spiritual strength of twelve siblings, even when:
five are arguing
three are ignoring the argument
two are typing in ALL CAPS
one is threatening to leave the group chat
and I’m over here quietly hitting “mute for 8 hours,” minding the business that pays me.
