The Backlash To Ballerina Farm's 9th Baby Says More About Our Culture Than Their Family

“You cannot give nine children adequate time, attention, and connection,” one viral tweet insisted.

Others agreed. Large families are inherently neglectful, they argued. It’s simple math. If there are only two parents and over four kids, they can’t possibly have enough time to care for each child. They are outnumbered.

Some pushed back, pointing out that many parents who work outside the home see their children for only a few hours a day. The Neelemans are home with their children full time. They have a lot more time to spend with their children because it’s not interrupted with daycare, public school, and work hours. If time is the metric, it invites a broader look at how families actually function.

“A mom can’t give 9 of her own children adequate attention… But a daycare worker can give all 10, 12 or 14 children they’re watching adequate attention while mom and dad are at work? Make it make sense.” Lauren pushed back.

What struck me most wasn’t the math. It was the certainty. There were so many strong opinions about what it must be like to grow up in a big family from people who never have. I shouldn’t be surprised, though. It is the internet—a place where everyone wants to be part of the conversation even when they have nothing to do with it.

I can’t stay quiet when I see strangers confidently declaring what my childhood must have been like because I lived it.

Pro-life commentator and activist Lila Rose shared her own experience growing up as one of eight, describing the closeness, resilience, and lifelong friendships that come from having many siblings. Her story echoed something I know deeply: numbers don’t determine neglect. Presence does.

I can’t stay quiet when I see strangers confidently declaring what my childhood must have been like because I lived it.

I belong to a family of nine. My parents, four sisters, and two younger brothers. Not the Brady Bunch, where two families came together to make one, but all seven children coming from the same mother and father, all of us growing up in the same home, the whole time.

Growing up in a big family felt like a permanent sleepover with your built-in best friends. We shared clothes, secrets, and inside jokes. Okay, fine. When it comes to clothes, there was more stealing than sharing. We had a busy home, full of family and family-friends. There was always something going on, always some fun to be had. We had a whole kickball team in our backyard and we took advantage of it.

We became immune to bullying by developing thick skin early on, learning how to argue and how to forgive. We had each other’s backs at school and in life. Even now as adults, we are not constantly searching for community—we are community. We always have someone to hang out with, to call, to celebrate with, to rant to. Some of us already have children of our own and they get to grow up together too. The legacy multiples.

Even now as adults, we are not constantly searching for community—we are community.

Life isn’t about being happy 24/7, though. Even good, healthy families face hard seasons. We know we are living in good days right now, and we don’t take that for granted. All of us are healthy. Our parents are doing well. We’ve been spared some of the deepest losses so far. One day, when we lose our parents, we won’t grieve alone. We will have eight other people who knew them deeply. Eight people with their own lifetime of memories to share. We will mourn together and keep their stories alive together. That kind of shared grief is its own kind of gift.

When only children lose their parents, who do they have to mourn with? Hopefully some uncles and aunts. Hopefully some friends.

I’m sure some people grew up in big families and hated it. Those people exist. But difficult experiences are not exclusive to large families. Only children can struggle with loneliness. Middle children can feel invisible. Firstborns can feel crushing pressure. Even Taylor Swift sings, “Every eldest daughter was the first lamb to the slaughter” and “Every youngest child felt they were raised up in the wild.” Every family structure carries its own set of strengths and weaknesses.

Difficult experiences are not exclusive to large families.

My childhood wasn’t perfect—fights, cliques, not enough privacy or alone time, always being seen as “one of seven” instead of just as myself. Money didn’t go as far when you have nine mouths to feed. I’m sure each of my siblings have their own set of complaints based on where they landed in the pecking order.

We live in a culture that wants to pathologize everything. Reddit threads and think pieces dissect birth order like a diagnosis. People project their worst experiences onto strangers and assume inevitability. But siblings raised under the same roof often walk away with entirely different interpretations of the same childhood.

This is bigger than just some internet comments, though. This is a reflection of a broader cultural shift. It is increasingly popular to mock large families. To assume they are irresponsible, oppressive, or naive. To suggest that children are burdens and financial liabilities rather than blessings.

The anti-child sentiment doesn’t just target large families like Ballerina Farm; it questions women who have children young, or low-income people growing their families. It questions women who choose motherhood at all. We are told to delay having children until we’ve curated our lives to their standards. Then we are shocked when birth rates collapse and loneliness skyrockets. It’s all a scheme.

I speak on this in my first Evie article, the IVF industry pressuring women to wait to have kids: They Told Us Motherhood Could Wait and in my article with Them Before Us: “I Wish I Didn’t Wait”

The anti-child sentiment doesn’t just target large families like Ballerina Farm.

You don’t have to want nine children. You don’t even have to want one. But we should stop pretending that children diminish life. Large families are not inherently dysfunctional. Small families are not inherently superior. Don’t be part of the problem. Don’t go online and go about your day perpetuating the idea that children are a burden. I can’t count all of the negative comments and judgmental looks walking through grocery stores with my parents. Don’t be that way. Celebrate life, support families, be happy for people even if you personally wouldn’t choose the lifestyle they did. The world needs more positivity; the internet surely does.

When I look back at my childhood I see abundance.

Abundance of laughter, of help when life gets hard, of people to call when something wonderful happens, of siblings who will stand next to me at weddings and funerals and ordinary Tuesday night dinners for the rest of my life.

In a world increasingly skeptical of children, I remain grateful I grew up surrounded by them. I didn’t always see it at the time, but the older I get, the more I understand that the greatest gift my parents gave me was my brothers and sisters.

I love my big family.

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