Peter McKay

It seems I cannot turn on the news these days without seeing the latest update on the soap opera life of Nadya Suleman, the California woman who had six kids under her belt and then went out and had, on purpose, eight more in one fell swoop. "Octomom" has become famous for nothing more than being a human Xerox machine, churning out copies of herself at a rate that makes my head spin. This week, I heard that Octomom was attempting to trademark the name and hoping to star in her own reality show.

She'll probably get it — rampant reproduction has become the new national obsession. My kids have become fixated with a show called "Jon and Kate Plus Eight," about a couple who produced children at approximately 400 percent the normal average. And now there's a new show coming out called "Table for Twelve," about a family with 10 kids.

I haven't seen these shows and won't. What bothers me is that they all look at this modern phenomenon from the perspective of the parents: How are they going to feed, clothe and educate all these kids? Nobody ever thinks about the problems of a supersized family from the kids' vantage point.

Both my wife and I grew up in big families. Her parents had seven kids, and I grew up in a household with a whopping nine kids. (Yeah, I said it. Nine. You got a problem with that?) Our family was big, even by 1960s Irish Catholic standards. People would look at us and just shake their heads, wondering whether we were a family or a small private school. I don't remember too much commentary from the general public, though, but largely because we rarely went out all together. With just one car, my parents had to prioritize, and usually ended up having to pick a traveling team of only those kids who were absolutely necessary for a trip. (I often failed to make the cut. Very often.)

I can testify, growing up as one of many offspring in one small house, that there are distinct disadvantages that come with being a kid in a crowd.

In our house, we had a dinner table almost 15 feet long. Nine kids sitting around a big long table is just a little creepy. At Christmas dinner, we looked like a board of directors meeting for a corporation headquartered in Munchkinland. The line for the bathroom was so long it was just easier to wait and go at school. And a kid leaving for college, or even the Army, was a cause for celebration, because it meant just a little more elbow room, and maybe, just maybe, a chance to get your own room.

My wife and I, having both come from megabroods, tried to restrain ourselves, but ended up having five kids. Not enough for a reality show, but enough that our kids sometimes express a desire to search for foster parents.

This week, my 15-year-old son had to do a family tree for his high school biology class, where he had to name all his aunts, uncles, cousins and their spouses. I came through the kitchen as he was printing out the pages on the table, groaning and flapping his cramped hand. The names spread out in an endless list, boxes and lines flowing in all directions, looking like an org chart for a Fortune 500 firm. He shook his head.

"This," he said, angrily pointing toward the pages spread out before him, "Is not normal!" I simply smiled and nodded.

Looking back, I almost wish they'd have reality TV when I was growing up and we'd had our own show. They could have called it "Nine is Too Much!"

The money and fame would have been nice, and whenever life as one of nine got to be too much, I could have elbowed aside a few siblings, turned to the camera, looked out at America and whispered, "Get me out of here!"

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