Dad of seven children Vytautas openly about the daily life of the family and thoughts about the eighth child: patience and possibilities are not limitless

– You are the father of seven children. Are you still getting amazing feedback from those around you?

– Now less, because everyone is more or less used to having so many children. In addition, we are not the only family so large in our environment. Of course, sometimes we keep surprising someone. One of the last times was when I recently chose a sofa in a furniture store. I ask the saleswoman: “What about the fabric? Are you resistant to children? ”. She tells me: “Yes, I myself have children, we had a great time.” I’m saying I have a little more of those kids than usual, so I want to know if it’s really time. Assure again that everything will be fine. I tell you that I have seven children. Her: “Really?” He even froze for a moment. He started questioning and forgot about that couch. We are not that standard family, sometimes a large group of children attracts attention.

– Maybe you come from a large family?

– Not so big. I come from a family of three children, I grew up with two brothers. The wife is also from a family of three children.

– Tell me, how many responsibilities do you have with children, what are your traditions as a father?

– One of those daily rituals: night reading, when everyone is lying in bed, we sit down and read at least a couple of chapters.

– Maybe you had to go on paternity leave?

– It came out naturally. My jobs were such that I could afford to be at home. I worked as a tour guide for many years so I was able to say that I currently have a position at home and cannot go anywhere. If my wife used to say she could ride, she would.

– Apparently, the quarantine with seven children looked different from that of ordinary families, right?

– Yes, the hardest part was in spring, when everything suddenly closed. I started to be home after a long break. I remember after a while someone from friends asked how we were doing, and my wife is very happy to say, “Fun, man home, everyone home, no kids to train, no need to run, faina.” And I say: “I’m almost depressed, I can’t, I have my nerves on the border.” Also, even during the financially difficult period, there was no work, such responsibility pressed. There is also a lot to say about children’s learning. With the elderly, everything is simple, and with the youngest, a time of challenges has begun.

“Maybe you have a recipe for what to do when it seems like your patience is running out?”

– We try to have a routine as clear as possible at home. This does not mean that life is the same from day to day, but we have realized that children do not have to make surprises. Don’t get up in the morning and decide to go somewhere without warning. Then comes the next civil uprising: nonsense, we don’t want to, we already have something planned. As much as possible, we try to have very clear starting points, like dinner time, when we can all sit together, talk, communicate. Because we used to try to surprise kids, a complete nonsense came out. If you want to make children happy, you better tell them in advance. Here, as with women: only amateurs surprise women. With children, it is exactly the same, they need to tell it in advance, turn them on with that thought, then they will believe and everything will work out.

Another thing that helps when there is already extreme stress is that we start preparing for sleep earlier. When it is 7 pm we start to wash the children, we let ourselves stay longer in the bathroom to calm down. After a bath, they recover.

– You and your wife share roles in raising children, who is that tough cop?

– We always try to agree with my wife what the decision will be for one thing or another. Of course, sometimes you need to make that decision alone. But if that already happens, we no longer question each other’s decision with the children. So we can scold each other because we agreed that way and you let me go again, but not with the kids. If someone said yes, so do we. And anyway, in our family, probably like most, the mother is the one who constantly hears the question, “Mom, Mom, Mom …” All the way. And I’m happy about that, because if there are moments when my mother goes somewhere and the questions start: “Daddy, daddy, daddy …”, I get a little panic. I realize that I wouldn’t want that to be the case all the time. That, returning to the question, that tough cop maybe more often I am. At least the kids would tell.

– But is there time without children to talk to your wife?

– If it weren’t for that, we’d be completely dead. We have a great gift: the wife’s parents, who pick up those little ones from time to time. We can already leave the largest ones at home, but it is not a very good idea to leave them all, because it is not clear what state the house will be in next, especially if we talk about a longer time – 4-5 hours. For this reason, once a month we gladly take advantage of the good will of our grandparents and try to escape so that no one gets on the hump. It’s very important. We can talk to ourselves calmly. In such cases, we say, “We are talking about anything but children and science.” Of course, we still find ourselves returning to these issues.

– How much do you notice if parents participate in raising children in your environment?

– Many of our friends have several children: 4, 5, 6. I can not say for all, but in a large family it is impossible to leave everything to my mother: she will take care of everything and I will only be a king and punish someone if necessary. That is not possible. I used to get the question, “Are you helping your wife?” Strange question. What does it mean to help my wife? I don’t help her, she takes great care of herself. She doesn’t need help. We just do the work together. There are certain divisions, such as that she is more dedicated to washing clothes, she is much more likely to produce food than I, but if she does, I am the one who fixes everything. But everything comes naturally.

– Is parenting, raising the first child and raising the seventh very different? Is there any truth to the saying that you are raising your first child and growing up only after the third?

– There are some truths because the first child is who you are training with. Try everything. He is usually the first to go to bed at night, the first to want to stay with friends longer. You need to break those ice creams. Then things get easier. When a new and old little one is born, he suddenly grows so much, he becomes independent. Of course, that does not mean that they grow by themselves. They still need attention, effort from us, to discover and recognize what kind of attention each of them needs to dedicate that time to all. This remains an aspiration for us. With everything new at the beginning, many questions remain unanswered. We have counted on such nonsense, we have changed our minds, we have listened. Now let’s laugh at that. For example, when my first daughter was born, we practically did not give mine if Jurgita’s parents supported her. We have added that the first months are very important because of the attachment. After that, of course, that was not the case. Common sense was maintained and the grandparents were able to enjoy their grandchildren from the first moments. Now our first-born is 15 years old, we realized that there are three more years to go and she will go somewhere. Then 13, then every two years there are four boys and the last one, again a girl. He is now two years old.

– Meet mothers, talk about children, their upbringing, share advice. And the parents? You do the same?

– We communicate differently, but the issue of children between us is inevitable, especially when they were younger. We have such a community, a family club, where families large and small meet. We have a tradition of going to the sauna, men, by themselves, women, by themselves. Once we went to the sauna with a friend in town. There it is accepted that if someone heats the sauna in the village, then the neighbors come. A neighbor joined. We sit in the sauna, talk and notice that he looks at us strangely. Then we realized that he was very uncomfortable. We sat on those perches in the heat and we talked about nothing but children’s business: something about illness, something about evictions, something else. Absolutely those non-male conversations. He came out looking at us strangely. We said, now the language the sect is gathering will spread. We realized that our topics were far removed from male conversations, there was not a word about machines or basketball. Diapers and other things.

– Would you still decide on an eighth child?

– We didn’t have a plan to have seven children. They came organically, naturally. All in his own time, although then perhaps it seemed that there was no time yet. As soon as we got married we were living with our parents in a three bedroom apartment, we had our own 9 square foot room. When we found out we were waiting, it was such a mild shock. Then we came up with the need to find our own home. Our firstborn was a good boost for this step. We finally took out a loan and bought a house. Will it be eighth? We don’t really say no in any way. But we are deliberately not aiming for that. If it comes, it will come. We understand that both patience and opportunity are not limitless. It is not easy to maintain all those emotions. The next time someone asks you how you live, say: “In a constant crisis.” Because for one the crisis ends, for another it begins. For the boss, the already fierce adolescence was over. The daughter’s second wave of emotion sometimes beats so much that it breaks all the fuses. For the third, the emotional crises are already beginning. Puppies are pushing their limits too. There is such a constant scream that comes out. However, we have always greeted all the children with joy, so if the eighth came, we would certainly not be upset.