They live in a dilapidated old house, like a “horse of weirdos”. But for the novelist Edward Dawkes, the biggest advantage of having groups of brothers and sisters is that you can gain extraordinary emotional intelligence.
Every child’s childhood is different, “being only in this mountain”, he is naturally not surprised. In the late 1980s, whenever a group of my brothers and sisters and I went to a place, the eyes and expressions of the onlookers always confused us-but we just filed in from an old and pitiful four-wheeled carriage. It takes a little longer to download.
Of course we know that we are “many and powerful” and I am their “boss.” Then there is the second child hug, the third child Beibei, the old four-dimensional rule, the fifth fat, the sixth goose, and finally the seventh hacker. We nicknamed everything, we have our own language. Our home is located in Cheshire, England. It is a remote, messy and old-fashioned Edwardian building. There are no carpets and curtains in the house. My family’s expenses always make ends meet. Few friends come to my house as guests, because the location of the house is too remote to describe it clearly.
Most of the furniture at home is dilapidated. Just hearing the word “decoration” can make us full of expectations and joy. There are some very old cooking utensils and a bathtub that is close to “prehistoric”. The bathtub looks like a big ship, and the long water pipes and drain pipes clanging non-stop at night. Layers of cobwebs weave across the room, thick dust and insect corpses are the embellishment of the bedroom. As soon as he walked into the room, the smoky smell came to his face.
Our father goes to work at 7 in the morning and leaves at 9 in the evening. He works in the dental clinic and is dedicated to the research of root canal treatment-a professional technique of dentistry. At the weekend, he will try to repair broken bicycles, washing machines, faucets, electric lights or small trucks while telling us about early anthropology. After our mother knew that she was half of Russian descent in 1987, she opened a small organization and became a concert planner. The small business worked very well, and this small organization, her office, was actually me. The bedroom of the little brother who is still nursing. While listening to Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky played on harsh old tapes, she hurried hand-made posters for the upcoming musicians.
Our childhood looks like stocking-unfettered and carefree. In fact, we obey the teachings of our parents. We are like a group of boy scouts: no matter what they do, we will do it, whatever they don’t approve of. , We will never let it happen. Doing housework is even more important to us. But their love and company for us are no less than other families. Nowadays, hearing the term “parenting method” can always make them laugh-where is the method needed? Their way is clearly no way!
”Did Mom go to the store?” I asked as soon as I got home from school in Manchester.
”Go,” said a little bit (the little bit is a term we use to address younger siblings).
”What can we eat now?” I asked again. The little ones would point to the bags of things their mother bought.
”There is lettuce,” the second child hugged and replied immediately. He was sucking his fingers while turning the food bag with the other hand. “There is also mustard and wafer chocolate. There is nothing else.” The
six of us simply rushed to those together. Food bags, open all the bags, some on the table, some on the chair, and some on the ground-everyone’s position basically depends on each person’s height. The bag usually contains more than 20 lettuce, 7 cans of English mustard, and sometimes some celery, and then 6 packets of Harvard Wafer-this is the only thing our dad has time to eat. This is how we gradually learn to cook — and gradually learn to do everything — let’s do it together, arrogantly, in a weird picture. We might make lettuce and grain salad these days, if mom buys other things, we might make tuna cheese salami salad in a few days. The kitchen occupied by us can’t be described too much in terms of swords and fires. The level of danger eclipses the medieval circus-but none of us mind.
The main benefit of being born in a big family, now that I think about it, it should be to hone emotional intelligence. For a person who grew up in an intimate and harmonious environment, it is necessary to understand the complex emotions of the people around him in daily communication. Therefore, this person must have extraordinary insight and intuition in perceiving the emotional world of others.
In addition to high emotional intelligence, being born in a big family also gives us rich imagination, a strong sense of humor and language control ability. At the dinner table of the extended family, if mom and dad ask questions, it doesn’t matter who answers it, but who answers first is important. I dare to pack the tickets. A large part of the creativity of my brothers and sisters comes from their ingenious ways to attract the attention of their parents when they were young. The longer they improvise, the more time parents pay attention to them. The longer.
After so many years, we have grown up, but the speed at which we eat and speak remains the same as in the past (and when we speak, no one can intervene!) If we sit alone quietly Five minutes, it can drive us crazy. On the other hand, if people can accurately call our name, we must be so excited that the person feels inexplicable, and if we can also tell our preferences, we will be moved to tears. If you travel with one of us, your journey will be very easy, because we have less needs, low requirements, do not cause trouble to travel companions, and never add drama to ourselves.
Group photo of the “seven sons” (from left)-Edward, Fatty, Beibei, Hug, Hacker, Wige and Goose, taken in front of their childhood old house in Cheshire in 2007.
Over the years, my siblings and I have been walking more and less often, far and near, but we have been pretending to be each other in our hearts. When we were young, we often played and laughed, and ridiculed each other whenever we had the opportunity. One of my brothers lives in Florida, one lives in Hamburg, one sister lives in New York, one lives in Bishopstorf, and the others are in London. Every time I visit them, I will parachute into their lives. Their lives and the world are so familiar and intimate in my eyes. They are familiar and empathetic. They travel through time and space, and it has never been a long time.
When I was 20 years old, my parents gave birth to their last child, my little brother, the seventh. I have never lived with a hacker, but he also grew up in the house where we grew up. We are very close to each other. Every year 7 of us meet on the Isle of Man on the west coast of Scotland. Of course, the gathering scene was quite chaotic, and it turned out to be so exciting—because the family had already added 10 grandchildren. However, our mother no longer has to go shopping with big bags, because the 7 of us take turns taking care of the food at home every night, 7 days a week. Perhaps my mother had planned a long time ago and gave birth to seven of us, no more, no less, just 7 days, and each of us’s culinary skills are enough to cope with all of this-barely make sense.
