This little Passion makes 12
Passion Brinessa Ajayla Quinatee Martin is 10 days old, has 11 siblings and her mother Brinessa Martin is done. Probably.
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Brinessa Martin might have just given birth to her 12th child, Passion, but she is part of an ever-shrinking demographic crowd. Less than 2 per cent of Australian women have six or more children.
Next year, the number of couple families without children will overtake couple families with children, according to Bureau of Statistics projections (just over 40 per cent won't have children, while just under 40 per cent will). The proportion of single parent families is expected to stay static about 17 per cent.
It's most common for mothers to have two children now, accounting for 26 per cent of women recorded in the 2011 census. Sixteen per cent have three children, and 11.5 per cent have one child. Just 1.7 per cent of women have six or more, while 31 per cent of women are childless.
Brinessa and her brood. Photo: Simone De Peak
ANU demographer Edith Gray said big families went out of fashion in the late 1970s. Whereas more than a third of women in their early 40s had four or more children in 1976, only one fifth did in 1986, and by 2011, just one in 10 did.
Dr Gray said high infant mortality necessitated large families in the past. "This is not the case in today's modern societies, so the reason for having a large family comes down to personal, cultural and religious factors," Dr Gray said.
After giving birth to Passion Brinessa Ajayla Quinatee 10 days ago, Mrs Martin thinks she's done.
"I don't think I'll have any more," the 38-year-old mother from Newcastle said. "But I'm not saying no, because I've said that before." Three years ago Mrs Martin thought her newborn daughter Diammond Sparckle Zedekeyah Lilly Ann would be her last.
The recent arrival of Passion adds strain to an already groaning daily routine.
On a school morning, Mrs Martin gets up at 5am to bathe, clothe and feed her younger children, including Brandi Shyla Molly Robyn (8), Indigo Raindrop Sapphire (6), Cruz Richard (5), and Clayton Adam Logan (4). Cruz has cerebral palsy. There are six loads of washing to be done each day, and family car trips take place in a modified 14-seat Toyota HiAce. The household goes through three loaves of bread a day, and Mrs Martin buys up to 30 litres of longlife milk on her fortnightly shopping trip.
Mrs Martin once thought she'd have only three children, naming her eldest daughters Samantha Jayne, Shantelle Victoria and Stephanie Catherine. She devised the younger girls' names using verses of poetry, an iPhone name-generating app, and a love of adding letters.
Since the break-up of her marriage last year, Mrs Martin has cared for her children alone. Samantha, 19, lives in Queensland.
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