78 Photo Essay: Rose Hogue
Mother of 12
Words by Ingrid Hogue | Photo by Blakeney Clouse
In your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them…I awake, and I am still with you.” -Psalms 139:16-18
When Daniel and Rose Hogue were married in 1994, they envisioned a love-filled home bustling with five to seven children. They welcomed each pregnancy and within eight years they had their first six children: Daniel Jr., Emma Rose, Walter, Ingrid, Jackson, and Harley.
Rose quickly realized that being a mother was like taking on a full-time job. “You have to be prepared to give all of yourself to it, and you can’t do it by halves,” she would say.
Rose and Daniel decided to homeschool in order to give their children a classical education and a Christ-centered worldview. Rose would admit that was an incredibly difficult decision for her family.
She soon discovered that life no longer fit the model of motherhood she had grown up with, a predictable life parceled between caring for children, enjoying “me-time,” and dipping into social activities.
When her seventh child arrived, she reached a crossroads.
“I realized I could just keep on having children,” she says. “I had always welcomed children as gifts from God—so am I now just going to stop welcoming them?”
She believed God had called her to raise each child, that this was a mystery, a joy, a privilege, and an adventure—“God gave me these children so that He could meet their needs through me.”
She relied heavily on the encouragement, love, and leadership of her husband. Yet, she realized that by opening herself to the idea of having more children, she was being led down a road she could not see the end of. She abandoned expectations of how her life would be and relied on God to accomplish His plans for her family.
Since the seventh child—a cheerful, curly-haired girl named Maggie—Rose has given birth to five more girls: Noelle, Millie, Cora Mae, Tirzah, and Evelyn Jane. Her home is once again alive with small voices and homeschooling them is just as much of an adventure. She adheres to the wisdom of Proverbs 27:23 to “know well the condition of your flocks” and she appreciates the small somethings that matter greatly to each child—their particular trials, and their smallest, deepest triumphs.
Rose says her heaviest responsibility is tending to their emotional and spiritual needs—seeing each child where they are, addressing what she sees, and yet knowing that she cannot meet all their needs. She believes that God holds each of her children, and that His plans for her and them are even better than her hopes. 78