I'm a single mum of 7. AMA!

[WorldCupSadness]

Scared 😅

The majority get help for childcare whether via UC or childcare schemes.

Honestly it sounds like you’re doing an incredible job raising your children! I think we all try as parents not to copy the mistakes of our own parents and it sounds like your childhood was particularly difficult. The fact that you are raising 5 children and making sure they don’t suffer the things you did is so admirable. I hope you’re proud of that and don’t put too much pressure on yourself 😊

Well the OP has disappeared so I guess it’s not an AMA.

Also likely just a goady poster. Or incredibly stupid and doesn’t care about her kids. The oldest have had four men in their lives if it’s true which is just awful.

@fuggetaboutit I can totally get how triggering this must be - all of those questions are very very invasive if you haven’t expressly agreed to discuss them, or invited them as OP has done here.

Like you I had a chaotic childhood and fear people arriving at my home at it looking less than perfect. We lived with our extended family when I was a child, so although there were just 3 kinds in my nuclear family, I had 7 aunts and uncles ranging from 8-22 years older than me and grandparents [and sometimes the great grandparents too]. I think it was not so much the physical mess (though that was a thing) but the ‘mess’ of noise, bodies, conversations, movement that a house with 14+ people in it engendered.

My DH still doesn’t quite get why I need to sit up for an hour alone after everyone has headed to bed - it’s because when everyone is asleep it is the only time the house was silent and still. I have also found that I ended up setting up routines and finding shortcuts household stuff that I use even though there are now just 4 of us in my own home (DH, myself and 2 YA DC, but we had 2 foster boys for several years too).

So, for example, all the beds in the house are king size so that we can all have the exact same white bedding. I have 2-3 sets per bed so that it means I can swap bedding regularly and have plenty of time to launder and iron them before the next change over. I suspect with a larger family OP already does that sort of thing - but I wonder why people assume that large families don’t have some underlying organisational system that keeps it vaguely in order. The large family doesn’t just arrive overnight - it evolves, along with approaches to housework etc.

I suspect it was a post to start a row about benefits. If true, she is in the top 3 % of income earners in the uk.

What is your current job?

Did you grow up in care?

She is doing great with her studying but there is no point in doing that if she doesn’t have a realistic plan on how to earn money with it .

I am not having a 3rd child as I can’t afford and I appreciate it the op has had some hard times but she has chosen to have a 7th child whilst studying without any plan as to how she can do a training contract with the baby.

Would you have had 7 children if the government didn't pick up the bill? ie 7 children actually meant the responsibility to support them yourself?

It's not my intention to judge, although realise it may come across that way. I am genuinely interested in what motivates people to have a family larger than they can afford?

Do you think your 7 children will grow up with the same outlook given that's their normal?

I have three children and it's expensive. I already work in law and certainly couldn't afford 7 children.

I didn't have my first child until I was in what I considered to be the position to support a child - fully qualified with reasonable post qualification experience, own home, stable relationship, sufficient income etc. I have friends who have only children on the basis that whilst they would have liked a second child, it was unaffordable.

Because if the state didn't provide those payments, the children would not be eating, wouldn't live in safe housing, wouldn't even be safe. That's why.

All these posts about "you have more than I do" - she has 7 children, you probably don't. £4k doesn't go far with 7 children. The benefits will stop when her children reach 16, or 18.

I actually think she is doing ok - she has got an eye on the future - most people who are reliant on benefits, end up with no pensions, living in rented accommodation (if they can still afford it once the kids leave home). You won't be in that situation.

Honestly though even if someone paid you 4k a month and you only had to work PT would
you have 7 dc??!! I wouldn’t !!!!

Thankyou for raising the birth rate and providing workers to care for all us old Mumsnetters when we are 90 ha!

I have always managed to carve out free time for myself

This

It sounds hellish. For all of them

I don’t have 7 children because I couldn’t afford 7 children and I don’t think it’s ok to have more children expecting other tax payers to pay for them!

Everyone experiences anxiety differently don’t they?

I’m a single mum to one child, am also on UC and worry about his future all the time. I have invested all of his birthday and Christmas money from family into a JISA and will be buying him a property (buy to let worth £200k up north in a university city) and have got him into a private school on a 90% bursary. I buy everything for him on Vinted so he never goes without. I’m not having a second because I can’t provide the same opportunities.

How do you feel about their future prospects? Or do you want to provide them with as good a life possible until they’re 18 and let them work it out for themselves?

Do any of your kids have special needs or neurodiversity? If so, do you worry about how they would support themselves in the future?

By the way, I don’t judge you at all and think it’s ridiculous that some people on here resent supporting families like yours and yet say nothing whatsoever about supporting the 9 children per family of people from Muslim majority countries, of which at least 1 will hold extremist and anti western views. I’m the 7th child of an immigrant family who fled a Muslim majority country because of our religious views. I’m worried that British people, Christians, Jews, atheists and progressives are not having enough children and are very tolerant of extremism and don’t feel particularly proud of western democracy and civilisation. A dangerous combination if you ask me.

Wow I have no family either but decided to have only 2 kids as thats all I could afford 🙄 im a mug aren't i

but she doesn't live in a mansion laid for by family wealth she lives off money other people who can't afford to have 7 children have contributed.

Race is nothing to do with it. The country is on its knees as too many people are rinsing the benefits system and there aren’t enough tax payers. No one can afford 7 children with their own money unless they’re rich.

Right now, based on £14k per year she pays £34 per month tax and NI. She works 21 hours per week. NMW for 21 hours is £13,879 per year.

I took hope she manages to break into law and earns bucket loads. But right now, with her income, CMS, CB, UC, she would need to earn in excess of £132k - and still more as that wouldn't take into account the non cash benefits of FSM and also she would have to be paying back all those student loans.

What I find mind blowing is the state gives this money (rightly don't want kids in (financial) poverty) but seems zero scaffolds to reduce reliance on state in families like OPs. So, a lot more tax in the future? Well, realistically, not in ten short / medium term.

Her rent isn’t that high, 1.3k. She gets 6k a month and only works 21 hours a week. I’m certainly not jealous and have used contraception so only have 2 children but it’s disgusting how tax payers are expected to fund this lifestyle.

Exactly. The OP isn't painting herself in a good light at all....

By the way, how amazing that you have 13 kids! I'm so glad to hear of a big family where all the kids have the same parents. This is a really beautiful thing 😊

I think they are both as bad as each other. Having the same dad doesn't make having 13 kids any better.

This is where I stop believing you.
The SQE is 3.5k to pay. You cannot have any savings spare, OR time to spend on studying.
I vote this is a goady post

No wonder we're all fed up and on antidepressants. I work ft plus another PT job to keep my planned 2 kids with a roof over their heads and fed, clothed. We only just scrape by and I'm never able to buy clothes for myself or get my hair done. I am eligible for nothing from the government except standard CB because I work and earn "too much".

I can't afford a cleaner or a dog, and would have liked another child but made the sensible decision that I can't afford another. I'm on antidepressants because I'm so fed up with life and can never afford to go anywhere. No not even a bloody caravan holiday OP.

Meanwhile my tax money is subsidising people like this OP to have kids she can't afford, work PT, keep a pet and have a cleaner.

Maybe the OP has 'disappeared' because she's quite busy right now?