Where to put all these kids?! Wwyd?

[MissMooley]

Wasn't sure where to post this to get the most advice.
Basically I'm in a 3 bed house. Me, dds 14 & 19, and ds 11&8.
Currently, dd 14 & 19 have their own rooms, and the boys share. I have a bed in the living room.
It's worked for us nicely, but now I'm due twins in 10 weeks 😂🙈
I have no idea where they're going lol
My options so far are:

1- Scrap having a living room and just make it a full bedroom for me and the twins.

2- make the living room a full bedroom, and move the sofa etc into the outshed, but not sure how that will go in winter, it gets pretty cold and I don't have the money to fully convert it (also a council house, so would need permission I assume?)

That's it. I don't like the idea of having no living room but there's literally no space to have the cots and all the baby stuff in there with my bed and the sofa etc too.

I've considered the girls sharing, but eldest has asd and several mh disorders so can't see that working for her.

Just feel a bit stuck and hoping someone has a magic solution I haven't thought of!

Being overcrowded in a house doesn't make giving your kids up for adoption a better option. I don't agree with being in the position of having way too many kids than you can house but they are still better off with their mum if she can sort out some practical solutions. I 100% think she has been irresponsible but that's not really my business to say apparently (even though this is a public forum which invites people to comment) but I don't think suggesting she should have had an abortion when she is not far off giving birth, or shipping the boys off to their dads to make space for new kids is a reasonable solution.

Your kitchen idea is a great one.

I had 3 cousins and they lived in a 3 bed house, one for mum and dad, one for the eldest and the younger 2 shared. Youngest hated it and she had the cupboard under the stairs instead. To be fair the way their stairs were configured it was a bigger cuboard than the average but she much preferred her cupboard to sharing.

Takes all sorts.

Oh get a grip - what’s your solution then? All of the suggestions are actually perfectly reasonable. Not all of them will be suitable for everyone- but the solutions are all perfectly practical. And different women have found all of them a solution to their situation, laying out ALL the options IS women supporting women, Calling people vile and evil for laying out perfectly reasonable and often used options is not women supporting women. Suggesting a woman’s only option is to keep,single handedly looking after children whose basic need she has got the ability to meet, to put her daughter in a situation which will affect her MH. To make her other children’s lives harder. That is not women supporting women that is taking the position of women back 100 years.

@MissMooley - I can understand if you abandoned this thread - but in the midst of all this, a poster commented that some councils that don’t have big enough houses to house overcrowded families sometimes will do building work to their existing housing stock.

when you speak to the council (and please do this week, make it clear you are already over crowded!) you could see if they would be prepared to do something like convert the loft. A 4th room fixes your problems until your twins are older and need to move out of sharing a room with you. Hopefully by then dd2 may have moved out. (I’ve rather assumed you will have dd1 living with you indefinitely.)

Kids really aren’t always better off with their birth mother. But it’s only an option she should consider, like abortion earlier, fine if she rejects it but it’s a completely viable option which sometimes is the best option, for many women it’s a good option, so let’s not villify those who have done that,

None of the available options are going to be good for everyone- OP needs to consider which option is going to damage ALL of her children the least but accept whichever option she chooses ALL her children will be affected by her decision to bring two more babies into an already overcrowded house where at least one person is already struggling

People are harsh on here, regarding my last post it's not like I'm expecting people on here to pay my rent. I chose to carry 3 children and trust me I don't want any more as I know my limit and will be using contraception going forward. My mum had 3 and somehow managed alone and we all turned out alright!

I would never vilify anyone making that decision and none of my posts have suggested that in the slightest, the OP really wasn't asking for that sort of solution, i was really mainly referring to suggesting the OP should have aborted when she only has 2 months to go. I have people close to me who have gone down the adoption route, or abortions and they are all amazing people, and have done it with a huge amount of thought of course, but in this situation it just doesn't feel OK to be suggesting it.

Kids really aren’t always better off with their birth mother

Except apparently the recently diagnosed autistic girl of 19, who has mental health difficulties already, and is likely very vulnerable because despite her high grades her emotional maturity will be well below that of her peers (studies showing that over 75% of autistic women have been victims of sexual assault for example). And yet according to many PPs she should be shoved off to live in "supported living" (with minimal support) to live on her own, to make way for yet more kids.

The three other older children getting pretty much no 1:1 time with their mother because she'll be so busy with the babies, during the crucial and stressful teenage years when they'll need more support. With little private space to escape or study. Also, chances are, that at least one and probably more are also neurodiverse so this will impact them even more heavily, because it runs in families. Oldest DD apparently only got diagnosed recently so the others could also well have things not picked up early, which impacts in itself and then you add in overcrowding and not enough parental time or personal space and compound it all.

So many outraged posts that anybody could question the choices. Many of us are also lone parents. Many of us have also had unexpected and unfortunate things happen in life. It does not change the fact that it is our job as parents to mitigate the impact of that on our children as far as possible, even though often it is heartbreaking and exhausting and difficult and upsetting. The posts here claiming that people are "evil" for stating these facts are so wrong, like the children don't matter at all.

Get off your high horse.

Clearly not read my other posts. Or just did not understand them. Or didn't care about the content. Whichever one of those it is, it isn't good.

I have no "high horse".

You say you’ve turned out alright, I’d disagree given you’ve chosen to continue the cycle for your own kids

@gwrachod your response to this, is still "get off my high horse", is it?

How dare you.

Kids really aren’t always better off with their birth mother.

In very very extreme circumstances. You can't posit this as though it's just another 'option'

Without vilifiing women who have opted for abortion its just not an option for everyone.

Some women can be consumed by guilt and depression after it, that wouldn't have been good for her other children either.

I have several friends who were willingingly put up for adoption as babies. That is a trauma in itself, but they agree unanimously that this was best for them, because their birth mothers could not have provided what they needed emotionally or physically. It was an act of selflessness for their birth mothers to do this, for them. Many now in contact with birth mothers. None wish that their mothers hadn't done it, as it was the best of the options there were. Trauma is much more of an extreme issue for children left to live with people who can't care for them, either for early childhood or throughout childhood. If adopted from birth there is far less of an impact, and much less impact than growing up with a family where you won't be provided for and cared for properly and given the individual attention and parental time that every child needs and deserves.

Well you did comment about the council not being interested in your overcrowding situation, that is wanting some help really isn't it. If you are funding your DCs with no benefits with the exception of child benefit then it's really no one else's business, but you have said you have decided to have 3 DCs in a 1 bed apartment even though you moved into it as a single person as if you were left with no choice. In many peoples opinion this is far from ideal, including mine. Doesn't mean people are harsh or unfair.

Adoption because there aren't enough bedrooms is a preposterous idea.

@FlyingWormsAndSubterraneanBirds while for many adoption have worked out fine, it's very much accepted now that children are better being kept with their birth mum or even kept within their wider birth family if at all possible.

There is certainly no guarantee that any child given up for adoption in 2023 will end up in a 'tradational' family unit.

Adoptions can and do break down exactly the same as foster placing can break down.

We’re in a similar yet not half as overcrowded as your situation. We have a 14yo daughter, 11yo son and 10 month old in 3 bed with me and partner and in social housing. We don’t want to move as where we are is the village I grew up with all my family around us. We’ve thought about going up but the way our stairs/landing is, it would cost absolute thousands of thousands so we are planning to partition the biggest bedroom so 14yo and baby can have a smaller room each. I know that doesn’t help your situation but could going up be your best bet? Or would the council help fund sorting the outhouse apposed to being another family on their list to try to rehouse? Maybe the council have a pot for such support? Worth an ask of your housing area officer/warden, whichever you have.

Also how the frick have people jumped to adoption?! How absolutely awful and rude! I can’t even be bothered to read the posts to see where it stemmed!

This thread reminds of threads Ghostspirit used to start.
she used to get very similar responses.
That was years ago.
Mumsnet never changes.

It's absolutely appalling really. The op sounds like a nice woman... nothing to suggest she shouldn't be more than able to take care of her own children. Her choices wouldn't be for me but living in an overcrowded home is not the worst thing that ever happened.

Of course they do. It all depends on the balance of the situation. As I said, far higher chances of it being successful and happy in the cases where children are willingly adopted at birth rather than left to suffer with neglectful/ abusive parents and adopted later, even if still young: the damage is done.

Before anybody jumps on me, not suggesting the OP is neglectful or abusive, obviously: my comments on adoption were a response to specific and negative comments others on the thread had made about adoption.

Interestingly the points I made in other posts regarding the OP's specific situation, the blasé attitudes about it in many posts on this thread, the excusing of any responsibility and calling people evil for being concerned of the impact on her children have not been responded to, at all. All about unquestionable rights of parents apparently and the welfare of the children involved matters not.

Agreed! She’s ended up renting a council house with no stability and having kids she can’t afford.

Why don’t people want more for their children? What are you literally having them for? As dolls to play with?

It’s crazy to me.

OFGS.

Read her posts