On a generic "debate" style post about the amount of children people chose to have in relation to their income, ability to care for them, needs of other children, and societies role in the supporting of the decisions, i would 100% agree with every point you make.
Fair point, and as I said I'm autistic myself, so perhaps this isn't the place to have this conversation and my intention is not to make the OP feel bad. I do think though, that it is only in such discussions that people generally get any opportunity to raise the issue an state the absolutely proven fact that this is not in children's best interests.
However, i feel on specific threads, started by a woman who is what 28/30 weeks pregnant already, that conversation, doesn't need to be had. Her lols and emojis may be a front because she knows her choices have landed her, and her children in a position that isn't the best. Her defensive responses to people saying this i agree, are not the best, but maybe she knows all of this and her deflections are because she already feels everything people are telling her to feel?
I don't think anybody was telling her how to feel. They were challenging the things she has chosen to do, as an adult, who has responsibility for the children in her care. I take your point she may well feel defensive. I will even apologise in that I'm sure my posts must have made her feel worse, if she's read them, which wasn't my intention. However, I'm so upset about grown adults making decisions that make their children's lives worse, over and over again, across society, that even so I think it's a price worth paying (to upset an adult, even a heavily pregnant one) if it changes even one adult's behaviour to NOT continue doing this to children unnecessarily. Sometimes things happen where suddenly a family needs huge support or is in trouble. To actively choose to disadvantage your children is something else entirely. To then be outraged - and the many posters also outraged on OP's behalf - that anybody mentioned this blindingly obvious failure to prioritise the children's needs, is wrong and upsetting and no, posters are not "evil" for pointing it out. They are right. And sorry, but the OP is an adult and while it may upset her to hear the truth - shown by decades of research here and elsewhere - her decisions will hugely negatively impact her children. These were decisions and she's an adult and has choices that they do not. So I think they deserve people to speak up for them even at the risk of being called "evil" for doing so, or upsetting her, because no amount of DIY advice about cheap room partitions is going to make the situation ok.
I cant imagine the responses she would have gotten if shed posted her situation, followed by "so im putting the twins up for adoption" "would i be unreasonable to kick out my vulnerable 19 year old" "should i send two of my children to live with their father/grandparents"
Well those situations are all massively different, and would all have received very different responses. But all of them would have been centred around "is this best for my children?", and therefore most likely responded to quite gently. I think what so many people have found so upsetting about this thread is that the OP's comments showed little evidence of that, at all.
She was looking for practical advice.
With what though? If you willingly create a situation where there is literally no possible practical advice to give that could possibly make the situation ok, then are people meant to ignore that fact and pretend a trip to B&Q will fix it all?
I just dont agree with attacking (for want of a better word) someones choices when they now cant be changed, when instead, we as a community, could try and offer advice, support, and guidance to someone whos (albeit poor) choices will now impact 4 other children/young people.
I think many people have. Many others are extremely frustrated to read that now six children, not four, will be in a situation where there is no practical advice that is likely to improve it much. It's very sad. I think the responses are motivated by huge sadness for the children, not malice. And frustration with adults who create such situations.
But I am sorry if my comments have upset the OP. If she has read them I assume they probably have. I don't want to upset her. But children are children and their needs and those of others like them whose parents also behave like this outweigh hers in my view, she is an adult. She has and has had choices. They don't. We all need to speak up and say that putting children in these situations isn't ok, even if we're called evil for doing so, then so be it.