to thing that having child number 5 when living in a small 2 bed flat is unfair to all the children.

[byanymeans]

I totally understand that it is in all honesty none of my business how many kids people choose to have, as long as the parents can provide from them. However I really do find it a bit hard to get my head around how one family of 4 kids 2 adults could fit into a 2 bed flat before but last week they came home with baby number 5.

I just don't get how the parents feel this arrangement of 4 kids (oldest child is 13, some boy some girls) sharing a bed room is healthy. They must have no real play space or personal space. I just don't understand why you would want to bring another child into that?

I feel so sorry for the new couple who live below to as the noise from so many feet run around must drive them mad. I don't think that any one has lasted more the 9 months in the flat bellow for years.

I just don't understand they see nothing wrong this having still more without moving it?s not fair on any of the kids.

Rebecca41 "presumbly" " I imagine" " So I assume" "so I'm guessing"

Which shows that you don't know this family's arrangements.

Tiffany - what a strange comment. Of course I don't know, how could I possibly? I was simply explaining why I thought it didn't sound like a good idea. Life is full of assumptions. If you see someone getting mugged in the street you assume they'd rather it wasn't happening, but you don't know for sure. Maybe they're messing about. But until we live in world where we all know exactly what each person does and thinks, we have to make assumptions based on the most likely scenario.

It's not rocket science.

Ok I actually think you have a point.

True, you are bieng judgey and its none of your business, but in this day and age, with contraception, there is no excuse for constantly reproducing more and more children, and I dont think its healthy for kids to live in big massive families in small homes.
Also, the paying for them argument annoys me. So if same family are working its ok? I dont think it is. I dont think its an issue of money, its the childrens welfare. I would not want to share a bedroom with little kids when I was 13. What about when they are doing their exams? still sharing with a toddler and a screaming baby?
They may be great parents though and you cant complain. But would I do that to my children? no.

Well is it a council flat or do they own it? Maybe they have asked for a bigger place if council rented and there aren't any,or can't afford a bigger place and maybe number 5 was an accident? I agree its not ideal though and will be very cramped as they get older.

FWIW I live in a 3 bed terraced, I have two children from a previous relationship, as does OH, they all live with us and are under 6 (3 boys share a room, girl in her own room), and we had a planned DD number 5 who is 6 months. Should OH have stayed in his council flat instead of moving in together as a family into my mortgage owned house as they wouldn't have their own rooms? We are in the process of buying a bigger place but the priority was downstairs space rather then the amount of bedrooms.

I think some posters on this thread are making the same basic mistake as my mother: failing to differentiate between what happy and well adjusted children of their acquaintance do have and what children must have in order to be happy and well adjusted.

yanbu. they are not providing for them.

But I don't think it is the most likely possibility.

When people have lots of children in a small house, they put the most people in the biggest room. So if there are four kids sharing it will be in the biggest room (in my house, that would be one with two windows, plenty of space for a partition of some kind and two bunkbeds - so not all that different to being in a 3 bed, but with one wall being temporary) If there are problems with siblings struggling to share parents often convert another room, make their bedroom the lounge say, with a futon or sofa bed so in daytime it is still family space, or put a table in the kitchen and make the dining room a bedroom.

rebecca....not a strange comment AT ALL...others have picked up on your assumptions too

DooinmeCleanin, in Sweden it still is like that. Not the lack of running water, evidently, but the availability of clean space, beaches, woods to build tree houses in, children still playing out at all hours. Still doesn't mean my children are being cruelly abused in SE England, though, just that they are getting other good things instead.

It's a MN theme - never ever judge or make assumptions, it's a sin worse than murder. Well I disagree - we make assumptions every second of our lives, as you'll realise if you think about it. I would never say anything critical to this family, it's not in my nature to stick my nose in. But I'm entitled to my opinion, as are you.

op needs to come back and provide more info....

Sounds bloody awful to me. And my view is that yes it is a bit unfair to the children if it's a long-term situation. But of course it isn't my business.

I do know for a fact that a very large reason as to why the past 2 sets people moved out down stairs to them is because of the noise I had chatted to then when putting the washing out.

As for what is it to me I live in the same set of flats and I am sick of the kids fighting and parents fighting all the time because there constantly under each other feet. I feel really sorry for them all as they come to an age were they will need there own space to study from exams, have friends over etc that they will not have.

Thank you very much Rebecca41 I just wanted to ask and see if I was the only one.

Im not in any way saying 5 kids is bad but 5 children and 2 adults across 2 bedrooms (as they don't sleep in the front room) is in my option unfair.

However clearly it was it was very unreasonably of me to think such things.

There are 5 of us in a 2 bed, we get no handouts whatsoever, no WTC housing benefits etc, we both work

I have split the room into 2 ,

DS1 IN ONE
DS2 IN THE OTHER

The baby (she is 3 ) is in with us, we havent figured out what we are going to do long term, We are entitled (I know that word is frowned upon on here) to a 3 bed house.

Although we would love more, we can't afford it and we have no space so we are not having anymore, it's a bit cramped but it's ok

in my nans house there were 3 boys in one room, 2 girls in another , they survived back in the day

Would be interesting to see the professional take on this, my HV when she came asked to have a look at DS's nursery, now she was being nosey because she said she loved looking at all the new baby stuff, but I wonder what reaction I might have got if I'd shown her to a bedroom with three other beds in it.

It's all very well saying they coped back in the day, back in the day my parents got thrown out to play from dawn til dusk with a piece and jam, it's just not comparable.

Op - I get what you mean I am one of 5 children and grew up in a tiny 3 bedroom house (4 girls in one room) I have never really understood why my mum had so many of us when we didn't have any money or room !

there is nothing wrong with a room with 3 beds in it .

My neighbour has just had her 6th child and that's a 3 bed, so there's 8 of them in there I don't know how they manage

I know someone who lives, her DP and three children (8, 5 and 3) in a big bedsit. It works brilliantly for them, it just suits their way of life as they spend most of their time in the huge shared garden.

You really can't judge someone else's life by your own standards, they might be really happy all on top of each other and prefer to spend their money on other things.

YABU and judgemental. My sister has 3 kids in the tiniest two-bedroomed (council) flat you can imagine. They all get along fine. My sis and her husband have their bed in the front room. I don't envy them though - it's crowded enough here with one kid in a two-bedroomed cottage! And she wants another one!

I would also make assumptions. But at the same time be aware that things are relative.

Remembering that when I first moved to England I really believed that all English children were disadvantaged because they did not have all the healthy and natural things that I and all my friends had taken for granted. Living like English children do- going to school at 4, not being allowed to roam without parental supervision until almost in their teens, not having immediate access to woods and water- I remember crying in pregnancy because I was bringing a child into the world under such awful and unnatural circumstances when I could have had the choice of remaining childless. 14 years later, I look in vain for signs of emotional damage in dcs

Yes, these things still seem horrible to me. But not to dcs. They're just what they're used to.

(Sharing a room with a sibling, though, and having parents sleep on a sofa-bed in the living room would have seemed less unnatural to me.)