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.

And as for the "good" old days, they weren't that good,people lived in appalling conditions and were exposed to all sorts of horribleness.

And plenty didn't. My mum is one of 6, my dad one of four born in the 40's. Both of them slept top to toe with their siblings in the same bed. Neither were poor, both had decent clean homes, fathers with good jobs. The 20th century wasn't entirely flea-ridden in the same way that people in the Blitz all looking out for each other and pulling together is largely a load of old toffee. It's a romantic notion with not a lot of basis in fact.

We live in a rented large 2-bed flat with a huge maintained garden. My children are aged 8, 4 and 2 and quite frankly we don't want to move even if we qualify for a council house, because we've have established such good terms with the neighbours and we have moved around the UK quite a lot and have never found such lovely neighbours as we have now. Both me and DH are British but never grew up here and don't really feel our roots are here, though we are staying here because of DH's work. Our families are thousands of miles away from us, so we do feel a bit bad that our children never get to experience the feeling of having family around to visit every week, and so on. The neighbours we have around us now provide that sort of "familial" feel to things. The elderly ones are so lovely, one of them always give our children £1 coins whenever he sees them, the other ones are childless and love children, they give them choccies and cakes and speak to them and really adore them so much. The other ones know so much about gardening and plants, and all of us learn a lot from them too... The younger neighbours are great too. They share similar interests in some ways, one of them is a birdwatching enthusiast, and my children love birds and wildlife (and they go to a wildlife club regularly), and this neighbour teaches them so much more about birds (our garden is home to lots of species of birds and fauna, cats and foxes)... Its really quite an unusual situation we have I admit...as we have lived all over the UK because of my DH's work over the years and have experienced living in a variety of settings and with a variety of neighbours... We have lived in houses before, yes, but we've come to the conclusion that its no good having more space if your neighbours aren't very nice or if there are ASBOs hanging about outside your home every evening and drawing graffiti on your doors or engaged in anti-social threatening behaviour right outside your house.

But our children are still young (well, the 2 of them are)... we are not sure if we will move to another country in the future, but we do feel that when the children grow older, we'd ideally be living in a bigger place... but for now (and for the next few years) we feel quite happy about continuing to stay where we are.

@msbuggywinkle : Do I know you? :)

Growing up I shared a bedroom with my two sisters, my brother had his own room and my parents had their own room too of course.

I loved sharing a room and I actually feel sorry for kids these days that have too much room!!! I feel as though they're missing out on all the naughtiness we got up to.

As your neighbours kids get older I can see the space may pose a problem but their circumstances may have changed by then. As others have said they may be saving up for a bigger property.

'I love being one of five myself, dh loves being one of four too. Never felt any lack of attention at all, in fact I often wished my parents would bugger off and stop paying me attention so I could get away with lots more.'

My mum was one of two. She and her sister had to share a room growing up because it was only a two-bed bungalow. And my dad, of course, one of five.

They always wanted more, but my mum had to have a CS, back in the days of vertical incisions, as my older sister was a footling breech, and were told not to have more than two.

They were so happy when I had three. My mum said DS was like the missing piece of the puzzle.

When I was younger, I used to make up I had another sister. I wish.

Despite that I had to share a room with my sister a lot growing up, our mother's sister's son lived with us for 10 years, after my aunt's marriage broke up, as there is not welfare much in the US and my aunt was a flight attendant who couldn't give up her job. So we'd have a house full in our three-bed bungalow.

We loved it and my mum took in loads of exchange students from all over the world, none of whom, strangely, had a problem 'sharing space', even those from very wealthy families. Our Japanese sister comes from a family so wealthy her parents own a detached house outside Tokyo. Yet the times we spent, us three teen girls in one bedroom, marked us for life.

There was always someone missing from our family, IYKWIM.

[bubiscuit]

My mum had to share a room with her grandmother - who was a hard bitch (sorry) who made her life a misery :(.
My dad shared a bed with his brothers and his main memory is smelly feet. Also that his parents each had favourites and my dad and the rest were neglected :(.
My friend and her sis shared a room and were best mates, but OTOH 2 of my male cousins shared and nearly killed each other. Every child's personality and family dynamic is different so what suits some people won't suit others!
BTW one of my colleagues who is filippino slept on a mat resting against her pet water buffalo as a child!!

I do respect anyone who can care for a large family - and give them equal love and attention. I think that to cope with several DCs and minimal space you need to be very organised! As an example I know 2 women who each have 4 young DCs. Both are married but work PT, and one has just finished a degree. They have max 3 bedrooms each and no spare cash but
their DCs are happy, well-behaved children.

Personally i would struggle to cope with even 2 DCs myself - even with a mansion!

One of my friends grew up abroad - 7 children in a one bedroom flat. She said her parents had the bedroom and she and her siblings slept on mattresses in the living room. She said it was really fun and they were all happy. So OP maybe you are a little judgemental.... even though I do agree with you a bit.

But perhaps we have all got too selfish, wanting "space" and thinking we are entitled to XYZ and the child who has to share because they are one of 5 like mine in my view get huge benefits out of having the sibilings around ,more people to love them and having to learn to share rather than some kind of only child little emperor who thinks the world revolves around him. In some cultures it would be regarded almost as child abuse not to sleep near and with your children and even adult families sleep together.

There is nothing that say we have it right because we go for the isolationist approach in the UK.

To be fair though Xenia, from what information I have picked up from MNing alongside you for years (not stalking honest!!) you didn't bring your five children up in a two bed flat. Maybe you did, in which case you can cite from experience that it's OK to live in such conditions but I suspect the upbringing of your children was as far removed as is possible from those mentioned in the OP!

Bolter, I was about to say the same as you.

Xenia, I doubt your 5 children had to cram into a 2 room flat. Sharing rooms and toys amongst 5 children in a large house is hardly the same as being squashed into a sardine tin.

My dcs share a room and a bed and love it. But they also have the space to stretch out in the rest of the house.

My three DC currently share a dorm bedroom. Some of the posts on this thread are bloody insulting. I had no idea that our living arrangements might be a source of judginess.

FWIW I grew up in a huge house and me and my three siblings each had their own room. I didn't particularly like having my own room (own floor actually!) and frequently sneaked into my sister's room. I used to love going on holiday and sharing a room. Oh, and most of my school-mates used to love sharing a huge dorm (10+). (I had a shit time at school, but not because of sharing a dorm).

But we aren't talking about three to a room. We are talking five to a room in a flat with no garden!!!

Classic MN knee jerk oversensitivity thread.

Spawnchorus - but the OP and commenters are not talking about having 3 children in a two bedroom place (which is presumably your situation?) - which is probably too cosy for some managable if you and your DCs are happy with it.

She is talking about having 5 children in a 2 bedroom flat. Which is overcrowding.

I live in a flat with no garden, and if I wanted to have another child or two (which I might!) our number of bedrooms would not be a deciding factor. We live in an expensive city, and although DH is (just) a "higher tax bracket earner" we can't afford anywhere bigger.

Bang away with that head of yours Bolter. I'll give you a hand if you like.

Well yes I was about to write what you of you wrote above although we had two childern in a room which was only really big enough for one at one point, only just big enough for bed and cot with no space between the two and even now two share [although yes it is a big house] but I don't think they've done too badly for it. My piont was more that it's the atmosphere people and love that matters and not how many people per square inch.

Our neighbours when I was young had 8 children in a 3 bed semi. Mum& dads room, 5 boys in big room, 3 girls in small room. It was the happiest most welcoming house in the street.

Interesting article done in the US about overcrowding... worth a read.
www-bcf.usc.edu/~dowell/pdf/changi.pdf

Having grown up in Singapore, I have seen first hand how many people there are accustomed to living in flats, no matter how big the family. It isn't unusual to have a big family children living in a small 2 bed flat with no garden whatsover, though in general many Singaporeans don't want large families and are happier having lesser children and giving the children the best they can afford with the double-income salary. Parents in Singapore normally both work - not always because they wouldn't be able to survive, but the high standard of living and the competitiveness mean that few people are happy to settle for single income and live in simpler means compared to their peers... and "maternity leave" in Singapore is really only about 3 months. At most. But Singapore isn't a 3rd world country at all, its modern and rich and arguably the most westernised in asia. With an area of 639 sq km, space in Singapore is an absolute premium and property prices are very very high. A 2 bed flat in the most popular areas can be worth at least SGD 1.5M, around £750k... and a 2-bed flat in less popular areas are less expensive, but would be around half that, i.e. around SGD 500k, about £230k+. I think anyone used to having more "space" around the house for that kind of property prices would find it ridiculous to have to settle for a 2 bed flat if they had to live in Singapore. And if the overcrowding criteria is applied to Singapore, many people would be considered to be living in overcrowded conditions. That said, it would be hard for me to convince my South African DH (who grew up in middle-class apartheid era South Africa in a big bungalow with his own garden and pool) anytime soon to make a long-term move to Singapore... He thinks the prices there are ridiculous for what you get! :)

I am amazed they have space and privacy to create more children!

My DF was one of 10 kids in a three bed house and would not go back to that. My Dcs on the otherhand, boy and girl have their own rooms but often decamp into the other's. They used to share a room in the old house and like being together.

It's one thing to chose to sleep over in a siblings room, quite another to be piled high like a litter of puppies because there's nowhere else to be.

it takes a village to raise a child, so don't sweat about it OP!

I agree with you OP. I had 4 children in a 3 bedroomed house and that felt too small at times.

I know what is seen as overcrowding is culturally defined. So our overcrowding is someone else's loads of space. But there are clear disadvantages too having so many children in a small flat. I wouldn't have chosen to have another baby in these circumstances.l