to think that people who have young children aren't in a position to know whether it is harder not to have older children or teenagers?

[Anice]

but on the other hand people who have older children have been in both situations and can compare?

ah but we were once those older children ourselves.

It is not a competition you know

Mums of toddlers and mums of older kids. Which is best? There's only one way to find out! Fight! Fight!

Of course.
yanbu.

Children are hard no matter what age they are. It's just a different hard!

The easiest thing about having children is giving birth to them.

It's not a competition and you don't get a medal

I think to be honest no-one really knows how it feels to parent other people's children whatever the age. Just because you had one experience with your young child it doesn't mean other parents of young children will have the same experience.

So YABU your experience of younger children means nothing to anyone else and vv.

Bluddy -really? even my brother was liek this and my mum tried.... and it worked? Advice is that just, advice, you don't have to take it

Nah you're right. I have 10 month old, very grateful that he sort of just sits there and can't talk yet.

He is however bloody expensive. Well his nursery fees are anyway.

bluddy ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

YANBU - its like people who have no kids telling me how to bring my DS up....come back when you have kids is what I tell em!

i´m sure it is harder in different ways. presumably with older children/teens you are getting a full night´s sleep? you have also been a parent for much longer, does that not help? so in other ways it might also be easier? are you really telling me a teenager is always 100% harder? even, say, vs a baby who feeds every 3 hours day and night, is teething and has colic? really? isn´t it just different?

agree it isn´t a competition. i thought 1 kid was hard, then i had another and think - what was i moaning about? but the fact that 2 can be hard doesn´t mean it was also hard with 1. or that i should gloat over all my friends with onlies that i have it harder. sheesh.

I think I look back on the toddler days through rose-tinted spectacles. At the moment with early teens, I just remember having them all tucked up in bed by 7.30 pm when they were little and feeling I had an evening to myself. I'm sure that I didn't see it like that at the time.

Bluddy my next door neighbour worries when I'm not shouting!

You only know what it was like to have your children as young children or older teens, though. You cannot judge how it is going to be for other people. Also it varies on what each individual finds 'hard', some cannot do without sleep, others worry themselves sick over academic success and some pass through their childrens childhood oblivious to any of it.

I much prefer a baby who feeds every 3 hours. At least you know where they are and they don't answer back!

As a mum to both ages, they're both hard but in different ways!

I do hate it though when people assume dd is my only dc (BIG age gap) and give me advice...... I normally let them get on with it and introduce the ds's into the conversation .

Oh and I have say I'm quite enjoying watching dh squirm now dsd is 12 and kicking up a bit....... he was such an "expert" when ds2 was giving me a hard time .

Scholes34 - I'm guilty of that too! Sometimes I think I have just forgotten how hard it was having young children. I think as they grow up you just swap one set of problems for another. None of it is a walk in the park.

round...at the risk of turning this into a competition all the baby stuff of which you speak is physically gruelling...but as they get older it becomes so much more emotionally challenging. you have this creature infront of you telling you she hates you, hates school, hates her house and in the back of your mind is a muddled load of stuff you've read and your own experience of childhood telling you "make a mess of this bit and she'll be fecked up for life". when wotsisname said "they fuck you up your mum and dad" I don;t think he was talking about nappies/milk/weaning/sleeping.