to think its irrelevant if your children have the same father or not

[mls3]

Natasha has just given birth but the daily mail comments are awful
www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2766581/Ritchie-Neville-confirms-Natasha-Hamilton-given-birth-little-girl.html

Who cares how many times someone has been married!

Thats a different ball game IMO although linked in some cases it doesnt have to go hand in hand, Its the mothers fault for getting the children attached to a new man, popping out a new baby in the honeymoon phase of a relationship and then realizing he isnt a suitable father for whatever reason, yes its wrong but you simply cannot make blanket judgements on this issue. what about widows? what about women who escape abuse to remarry and have a new child? don't tar them all with the same brush.

I didn't make a blanket judgement on any of them, my first post referred to NH personal circumstances (which come pretty close to what I described in my last two posts) and my last two posts I have explicitly said about getting to know someone before having children and relationship hopping in order to not saddle a child with shit and absent parent(s) and introducing a string of stepfathers for children to build relationships with and have to watch another relationship breakdown.

it doesn't always go hand in hand but in a very large number of cases it does, particularly here where I live and grew up and woman who escape abuse and remarry and go on to have another child - same thing, spend some time getting to know the person so it doesn't end up with more children who have an abusive parent or have to witness abuse because that still falls under the same category of shit parents and shit childhood.

It appears to be relevant to the NHS. I was asked in casualty if I "lived at home with the father of my children" before they decided whether to release ds (who had had a fit) into my care, rather than keeping him in hospital for further observation.

It's no-one's business of course but I don't think it's always good for the kids.

My cousin has 4 kids to 3 different men, all of whom she lived with, she has also lived with a man for a couple of years and had no kids.

Her children are all in varying stages of confusion and attachment to the different men, they have formed strong bonds to these guys only to have them flit in and out of their lives.
Two of the fathers have good contact, but only take out their own offspring, these two fathers also shower their own children with gifts at christmas time ang ignore the other two. One set of grandparents is the same, piling on dozens of gifts and buying school stuff, taking that child to the zoo and days out, paying for dance classes for one of the kids but not the others.

I can see the confusion and upset this causes to the children.

How can all this mess be ideal?

'Marrying an arse' - yes some people make mistakes.

Who you marry is often a complete stranger who you got to know and commit to - and break from if you're not suited.

Who your father is (or mother) is a vital piece of you, you inherit their genes, their looks their habits.

Brushing them aside as an arse is selfish and thoughtless behavior by the DM (or DF) - something that suits them at this point in life but not the child.

Not saying it is not possible for DC to manage without knowing its DP - just that normally it is an important part of who the DC is.

the thing that i think is really relevant is when children all have different surnames .then everyone know,s including there friends that they have different dad,s .and children can be cruel ..its got to cause family upset .of course people get divorced .but multiple fathers must make the children insecure .

Aprilanne - I think children will always find something to tease other children about. I know DSS was upset when a couple of kids made fun of him for having 'two dads' ie both his dad and stepdad were supervising at his birthday party. But other kids are teased for their weight, looks, being too clever, being not clever enough, wearing glasses...the answer is to teach kids it's wrong to bully, not to try to ensure all kids confirm to some inexistant norm, IMO.

riverboat1 i take your point .i am talking about the fact children get used to one partner then mum and him split say another partner another baby if this goes on frequently .it cannot be good for the children,s security or self isteem .i also think a family connects everyone together .but its only my opinion

Yes, the Daily Fail and the like love to make disparaging comments about this don't they? I agree with you. The only thing I would say is that from the mother's point of view it must be incredibly complicated managing that many relationships/rights/visits etc.

family name connects everyone together .thats supposed to read

Agree riverboat, Dd really does have 2 mums (gay parents) and has had her fair share of teasing over the years for it. Annoying and upsetting at the time but children will often make fun of a situation that they see as different.

I've just asked my 13 year old if having a different surname to her elder brother and sister bothers her. She said it doesn't. She said her sister is her sister, even though she has a different dad. Though to be fair, even though I've been married and split twice, my second husband still visits my eldest regularly and is in contact with my son. After knowing these kids for over a decade, he couldn't/wouldn't cut them off. So my older two in essence have two dads. They have a relationship with both men.

The younger two actually get less, because they only have one dad. So the older two get christmas presents from three sets of family and the younger only from two. Though my first husband's mum became a sort of extra grandmother and would buy them christmas presents and easter eggs. Until she died.

It's probably easier because between my number 2 and number 3 children is 6 years, so they aren't at school together.

Also, I'm not planning to have any more children. Or even move another bloke in. If I had my time over, I would have prefered to have the 'normal' husband and children all to that one man. But life turned out differently.

I would be a bit judgy if there were a lot of different parents. Whether it's a woman with children by several fathers, or a dad with children by several mothers. More than, say, two?

It shows me that that person has repeatedly made poor decisions in the past with regards to their relationships (unless for example a previous partner died).

We all make mistakes, yes, but we should try not to keep repeating them, especially when children are involved.

I don't think it is anyone's business save for those directly involved. Certainly does not suggest anything about how 'loose' a woman is.

A blended family can have it affects on children, of course. But so does the average nuclear family, unless we are assuming that all those families have zero issues of their own?

I had my first child at 16 (despite coming from a 'middle class/strict' family, forget those 'statistics' folks!) and second at 21 with the same partner. We were together for seven years in total. Now we've been apart for three. We work together extremely well now for the sake of our children and I think this is much better than the frustrated/angry parents we were when together. He certainly is a much better father now.

He has a new partner and their baby is due soon. I couldn't be more thrilled for them and my children are happy too, they already have a stepbrother by this lady and so are used to 'sharing' their father now already. I have a partner and one day I expect I will have more children.

These arguments always seem to come down to who had what growing up or who didn't from whichever parent. Whatever difficulties come my way, I hope my children know they are all loved and they aren't bitter toward me.

I am one of 4 with 4 different fathers I'm not embarrassed or ashamed of it and not do I think less of my mother for it. If anything it has made us a stronger family unit as we all stick together and we all stick by our mum. As far as I'm concerned my mum is one of the most inspirational, intelligent and brilliant women on the planet and I don't care what people think I'd rather be raised by one amazing parent than two mediocre ones.

Nothing to do with "loosesness", but how responsible she ( or indeed he is) with regard to their reproductive activities.

Who is to say what 'responsible' means when it comes to another person's choice to have more children combust ?

You cannot be certain all children will come out of situations with the same experience. Many here have posted how negatively it affected them, many others how it positively affected. C

Its not irrelevant to the children, OP.

My brother, sister and I all have different dads and our mum wasn't married to any of them. Every time she got pregnant it was after a few months and they didn't know each other well. In my mind, once is an accident and three times is downright irresponsible and stupid. My mum didn't think long and hard about who would father her children and we all ended up with absolute arseholes for fathers who we don't even see. To me, having children with a string of multiple partners is a sign of someone who doesn't take parenthood very seriously. I make no apologies for that because that's how I has born and to this day, I have never met my father!

It's dreadful to look down one's nose on 'blended' families but naive to think it doesn't matter to the children involved.

I have a friend whose parents divorced when he was small and they have both gone on to have more children. I know he is embarrassed if people quiz him on the full/half/step sibling scenario in his family.

But what are we comparing blended families to? For every negative anecdote we have about a blended/step family, I'm sure we can find another about a 'together' family where the children feel damaged in other ways.

My parents are still together today, but have a horrible, awful relationship. I think it really fucked me up, I didn't have my own first real relationship until well into my twenties. Of course when I was a kid I didn't want them to divorce, but as an adult with hindsight I think it would have been much better if they had done.

Depends what you mean by relevant I guess.

Some parents are good parents. Some parents are ok. Others are downright feckless. The children of good parents can have multiple half-siblings and very little, if any, negative consequences from a complex family structure. However, bad parents or dysfunctional relationship dynamics can make that same family a really bad place for children to grow up in.

It would be naive to assume that there aren't special considerations for blended families. But they are in no way insurmountable and can, in some cases, actually be a plus factor.

The relevant bit is the standard of parenting and the relationships between all the parents involved, not the actual number of parents IMO.

Sadly, however, the more people involved, the more likelihood there is that one or more of those parents will be a bit of a twat who messes it up for everyone, but most especially the children.

River and pounding make excellent points. My mum stayed with the youngest brothers father for 20 years he was a weapons grade cunt and non of us including his own son was sorry to see him go. It's all about what works for you there is no one size fits all solution to families.

But if the parents do their job correctly and well there should be no issue with full/half/step!

My sisters are technically my half siblings I have never seen them as anything other than just my siblings!

My step father technically only has 2 children but he has always said he has 4 and loves us all the same!

My children are my children even though they are my stepkids. I didn't give birth to them and they were not tiny tots when I became their mum but they are loved like my children because they are my my children.

The only time that line is moved slightly is because I have to respect that they have a mother and she is important and I have to respect that (it is not my place to get in the middle of that) it wouldn't be fair to my children or their mother. (Even if I wish I could smack some sense into her about how great her kids are)

P.s they rant kids now but will always be to me!