To wonder if you're one of the older members of a large family you ever stop and think

[PlayOnWurtz]

No more kids please mum and dad!

How much were you expected to do to support them?

Ironic that Jed should be the one telling posters to 'grow up' after a string of rude, hysterical and hyperbolic posts throughout the thread

If you are as rude to your children when they give an opinion as you are to posters giving an account of their own experience, I'm not sure your childrens' accounts of their childhood is going to be as rosy and positive as you are hoping...

brasty yes, you're right.

Perhaps barbarian if you'd grown up having to get used to noise when working you'd have done better coping with it at school and not done badly for so many years. We have all achieved very well academically and my office environment is not quiet.

Maybe. Or maybe I'd have dropped out at 16 and worked in Woolies. Care to share any data you've got on the subject?

sparechange you need to let this go. You started the personal comments, and are equally rude to me, giving an account of my own experience. Luckily I don't need other people to subscribe to my view in order to feel content. Let me worry about my children - after all I have an excellent model in my own parents, who raised several very happy children themselves - and perhaps give some thought to your own, who have no such example.

Offers olive branch to Jed - I spoke too harshly.

On homework there's noise and noise. I doubt Barbarian is talking about people talking. Probably more about a tv and radio both on full volume with people screaming over the top, with people jostling past asking what are you doing or when are you doing this other thing, and perhaps complaining you're in their way. I've rarely had to work under those levels of noise and nuisance since and I've always been on or near frontline services.

My mil was told she would never had children, after many many miscarriages. She then had 6. 4 years apart for all of them. So 24 years between youngest and oldest. Oldest was in the navy and when his mum told him she was expecting again he was horrified and embarrassed.

Having many many children seems awfully selfish. It says to your six that they're still not enough.

Oblomov that reminds me of my grandmother's funeral, where my aunt told me that she still felt guilty about how she reacted when my grandmother told me she was pregnant with my dad (my aunt was 16). She refused to walk down the street with her once she was visibly pregnant, because she thought it was 'shameful to be pregnant at that age' (40)!

I feel sorry for children in families such as these. You are one of however many and I bet most of the time you are treated as a group: " Ok, listen you, guys."

Floweringderanger, thanks. Olive branch accepted. Again, I think that having TV and radio on full blast with people screaming over the top is down to poor parenting - that would never have happened in my house, but equally could have happened in a much smaller family with parents who didn't give a fuck. Comparing it to frontline services made me laugh though, my accident prone brother has definitely made the place look like a warzone in his time.

MissMrs - looking at it from the other perspective, perhaps it says to your children 'you each bring such immense joy and delight to my life that it made me want to do it all over again (despite the hard work)'. But negativity is going to win the day on this thread I feel.

I would refuse to help with childcare on the grounds that children are the parents' responsibility.

CaraAspen

I feel sorry for children in families such as these. You are one of however many and I bet most of the time you are treated as a group: " Ok, listen up you guys."

Oops. I didn't mean armed services, just public-facing. Bad enough for me!

it's basically stress isn't it, if parents are stressed - by emotional, financial or whatever factors - the whole family will be stressed.

I seem to be late to the party, as always I don't think that what people are saying about large families is exclusively just large families.

I'm the youngest of 3. My siblings are both nearly a decade older. I was lonely as a child, probably because my siblings were too old to be bothered to pay any attention to me, and I think my parents were bored of parenting by then. I rarely spent any time with them - I was usually told to go to my room/outside or to go call for xyz to see if they'd come out to play.

We weren't poor, not rich but not poor, but there certainly wasn't many treats (very rare), new clothes (only when I grew out of them, and I had no say in them. In fact, I don't even remember getting new clothes, or even shopping for them) or day trips out to places (about once/twice a year, if that) and definitely no holidays. And I definitely had no privacy, my brother walked in to my room at will and I shared a room with my sister.

I'd have loved to have had more siblings, especially ones closer in age to me - in fact I used to ask my mum, especially during my early to mid teens, repeatedly if she was going to have any more (I knew it was almost impossible by then. She was mid to late 40s by the time I was a teen, and had had her tubes tied) but that didn't stop me hoping!

I'm the eldest of four, and hated it growing up, There's a big gap between me and my two younger brothers. Yep, I was a seemingly permanent babysitter and second mum from the age of 11. I also left home at 18. As a result, my powers of concentration when there's bedlam around me are excellent .

I love it now, as they both have young kids and I can be a favourite aunt.

Most people with larger families have larger houses.
We've got a five bed with twoy sitting rooms, a dining room plus kitchen diner.

There's lots of quiet spaces for homework to be done.
Plus my three and four year old are in bed at 6.45 whilst the older two are at clubs or doing homework.
The baby keeps his own schedule but hes nine weeks old so this will inevitably change.

I think its clutching at straws to purport that we all have cramped, noisy houses by simple virtue of superior fecundity.

This line of reasoning makes you look very silly indeed.

missmrs what? By your logic if you have two children it sends a message to your first child 'you're not enough to fulfil me'. How is that different than having a seventh and it apparently saying to the first six that they don't fulfil you?

You asked if anyone had been happy growing up in a large family. Yes I was. I loved it as a child and I love it now as an adult. I already said that in a previous post. I have wonderful parents though, who could easily have coped with raising another 5 kids alongside us.

We had attention, privacy, space, quiet etc when we wanted it but equally we had ready made friends, loads of toys to share, lots of experiences together. We had absolutely loads of fun growing up and when we get together now as adults we still have a blast.

Haha to "listen up you guys"

I mean really, listen to yourself.

My brain wasnt removed with the placenta(s)
Im perfectly capable of addressing my children individually by their given names.
I wouldnt have given them such beautiful monikers if I didnt intend on using them at every given opportunity.

How funny you are!

FineLooking
Most people with larger families have larger houses.
I don't think you can generalise like that. I live in the S East and not many larger families I have come across have larger houses.

It truly doesn't matter how spacious your house, if there are too many people in it it is no longer spacious. Try applying the power of logic. No WAY can children in abnormally big families get the amount of parental attention they deserve - and many probably crave.

In any case lets not beat around the bush here;

You aren't going to want to believe thste I'm an excellent parent to five when you struggle with one or two..

Nobody likes to feel inferior to those whom they believe they have a socially acceptable mandate to look down upon.

But there you have it.

Deal with the knowledge as you will

I have masses of space too and happily few people to eat it all up and create racket and mess. I love the peace. Ahhhhhhhhh...

Five? Ooh - almost half a football team...

Hahahahahaha

To trying to apply logic to a subjective and independently variable, arbitrarily decided upon amount of time.

Logic isnt subjective by definition.

Everybody knows this.

Even my eight year old

Statistically, large families are poorer than average and less likely to live in large houses (although councils will try to do so if they are council tennants).