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?

I am from a big family. I hated it, still do.

I have one child, one brother has none, the rest only have 1 or 2 apart from one who is more than half way there to following in my parents footsteps.

On the only child side. My ds 12 yrs old has expressed a wish to have a sibling but for many reasons that didnt happen. I do feel a little sad sometimes about it.

I don't think people are making presumptions but speaking from experience.

As a child you get no say in your life and have to live with it. Very few children or grown up children are likely to turn round and tell their parents their childhood was crap so those parents live in a rose tinted world as they got what they wanted.

As an adult, you can choose to not repeat the same parenting example you grew up with. If it was miserable, those children may choose a very different way or not become parents at all.

Im very thankful that there was an amazing teacher at school who ensured I succeeded and always looked out for me knowing how unhappy I was. She couldn't change my home life but she ensured I had the means to escape as soon as legally old enough.

The only positive I took from it was to parent very differently, their needs and wants will always come first. They have privacy, everything they need, time, activities, a social life and get a say in decisions we make as a family.

My DF is one of 16. He has memories of quite a happy childhood but admits they were farmed out to work from age 8. He was forced to leave school at 15 to go into a trade and regrets that a lot. They never went hungry though as he has a lot of pride in that.

His sister has always said it was awful - not enough money and hard physical farm work as well as childcare and house work.

I think 16 kids is quite frankly about 10 too bloody many having heard the stories - drunk father, poverty etc.

I'm the middle of 3 and still spent my entire teenage life looking after my sister (10 years younger) , was solely responsible for her from age 15-19 due to my mothers inability to do so , its not only in large families that happens.

If we reversed it and spoke about how children hate being only children I'm sure it wouldn't go down so well.

There are tgreads all the time about wether its ok or not to have 1 child and asking for peoples experinces.

I think it's all down to parenting, not the number of children (although there's probably a point where it's both).

I know a family with 3 children, so not exactly a huge number, but the oldest is still expected to be responsible for the younger ones. Still expected to do the majority of household chores (mostly while the mum sits on the sofa drinking coffee 'cause she's tired), and is still not allowed to do things (like go round to friends' houses) because it's not fair on the younger ones.

I have one sibling, much older, so almost an only child. I was neglected, ignored, abused and unloved.

I've only had one baby. But my DD has a stepsister and stepbrother. They in their turn have two other siblings. Their life at mums is chaotic and not massively happy. They're expected to do A LOT of childcare. Though they are looked after and definitely loved. They're a bit squashed together I think.

I know a couple of quite large families - including one of six who have five teen girls and a small boy in my DDs class. We employ one of the teens as a babysitter. She has such ease with DD as she's so used to being around kids. They're a lovely, lovely family.

So on this vast evidence I say it's not the size of the family that really matters, it's the parents. If they're shit it doesn't really matter how many kids there are. If they're good: ditto. If they're somewhere in between, like a lot of us... ditto.

Eldest of 5. HATED it. Just felt my parents never had time for me as the younger ones had more obvious needs. I think its quite selfish to have so many children.

And my mum would tell you she spent loads of time with me, we had a great relationship and I loved having 4 younger siblings.

My mother was the eldest of 5 and only had two herself, but she wanted more. Finances and circumstance are what limited her to two kids, not a dislike of larger families.

I am 5 of 8.

The last was born when my mum was 48.... she's now 11.

I hated it!

I'm only having 2. I sometimes feel sorry for my mum...she is a single parent and has spent her entire adult life taking care of children.... and she will also spend her later years doing the same thing, with help from older siblings...financially etc. I feel I have a sense of obligation... but I also resent it. I have my own life and responsibilities.

I don't want my mum's life... I think I'll always be a mother...but mum isn't my entire identity and I want to get back to some aspects of my life before children....and I don't want my children to have a similar childhood to mine.

My dh was the eldest of 7. And didn't like it. He only wanted 2 dc originally. We now have 6. Albeit spaced over 17 years. His one condition to having more was that we never make the older ones help as he feels he never had a proper sibling relationship with his youngest 3 siblings and he really resented them. I completely agree with PP's who say its down to the parents though. My dc do help from time to time - but if they don't want to they don't have to, and it's never assumed they will. We also consciously make a real effort so they all get some one to one attention - something else he feels he missed out on. One of his siblings has 3dc, all the rest have 2.

My parents are both the eldest in large families, and made a conscious decision to only have 2 children. They both love their parents and siblings but there's definitely an element of "why didn't you just stop?" Toward their parents.

I really, really disagree that large families are looked down on on MN.
Quite the opposite; I was surprised when I came on here at how many people seem to have 4-6 children, and how positively it seems to be received.
Conversely, whenever there is a thread about a difficult child, one of the first questions asked is always "is he an only child?" as if that would make him automatically defective.
I do agree that parenting of children, not just number of children, has an effect on the experiences of the siblings-not all large families have the older ones looking after the younger ones, although I fail to see how any set of parents can properly look after more than 7 or 8 children without help.
I am one of 6, and I wasn't expected to do childcare.
Some aspects of being in a big gang were nice, but there definitely wasn't enough attention, or help with things like homework. I couldn't learn an instrument, or do horseriding, or go on school trips abroad etc, which isnt the worst thing in the world of course.
We were expected be independent at a very young age, and that sometimes led to neglect and very lax safeguarding, which we all have hair raising stories about. That has affected me as an adult, and I suffer with anxiety because of certain things that happened.
And we didn't have a car, we had a minibus, which was MORTIFYING when I was 13 .
I would have had 2-3 children if I could have, I think, not more.

i am one of 8, Hated it.
No time for me, no space, no privacy.

Parents were wealthy (ish) house was big(ish) I had to be home in the evenings for the younger ones when they got in, who'd then hang around if/when we had friends over. If I wanted to go swimming or out at the weekend we'd get a sibling dumped on us for the day.

One of my parents is a middlish child of 12 siblings. They are very selfish, dismissive and uncaring. They avoided hands on with grandchildren and made it clear that expecting anything other than cursory attention was too much.
I don't know its their personality or their family size. I don't think the family size helped if the former.

I am second eldest of a large family. I did resent it as a teen when my dm said we couldn't afford things and then had another baby. But we had lots of fun growing up and l couldnt be nmore grateful foe them now. I love when we all meet up together, tons of grandkids which mine live. There is always so much support. Luckily we all get on well and at difficult times in my life l have really relied on them.
I wasn't under pressure to take care of little ones and as a family there was huge emphasis on education so that was what was encouraged. We did give some money to younger ones as we starting earning bur that was from our hearts no pressure and is still a bond between us to this day.
Saying that l had three myself and couldn't have been doing with all that cooking and housework my dm did but it's different times.

Ilovecaindingle 11 children . I couldn't imagine having the time or energy to bring up such a large family.

It's interesting that nearly everyone who has posted who has loads of siblings has decided to stick at 2 or 3 children.

I'm 3rd of 7. We all loved it. So far two of us have 4 children, I have three, and two have just started so have one each. My two youngest siblings are still teenagers. My siblings would all like more children.

I'd like to have more than 3 but my body disagrees.

We helped out at home, but more in a "you need to know how to do this" sort of way than my parents actually needing the help.

I have five children, eldest is eleven and youngest is nine weeks.

I find the assumption that my elfeste will necessarily become a teenage babysitter frankly bizarre.

Thats what grandparents do. Not elder children FFS.

As for lack of attention well I certainly hope that none of them feel this way. They havent expressed it to us so far but I'm aware of the possibility.
We are fortunate that we have a sahp and I think this helps in that respect.

I'm an only child. It isn't something I'd willingly replicate.

My mum is one of eleven. They all got on superbly until they were in their forties and one aunt had an affair with the other aunts husband.

I dont think that was entirely attributable to family size though. It was largely to do with one aunt being a dirty old slag.

Second oldest of seven. Spent my teenage years indoors babysitting whilst my friends had sleepovers, first jobs. It made school difficult and was miserable. I couldn't even put a DVD on, play games or do homework when on babysitting duty which was the moment I got in from school until 8pm (kids bedtime). My bedtime was 30 min later which was homework time. All day Saturday and Sunday spent babysitting. I spent my 16th doing the same. Had one evening out with my mum in the whole teenage years and one other joint one with mum and dad where it was 1:1. Mum and dad never ate with us, they had candles and a nice DVD. Us kids ate together.

My parents were selfish, they wanted lots of kids, hated using contraception (they told me this). Mum actually said they'd have had more but "wouldn't be fair not to have the time with us" completely oblivious to the fact they weren't giving us time anyway!

Birthdays and xmas were rubbish as had shitty generic presents too. Don't mind about material things but it showed how little parents knew us or any of our interests hence not knowing what to get us.

Would never have more than 2 and even then not sure about having a second as want proper time for my DD and trying to do that around work is hard enough.

Thats what grandparents do

Really?

Yes.

If we need a babysitter out mums do this for us.

I'm not quite sure why this is surprising.

Weird assumption that grandparents will do all the babysitting.

My closet friend is the youngest of 8. Her birthday is on 12th night and in her entire life she never received a birthday gift from her parents as there was never enough money after Christmas.

Thats what grandparents do

If my children take that attitude they are in for a rude awakening. Looking after your own children should fall to parents or paid childcare. It's not the relatives that should be doing it, they didn't choose to have them.

Oh, that's what your children's grandparents do. I read it as that's what grandparents do in general which is what surprised me.