AIBU to get butt-hurt about pples reaction to my pregnancy ?!..

[Littlehouseonthepraririe]

Am pregnant with my 6th! I want to share the good news on facebook, not with a fanfare or some obscure balloon riddled/ cryptic sign (tho I do enjoy other pples announcements like that)! But just with a standard f.b post as we have a lot of friends /fam all over the world (and mainly because I'm excited)!

However, when I shared the news of our 5th along with the congratulations I had a Lot of OMG ur mental/ mad etc comments.

Would I look weird if along with sharing the news I tagged on a little light hearted something like ' we know the Waltons life isn't for everyone and we might seem a bit bonkers, but we are really excited to introduce a new member to our clan'.. In the hope that it will ward off What's Wrong With You type comments ?!?

We have a large home for lots of children and my OH works from home so the children aren't lacking in time or space etc and they are always asking for more siblings, and this is the life I've Always wanted, so I don't really Get why pple would write comments like I had last time..
I mean I have lots of friends travelling in the back of beyond or moving up the corporate ladder , which personally is my idea of hell, but I am genuinely happy that they are happy and following their dreams, so obviously just write positive, congratulatory comments when they announce they've landed in a new country / got a promotion..
Am I being butt-hurty and overly sensitive unnecessarily , and would it look rude for me to write something jokey in an attempt to ward off the bat shit crazy comments..?

Crumbs the Daily Mail article is priceless! Big families the new 'status symbol'. Basically, some lower middle class people talking about their 'property portfolios' and 'high-flying careers, some of their children are privately educated, they're just scruffy jolly old-fashioned people who gather round the piano for sing-alongs, they're basically upper-middle class!

I know a few of these types of families in London.

A lot of rude comments on here! Congratulations, I'm very jealous - we can afford 2 children but would like more. Large families are amazing and it's fantastic that your having number 6 xx

What’s the “O” word that people refuse to mention?

I don’t really call ‘slagging anyone off’. I merely pointed out environmentally it was worse to run two or more households.
Why do people have to be nasty because someone has a different perspective? My children are definitely real - although technically I suppose I don’t have children as they are all over eighteen.

Welly, I said O word. It's overpopulation.

Given that adding another human being to the planet is putting strain on it, why does nobody lay into the posters who announce that they are having a second? Who decides that 2 is the magic environmentally sound number for a family?

Because having two doesn’t add to population growth. In fact over time it decreases it as not all children will make it adulthood.

Okay Crumbs.....

I merely pointed out environmentally it was worse to run two or more households.

Are your six (or however many) children and all their children (and so on) going to live under your roof indefinitely, then? I'm guessing not.

You're not really any better in this respect than a divorced person with five children, then, are you?

I can think of three people off the top of my head, who are from large families and whom I know fairly well. Two have said to me several times that they hated it and rarely participate in family events now that they are adults. They only do occasional meals with just parents or one sibling at a time. Both of those people are men and middle-ish children from families of 6 and 7.

The other is a woman and the youngest of ten children. She never moaned about it at all and seemed to have a great childhood. She’s actually a bit famous now (sports) and really, really intelligent.

So basically I think you can have a great time in a large family or a terrible time, and everything in between. No hard and fast rules.

Re the environment etc... that’s a tricky one. I do think about this a lot, like a lot of people I know. I love near London so I think overcrowding is a bit more real to me. Don’t know. I do know people here with large families though, so again, no hard and fast rules. I know I felt guilty deciding to have dc2 and don’t think we’d have a third. That’s not purely because of ‘overpopulation’, but it is definitely linked. We can’t afford a big house, because of high demand in the area where we have to live or work. Also; schools, hospitals, law and order are all under pressure here. Traffic is terrible and public transport is worse for overcrowding. All of this makes having a big clan of children difficult.

I thought the ‘problem’ with overpopulation was down to people living longer though, so I don’t know how that should be tackled.

There’s also an awesome lecture by the late Hans Rosling, called ‘Don’t Panic’. It’s about overpopulation and the UN predictions for global population evening out and stopping by 2050. His argument is that as countries become more developed and fewer of their children die young, the fewer children women have, (he does say women btw, not ‘parents’), which therefore stops a booming population happening, (where children survive and women continue to have lots of children). It’s really interesting and reassuring if you’re having a freak out about overpopulation, as I have been known to!

Maybe, if only the very few who can afford it and want it, have large families, then that’s the economy slowing down population growth, sort of organically? I’m not an expert at all btw, (can you tell )? So this is all just my musings.

By your statement crumbs everyone who decides to be single isn’t environmentally friendly and you having 6 kids is also better than single people because they’re taking up houses they’re not ‘car pooling’ they’re using heating for just themselves etc.

Given that adding another human being to the planet is putting strain on it, why does nobody lay into the posters who announce that they are having a second? Who decides that 2 is the magic environmentally sound number for a family?

Because 2 (slightly over 2) is the replacement rate. If you have two kids Nd they all have two kids, after ten generations you have slightly fewer than two people on average, so the population gently contracts.
If you have six, and they have six and so on, after ten generations you’d have 118,000 people.
Current world population is 7.5 billion. Assuming everyone is coupled up and has six kids that’s 3.25 billion times 118,000 in a couple of hundred of years time. That’s 3.85 times ten to the Fourteen if everyone has six kids. And that is probably a VERY BAD THING.

OP, I’ve got lots of friends who are environmental consultants and I think they’d chew my arm off if I could just tip them off about how to work from home and command a salary big enough to support 6 kids. No site visits? No travel? Where can they sign up please????

@Crumbs1 I couldn't give a rat's hairy bollock if you think it's 'environmentally sound' - I think it's weird to breastfeed children til they are 5 years old.

There is, flat out, no logical reason to do it.

PLUS, some women actually have jobs/careers to go back to, and can't afford the luxury of spending a decade - or more - at home with the kids!

OP, it's lucky your kids are obviously extroverts and get on.

If I'd had 5 siblings I probably would have had a breakdown...

You forgot "runs itself, all he's required to do is make the odd phone call throughout the day", Shifty. For £150k. Nice work if you can get it.

we have 7, 6 teens and an 8yr old we found after number 4 when people used to say comments like you must be mad etc we just replied with "no just full of so much love to give and share around," obv due to ages of kids I never announced anything on social media, but we get so many lovely comments mostly from those who thought we were crazy and would never cope. And, guess what we have 7 amazing kids none are any trouble polite and respectful we work hard to give them all they need. my fridge may always be empty (teens are like locusts) and my hallway a sea of discarded coats shoes and school bags, I feel like all I do is wash, dry and iron but I love my amazing brood.
Congrats on number 6 x

You forgot "runs itself, all he's required to do is make the odd phone call throughout the day", Shifty. For £150k. Nice work if you can get it.

This sounds like one of those jobs I get in my Junk Mail - "earn $3428 dollars a day working from home!"

I merely pointed out environmentally it was worse to run two or more households.

So, again, how come your list of people we should all tug our forelock to are all divorced, bar the one who doesn’t believe in it?

BythePowerofRa "It’s really interesting and reassuring if you’re having a freak out about overpopulation, as I have been known to!"

not really no. A lot of these theories say that the more women are educated etc the less likely they are to have several children. But there's so many outliers to that one.

Plus the population is far too high already and frankly I'd hope to be dead by 2050!! I was worrying about overpopulation in my 20s and thought we'd reach tipping point ages ago, but no.

Other posters have said about something coming along to wipe us out. There is a much worse thought - that it won't - and that humans will just go on and on and on increasing population exponentially.

Many lovely green parts of the world all over are being lost. They will all be like bloody Tokyo by 2050. I just really hope I'm not here to see it.

Agree with Anatidae.

OP, In choosing to have so many children, you are not socially responsible. The world is over-populated. This country is over-populated.

You also use disgusting language, repulsive in fact.

not really no. A lot of these theories say that the more women are educated etc the less likely they are to have several children. But there's so many outliers to that one

I’m sure you’re right and I’m not taking Hans Rosling’s theory as gospel, but the lecture is very interesting and based on statistics, (not just theory). I didn’t watch it and think “oh that’s alright then, let’s have ten children each”, but it did open up the possibility that a global population boom / Easter Island scenario isn’t inevitable or at least isn’t imminent.

BythePowerofRa "but the lecture is very interesting and based on statistics,"

oh I know. I wanted to cling to it like a life raft when someone first sent it to me

but the attitudes I see all round me suggest that won't be happening, in my feeling, no one can predict the future of course.

also, in my view we are massively overpopulated already, the idea of it getting worse...it would be like living a horror movie.

@Nyx

It’s definitely on the optimistic side, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Obviously, it shouldn’t be anyone’s only source of information on the subject. It would be foolhardy to rely solely on the comforting, optimistic documentaries, (and believe me, I don’t)!

That said, I think the popular view online and irl sometimes seems to be that the world is immediately doomed to unimaginable horrors. I blame “The Road” ! People who think this way, are often so certain IME, to the point where you can’t converse with them, unless it’s to nod along with them. Any view, in some conversation I’ve had, other than the most pessimistic is poo-pooed and there’s a race to the bottom, where people try to put-catastrophise one another. I think that can actually be just as unhelpful as the people who stick their heads in the sand about it and pretend it isn’t there.

It’s important to seek out both sides imo. It’s easy to get dogmatic, as I think that humans, (or at least I do), take comfort in ‘knowing’ what’s happening. Even if it’s that humanity is imminently doomed, I think people enjoy it all being ‘settled’ iyswim? That way, you don’t have to think about it anymore! Job done . But, I actually think that clinging too hard to either view isn’t all that helpful. For me at least.