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..?

Good post U2.

I much preferred when I was an only child to being woken up at 7am and being wound up for 10 years of my life.

Again, nothing to do with the size of family and everything to do with poor parenting.

My adult dc love being part of a big family and although some of them have left home now they are always coming back for the weekend and joining in with family activities. They still play with the younger ones and it's very moving to see just how well they all get on and how fond they all are of each other.

And please please give over on the - you can-t give them enough 1-2-1. You are talking complete and utter rubbish.

Don't announce it on fb if you can't handle negative comments.

Congratulations on your pregnancy! :-) I chose to be child-free. You chose to have six children. Our lives, our choice! You sound like a lovely person, btw. Best wishes!

Please those of you with 6 or 10 children please stop wittering away about how you don't eat meat. You have zero control over the gazillion grandchildren, great grandchildren and so on you're gong to produce.

Also, everyone bashing on about over population, the way things are going in the developed world, there won’t be enough adults to care for our aging population at our current rate of childbirth. Singapore used to have a stop at 2 policy which had to be changed in the 1980’s because of the huge drop in births.

It's exactly this sort of short-term thinking has landed us in the diabolical predicament we're in at the moment.

To say nothing of the fact that there's an awful lot of ignorance about how dramatically the workforce will be impacted by automation. I suppose it's safe to say that many on this thread don't read newspapers.

And yet..... you are one getting all shouty, dismissive and defensive about it, and I am the child that lived the consequence

You are living the consequences of presumably below par parenting. My children are not - I'm a ftp, I have attended every school play, sports day, blah de blah since the year dot. I am at home when they are at home virtually 24/7. I can guarantee they see me more than the dc of a ft 9-5 working mum (which is not to criticise - I can fully understand why women choose to go back to work - just stating a fact).

PS. Why is stating a different opinion 'shouty and defensive'?

While I don't necessarily agree that having 6 kids means you can't parent them well, I do agree that the parents themselves aren't best placed to judge their performance.

Congrats on number 6. Your life your choice no one elses business really.

We have 4 with a 15 year age gap between the last 2!!! People said we were nuts but she is my post chemo miracle and they can shove their opinions. Some people want big families, some don't each ro their own.

Enjoy your brood x

The arrogance of declaring yourself a marvellous parent! Not for you to decide that one.

So let’s just think about the whole drain on resources twaddle.

Nah doesn’t work like that.

Take Gengis Kahn (or actually one of his sones if we are going be pedantic.) that dude had about twenty odd wives, god knows how many kids and now half of AsiaPac has one of his Y chromosomes.

It mattereth not how frugal you were with your kids. The fact is you had 6. Then they breed. Then their kids breed.., and that’s how exponential growth works.

If each couple has children at the replacement rate (a bit over 2 to account for attrition) after ten generations the population remains at x.

If each couple has 6 kids, after ten generations the population is 118,000 ish x.

So firstly, yes your family is extremely bad for the environment, crumbs, and secondly you might as well have has the heating on because that wouldn’t have made anywhere near as much difference.

I mean congrats anyway OP, babies are lovely regardless, but if everyone had six kids we would be totally fucked as a species.

Of course most people DONT have six kids. Which raises an interesting ethical point. Is an individually negative decision still negative if it’s generally diluted by population choice?

People react negatively for a number of reasons. Firstly they cant imagine themselves in that position - I’ve got one and that has nearly killed me. Secondly there’s still a whiff of the old ‘sexual continence’ stuff hanging around even in modern times. Multiple kids is seen as dissolute and randy. People have legitimate worries over population and the environment. The ‘Mum in benefits churning them out’ stereotype is still prevalent in the media. There are issues over mental health (like that Redford lady who clearly loveable babies but maybe not so much older kids.) then people think you can’t give them 1:1 time. Again I’ve got one and worrying about how he would react to another.

I think it raises a lot of odd emotions for people. For a lot of reasons. It’s still rather rude of people to comment negatively on your FB to a baby announcement.

I am one of 4 and it was already too many in my opinion. Yes I love my brothers -
(though I probably could have done without DB1) but my/our life would have been so much different without that many siblings. We would have had much more opportunities, much more emotional support and probably an overall better upbringing if my mother had sticked to two.
My mother was/is a full time mom and was always at home. Didn't stop us from getting very little one on one time and little emotional support from her as she always had to share her attention between us all. It's often the quieter and better behave kids who miss out too as the more unruly ones tend to get most of the mother's time and attention. There are talks that my mother may want one last kid (she is still young enough that she could!) and I cringe just thinking about it.

Anyway, congratulations OP! Don't take people not congratulating personally, I think most people have a hard time thinking people would voluntarily want to have 6 kids (I know I wouldn't) and probably are just projecting a bit!

As I said earlier all these lovely children will be working and contributing to our pensions in time and one would assume using public services, like the NHS and schools. Most people contribute less to these than they use throughout their lifetime.

If people are really concerned about the sustainability of the planet then they need to lead from the front ! Get rid of all your large houses, cars , labour saving devices etc etc. No washing machines, dishwashers , TV s etc .Make your own clothes or at least only wear second hand, grow your own and lose all excess weight acquired from overeating ( which tbh covers the majority of people). Oh and no more holidays abroad either. Oh and scrap christmas presents for your kids as well. What a shocking waste of resources they are !
In the western world we all consume much more than we need to sustain life so it is no good pointing the finger at irresponsible parents ( as you see it ) if you are not willing to do your part. It is not a simple case of telling people to limit their families we are all guilty.
No doubt someone will come on to tell me they do all the above as well as living off organically farmed yaks milk etc etc . And well done to them i say . Most of us are greedy in the western world so i am speaking to myself as much as anyone. I just dont get this vitriol being bandied about on this thread.

Announce it on facebook and change the privacy settings of the post for just close family and friends. Who really cares what other people think? You're happy, you're kids are happy and thats all that matters. Congratulations.

That makes no sense though does it? The best thing you can do for the future is to have none, one or max 2, kids.

Having a large family is exponentially worse than anything else you can do. It's on a whole other level of environmental irresponsibility.

Why are people so slow at understanding that?

You can minimise your environmental impact all you like and that's great, but you can't eliminate it entirely. And every extra child you produce brings their own environmental impact - and their children - and their grandchildren. And you have zero control over how they live their lives.

OP, with your kids’ dad eating breakfast with them, doing the school run, playing with the little ones while the others are at school, attending school assemblies, driving them to hobbies and staying to watch, not to mention eating dinner with them, when on earth does he get to do his work?

Wow! Congratulations!
If you are happy, your kids are loved and happy, what does it matter how many you have?
I do admire you, I have 3 and I struggle with finding time to breathe!
Personally, I would just announce it! I am very rude to people who question my life choices. I have 3 girls so apparently I should try for a boy. My comments to reply to these people who say this are rude and some could take offence. But it shuts them right up. Will not put on here as I would probably get banned from MN Do not feel the need to justify yourself to anybody!
Congratulations!

None of those things make as big an impact as population. Most we do - we aren’t quite at the yak weaving level. (Dishwashers can be v efficient of water use by the way..) we won’t have mode than two kids (barring multiple births) because that seems like a sustainable number.

And of course many couples have none, or one.

It’s an issue fraught with ethical dilemmas. China’s one child policy led to some horrific abuses. So there’s a massive disconnect between the ethics for the individual couple and the ethics for the population.

At the same time we cannot keep expanding into a finite space. It’s madness. There are strong correlations between education, poverty, disease and reproductive rate. We need to educate women and increase their access to contraceptives and their rights in general - after that happens you tend to see a population drop.
Some models predict contraction in about a hundred years or so - but before that the population is going to peak at a staggering number. And all those people need feeding and housing and provide a fabulous breeding ground for whatever plague is going to have a crack at wiping us out next.

There aren’t easy answers to this stuff. A gentle pressure approach that nudges people to have fewer is preferable to forced abortion (as alas was common in China.)

flapjack it's because no one person's actions matter in the face of exponential growth. Can you not understand this?

Of course, OP is implicitly relying on everyone else (including her children) to not behave as fecklessly as she does, otherwise she would have 36 grandchildren, 216 great-grandchildren, 1296 great-great grandchildren, 8000 great-great-great grandchildren and so on.

Another way of saying all that, by having 2 children or fewer you absolutely are leading from the front. Regardless of anything else you do.

We thought about a third would have liked it but couldn't in all conscience do it. We try to be green (cycle not drive, mooncup, recycle etc etc). So to your face I will say congratulations but I personally would be slightly horrified at a sixth child. Sorry but that's my opinion and nothing mothers of numerous kids say will change that.