To have a 5th child

[Flowerflow]

I have 4 children ages 13, 9, 8 and 4 (5 in a few days), recently DP and I have been discussing have another child, he completely up for it but I'm still a little unsure. I have a few concerns like we currently live in a 4 bedroom house, oldest two share and youngest two have their own bedrooms. 8 year old is the only boy and if were to have another boy they would probably share but there would be a big age gap and DS wouldn't be impressed. That or we move to a bigger house which we might not be able to afford where we currently but would be able to if we move slightly further away. Another concern would be there'll be 5/6 between them and our current youngest so new baby might feel left out or the odd one out although not all our children are very close in age. I'm also unsure about going through pregnancy again, I've never really enjoyed it, baby, toddler stage and so I'll happily go through again but pregnancy I'm willing to go through not exactly happily though. On the other hand I'd love to have a fifth child and these concerns and problems can be worked through

Did the OP, in her OP, wring her hands about the state of the planet, or was she wondering whether a DC5 was a good idea in terms of her own family? I bet she wish she'd never started this one. FWIW, OP, yours sound like a lovely family, and I think a fifth child would be lucky to be born into it.

@Scardanelli finally someone who isn't complaining. Nicest comment I've seen for a while:)

those planes are gonna fly with or without big families using them

That's really not how economics works. If passenger numbers reduce, airlines will reduce the flights operating on the route accordingly.

We will get to the point of having to legislate population. It's either create a society where people feel some responsibility toward their kids and greater society or legislate it.

Also reckon flights should be rationed - they should be. Friends have ridiculous jobs where they fly to Europe weekly and treat planes like trains. Not their fault but the companies. That bollocks needs to stop we are smarter than that.

We haven’t actually been abroad no, but those planes are gonna fly with or without big families using them. So the amount of children I have is kind of irrelevant in that argument.

When it comes to plastic, I may use more plastic than a smaller family. A smaller family might use just as much or even more depending on their lifestyle. Who knows. I don’t really think every household counts every piece of plastic they use. We don’t have a car though, which a smaller family who uses less plastic may have. So swings and roundabouts really.

I don't even really know where to start.

There's an average consumer footprint in the UK, not sure what it is, but big families will consume proportionally more of everything. You can argue that there's a fixed component that doesn't increase with larger families but then each child goes off and establishes their own home, so that pretty much evaporates.

As for planes - they operate based on demand. I don't know how better to put this. Fewer customers = fewer flights.

But honestly I don't get the impression that you're really interested in any of this, based on your continuous 'swings and roundabouts' nonsense. More people = more consumption.

@goodwinter thank you

I bet all of those encouraging OP to keep producing would be up in arms if she moved to their area and cost their kids a school place.

I actually think the full cost of raising kids should fall on the parents once they exceed replacement level. It should go beyond having your child benefit stopped after two. You should be made to pay extra into the NHS and pay towards school costs. You should also be made to pay more council tax etc and if the father fucks off, he should be forced to keep paying or suffer hefty fines or prison and a criminal record.

We’re all subsiding this bullshit. It’s easy to just keep banging them out until your fanny collapses if you’re not baring anything close to the true cost of raising them. It goes far beyond clothes and food.

Plus pay a carbon tax.

Did the OP, in her OP, wring her hands about the state of the planet, or was she wondering whether a DC5 was a good idea in terms of her own family?

Unless OP is about to pull of the greatest drip feed of all time and reveal that she actually inhabits some celestial plane far from Earth, it’s safe to say that the state of the planet should be an entirely valid consideration in this decision.

Please don't. You are blessed with 4 children. It is enough.

goodwinter

@AlaskanOilBaron, just want to say you've made some great posts in this thread.

I agree. Thanks AlaskanOilBaron

I wouldn't have a fifth child OP. The tide has turned and I imagine large families are going to be subjected to more and more criticism in the coming years. There is a growing anti-natalist movement and the narrative even in more ordinary circles is anti-human. How often do you read or hear: "Humans are a cancer. Humans are a plague. We ought to be wiped off the earth".
This thread contains references to forced sterilization. Many now advocate for a one child policy which would undoubtedly be a human rights disaster. But this sort of thinking is in the zeitgeist.
I have 4 children and I am not having any more though in a perfect world I probably would. But the time is up for large families in the developed world. We will be less and less tolerated as time goes on and as climate change worsens (which it probably will) at the hands of governments, corporations and those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.
Ordinary people usually turn on each other in times of crisis. This thread is a brilliant example of that.

Dreamingofkfc

2 is this magical number that won't be doing any harm to the planet - if you're that concerned surely don't have any?

2 is the maximum. None or one is even better, currently.

We can not get away from the fact that we just don't die like we used to, in particular our children.

Yet experts are predicting an increase in childhood deaths (and deaths of vulnerable adults) due to more strains of antibiotic resistant bacterium and us having to rely on our immune systems to carry us. I doubt 40 years ago anyone would have realised the dire situation the world would be in regarding these essential medicaments.

UnfinishedKitchen
"Keep banging them out until your fanny collapses".

Jesus wept.

Scardanelli, another inane post. Just bury your head in the sand won't you

You only have the one teenager, who is only just a teenager. They need MORE parenting when they get to this stage, not less while you are tending to 5th baby. They need chats, money, lifts...different to parenting little ones.
Are you really going to be able to help your older ones out with lifts etc while your baby is sleeping? Are you really going to wake a sleeping baby up to go and pick up an emotional teen who needs you there now? Teens need attention, not more siblings.
I say this after having had a few nightmare years with DS1 (15) and I only have two children.
DS1 has a friend who has lots of siblings and as soon as the DFriend became a difficult teen, they packed him off to boarding school and had another child
Enjoy what you have. Yours are all at the age to be good company and less demanding.

*the narrative even in more ordinary circles is anti-human. How often do you read or hear: "Humans are a cancer. Humans are a plague. We ought to be wiped off the earth".

These is a wide chasm between ‘humans should be wiped off the earth’ and ‘it’s probably a bad idea to have a fifth child’, isn’t there?

It’s not anti human to think having large families is not sustainable and is selfish. It’s taking more than your share of finite resources. When the consequences were not obvious it didn’t really matter but we are now seeing the reality of too many people living our western lifestyles it’s hard to remain breezy and indulgent of those wilfully having more and more kids.

So an extra 3 houses are going to need to be built just to house your children assuming the fourth takes yours when you die and the fifth takes their partners parents. Then all the nhs resources, teaching resources, transport impacts when they start commuting for work etc for an extra child. Yes, 'just one more' will make a difference.

There is a growing anti-natalist movement and the narrative even in more ordinary circles is anti-human.

There is a growing anti-human movement, but I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Yes people can actually be persuaded by the Daily Mail and Guardian to bin their own genetic line because of fear, yes people can be persuaded in various ways to make sure they don't have families, or even forcibly prevent their own children ever having families...

...thing is this is all self-correcting behaviour. If you're enough of an idiot to fail at Darwinism because of these things, yes it's very sad for your family but two generations from now your whole bloodline back to the first human beings will have been wiped from history by choice, and the people making the decisions will be the people whose grandparents and parents chose to ignore the anti-human movement now.

Somebody NEEDS to pay for the NHS and care of the elderly.

Somebody NEEDS to populate the US and Europe and make their economies powerful because these are the countries that might be able to make environmental action happen in the face of countries like China who are opening new factories and power stations literally every day.

People who delete their descendants and check out of the human race are, and will be irrelevant.

The trouble with a lot of this rhetoric is that is rapidly becomes threatening and aggressive.
We go from 'people shouldn't more than 2 children per couple' to 'couples with more than 2 children should be taxed more' to 'people with large families should be taxed more and cover the cost of medical bills and schooling for their family' to 'contraception should be compulsory' to 'forced sterilization is sometimes justified' to 'forced sterilization is standard acceptable practice' to 'forced abortion is an acceptable tool to limit family size'. It's an easy road to walk. It has happened repeatedly throughout recent history (albeit not for environmental reasons).
The way people speak about fellow people, fellow humans is very disturbing. I'm loathe to say it but the parallels with the language of totalitarian regimes of the 20th century is striking.

OP, the environmental impact of large families has been well covered so I won't touch on that one but I do think that if your family is in a happy place with four kids you'd be foolish to jeopardise that for a new baby that you're not absolutely sure you want. It will stretch your finances, it will stretch the attention you can give each child, it will stretch your relationship with your partner.

Imagine each of your kids has 2 kids then that's 10 grandchildren generated from just 2 people. It's cumulative. Imagine if each child has 5 children .... or more!