Large families

[MadamMMA]

I have 3 kids and just manage to give them all the individual care and time they need, how do people with large amounts of kids deal with this or are they just processing them iyswim

Maybe time management skills and overall parenting methods make a difference too.

I see a Mother of five regularly on the school run. Her eldest is in the same class as my eldest so is nine then she has three toddlers and a baby so all bunched closely together. The eldest doesn’t seem to get a look in which I guess is understandable with four demanding toddlers and babies. The Mother always looks so frazzled and shattered, again completely understandable! I do feel for the eldest child though, it can’t be easy.

I had my first three really close together so they’ve all grown up together and I suppose don’t remember life without having siblings. Left a six year gap between DC3 and 4 with no plans for any other children. I think I’m so able to give them all 1:1 time because I’ve figured out an established routine that works and I make the effort. I think one more child would cripple me so am making sure that doesn’t happen .

My DP is one of 4 (I'm an only child) and I'm always so impressed by the amount of headspace his DM has for her family. She remembers every date, every name, every activity or holiday, every child's friends and partners and their partners families and the anniversary of her daughters-husbands-mothers-sister. I think it's just something some people are good at.

I have two and I sometimes process them, every parent does now and then.

I would have loved to have been part of a huge family and have lots of siblings, I was one of two children with both parents working full time, and we had zero quality one to one time. Ever. After the age of 11 my parents left us to raise ourselves pretty much. You don’t need to have lots of children to not have time!
Some of the larger families needed a parent around due to logistics, and that provided a place for us all to gather not just the children in the family.

I hated taking care of my younger siblings. I was always holding a baby 14-16 years younger than me and being treated like an unpaid domestic whilst having no teenage life of my own.
My mother was constantly complaining about being tired/having to spend half the day cooking/cleaning all the time.
Why not just have one or two then? Bloody awful.

A friend of mine has 9. They are aged 15 - 4 months and they are already trying again. The house is very organised and they have strict routines. They don’t seem stressed at all.

One thing I have noticed is when the the 15 year old daughter came in from school upset (friendship dramas) and mum said at 8.30 when the others were in bed they could sit and talk about it. I personally found it heartbreaking that a parent wasn’t available until then. But I suppose if mine came home from school upset they would have to wait until I finished work and came home before they told me.

Another thing was days out. The teenagers didn’t want to go to pepper pig world and the youngest wouldn’t get anything out of Thorpe park. What the younger ones wanted has always come before the older ones on treats, holidays and days out.

Also because of finances the older ones don’t get to do as much as friends - going in to town, cinema, Pizza Hut that kind of thing.

Notabedofroses agreed. You can also argue that parents with fewer DC get used to spending more time on themselves and parents with more DC simply re-direct that spare time to covering the bases of all the DC.

Wow there is an unproportional number of people here who claim to have a direct in-depth knowledge of other people’s lives and how they bring up their children behind closed doors.

Massive goady thread btw OP.

My DM was one of 10,although the eldest 2 died in infancy. They were very well brought up by my late Grandparents. The boys all went to grammar school and then University, despite a very working class background. The girls (DM included) all left school at 15/16 and went into jobs.
All in a 4 bedroom house!

Depends on the parenting skills as to how the children are brought up. It's sad to see children being left to almost fend for themselves by some parents these days.

If you find it goady then you are easily goaded

My friends mother (lots of children) had the most scruffy untidy house with kids and pets absolutely everywhere, and we loved going there. We were always so welcome, and she was a mother hen looking after all of us. The atmosphere was relaxed and jovial. Old farmhouse full of children. Yes she looked tired sometimes but she made time for everyone, even dc that were not her own. There was always lots of food! Lots of conversation. It was lovely!
My friend slept with her sister in a shared bedroom and I was so envious of that warm snuggly room with someone to talk to, and never to feel scared alone. Oh course I am looking at it from a child’s point of view. Large families can be wonderful!

I’m the youngest of six. The older five have very close age gaps and no issues at all. I’m the youngest by an average of 20 years and rather than being lumbered with siblings I’ve been lumbered with the care of 16 nieces and nephews since I was 2 month old. My mum provided full time care for all of them from 8 in the morning till often 9 at night so my sisters and their partners could work. My mum is also a full time carer for my grandpa and her sibling so I’ve been looking after kids on my own almost full time since I was 11. And I hated it, I was the one who sorted washing, who washed dishes, cooked, cleaned, wiped faces and cleaned scrapes, made them brush their teeth and hair; helped with homework, broke up fights between them, monitored what they were watching on tv and made sure that they were always happy and cared for. And I hated them. Each and every one of them, my nieces and nephews, my mum, sisters my auntie and uncle my grandpa. I have a good relationship with my mum because I’ve decided to ‘let it go’ but it’ll come out one day and my relationship will never be what my sisters have with her. And my sisters resent the relationship I have with their kids now. The kids are hurt or upset 80% of the time they look for me. They have a school play or get good news they want to tell me first. But my experience has just taught me that all my needs and wants are so far past last place it’s not worth counting. I’m not even an afterthought unless I’m not ‘performing’ my role.

I think some parents can make it work. Most can’t and I think it’s incredibly selfish to have kids that you can’t care for without expecting another child to pick up the slack.

I have three children aged 2-7 and from being pregnant I realised how tough it would be.

Giving three children enough attention is hard and totally my limit

If you find it goady then you are easily goaded

Not easily no. Just wondering why? when you have 3, and admit that is the limit you can deal with, why you would start a thread in AIBU about larger families while making such a derisive judgement about them.

It IS goady at best and pathetic definitely!

I have 6 and they are certainly not 'processed'.

Do I have days where life is frazzled and it feels like all I've done is feed them and keep them alive - yes. I also had those days when I had 2, and I don't have them any more frequently than I do with 6.

We're fortunate enough that when we got to the stage of time starting to be an issue I could give up work (initially for a few years, now long term as other circumstances have changed) which made life easier and meant that I didn't feel they were missing out on time.

We're also very lucky in that my MIL and my other MIL (DH was a widow with DS1 when I met him) absolutely dote on all of the kids. So this weekend coming for example I'm taking my two eldest girls to a festival, the middle two are going to Legoland with MIL and my youngest (who has significant health issues) is going to somewhere she loves with OMIL. Eldest is going to the festival with his friends and if we see him I've not to fuss or ask if he's ok. They get more decent one-on-one time than the girls did when I was a single parent, working full time and juggling everything.

Do I regret having a big family - no.

However (and as someone who was unwanted andabused as a child DD4 will never ever know this) I do regret the situation with my youngest child. I fell pregnant on the coil. Had a difficult pregnancy (I went for a termination and requested not to show the scan screen, but a the staff member decided to turn it round and show me 'the healthy wee heartbeat' and I couldn't do it) and then her birth was disasterous. The damage and health issues she have been left with have a huge impact on us and it takes everything DH and I have to make sure the quality of life the other children have hasnt suffered long term.

I'm angry that I was told I was too young to be sterilised in my mid 30's with 5 kids. I'm angry that the sonographer - knowing my wishes - decided to ignore them. I'm also angry that the man whose lack of care during her birth damaged my DD apologised and got on with his life whereas she and the rest of us will have to live with the consequences forever. Counselling has been a godsend with that an I'm now much less angry than I was.

My older kids don't look after the younger ones. It's funny that people assume they do though. People often ask them to babysit assuming they have a lot of experience of being hands on with young children. One of my DD's (16yo) has always loved babies an children so has a thriving babysitting business on the go. I couldn't afford her rates!!

I will admit we had a six month spell where it was all hands on deck when DS1 was 16 and DDs were 14 when DH had the chance to work abroad for six months. That was the only time they ever had to pitch in more, but that was more that for those six months there were less lifts, they had a few more house chores rather than being hands on with the younger three (we hired an au pair to help with the younger kids and my PIL were wonderful). It was a crazy time, but that period set us all up for life basically. It funded extending our house to give more space , we'll have money to help properly through uni (especially if/when the twins go at the same time) and DH was able to change his job after to one that gives him an 8-4 day, which in turn helps with the one-to-one time as well as holidays and just having a financial security that we never expected to have.

It was a thought and a question and the vast majority of people have taken it as such conflicted2019 No sweeping judgements here. Have a tip top weekend

FIL is one of six. I asked him how often in childhood he’d had one-on-one time with his parents. He said never.

DH is one of two so guess we know how FIL felt about big families.

I don't have experience of this as I wasn't from a large family and don't have a large family, but in an episode of everybody hates Chris he says when there's more kids than parents the oldest kid gets a kid, so he got his little sister (family with 3 kids). So I guess just more of older ones looking after younger ones as others have said?

DH is one of two blush so guess we know how FIL felt about big families.

That's not necessarily the case though, unless your FIL has openly said that.

My PIL's are one of 15 and one of nine and they have two sons. We alway assumed the same until BIL's GF had a misscarriage a few years ago and MIL revealed that she'd had many miscarriages and a stillborn. They are just of the age where things like that were never talked about. They both wanted a big family, but it just didn't happen for them.

People that don't have large families saying things like the older kids MUST take on some of the parenting are being very unkind and unthinking. Just because you couldn't/wouldn't want to doesn't mean it can't be done. Maybe people that always wanted a large family are more organised and have more patience than is usual. I really don't like it when just because someone doesn't understand something they have to put it down. Everyone is different. Every family is different. There are good parents of 1 and good parents of 10. I know lots of fantastic parents-of anything from 1 to 8 children!

Having come from a larger family and having friends who have, all of us wouldn't do it ourselves. I personally hated it. Children should not be expected to look after young siblings or the house.

Little time, money, resources etc. Hobbies were non existent, likewise help with homework or peace to study.

I also find it really frustrating when people assume that it's because of a big family when I say no to things for my kids.

My two elder girls each wanted to do an activity last year. Same day, both finishing at 10pm so no buses home and in two different places 25mins apart (by car). I got a mouthful from the Mum of DD1s best friend over it.

My girls are twins. Even if I had had them and only them I wouldn't have been able to facilitate that because there were no lift share options.

Mine don't miss out on any activities because they come from a big family. The only person it creates more work for is me as I tend to be the one that co-ordinates the lift shares rota (and that tends to mean I end up being the one that carries the extras ont he night someone announces last minute that they can't do it). There are a lot of 4/5 child families locally.

@Enko that is beautiful. Parenting goals!

It’s quite telling that most of the people criticising the OP (not all!) and getting defensive are parents of large families and most of the people agreeing are adults who grew up in large families. Potentially people like having lots of children more than those children like having lots of siblings?

Part of the issue is potentially the age gaps though, as opposed to necessarily it being multiple. There are 7 years between me and my younger sister although there’s only the two of us, and I did a lot of looking after her while my parents were working. My mum was considering having another baby when I was around 13 or 14 and while I never said anything I was very relieved when she didn’t.

I’ve got four DC and have big age gaps, which both helps and hinders. The last two are twins.
I’d say there are definitely times where I’m processing. There are bottlenecks where they all want something at once and none of them will get everything they’re after.

I explain that I can’t do whatever it is at the time but promise a fixed future time to make up for it.
I prioritise keeping that promise.

I’m lucky enough to have a well paying job I can do a significant chunk of from home, a very hands on DH and enough space that everyone can find a quiet nook and the kids have their own rooms.
I have no paid help or capable family (getting a cleaner again soon now problem rescue dog is settling down. Yay!)

We definitely prioritise the DC over many other things and make time to do 1-1 stuff regularly.

The older ones do things like listen to the twins read and do maths with them.
We have supper at the table as a family around 5 days a week.
I also use my lunch break to do school pick ups.
Everyone mucks in with housework & pet care and I’m very big on helping each other out whenever possible (someone’s missing a shoe? They all search).

That’s it really. It’s chaos sometimes.

Who has 20 kids? Even 10+ is very rare these days so I wouldn't worry yourself.