To feel ‘less’ of a mother when you have one child

[HelloSunshine100]

Lately I don’t know if I am creating this feeling myself or just noticing things but does anyone else feel like others make you feel less of a parent when you only have one child?
Like the school mums with 3 young kids under five rushing from school run to nursery and carting the baby around etc..almost like they are the ones to really be exhausted and tired and if you have one child it’s awkward to claim your struggling and tired cos you only have one?! Almost like feeling less entitled to the role as parent as you don’t have multiple kids ‘you only have one it must be so easy’ these sorts of comments are widely thrown around…

Heartfelt yes to this.

It's highly unlikely that anyone made them have 3 kids, so it was their choice and now it's their problem. Like taking on a whopping great mortgage for five bedrooms when you only needed 2. How can anyone possibly sympathise with that?

Like for like, 1 child will be less work than 2 at times but at other times they might be more work as they don't have a sibling to entertain them, but that doesn't make anyone less of a mother and it also doesn't take into account everything else that someone might have going on that takes up their times, causes stress etc.

No, don't be ridiculous.

You are no less a mother if you have an only child.
I'm an only child and my mother is and was fantastic and we are incredibly close.
I have five children and it has never crossed my mind that those with less children are in any way lesser mothers.

There are so many variables that you can't possibly make that assertion with any degree of accuracy.
I have five children aged from 8-19, a mum who helps with childcare and a DH who WFH and does the school run/cooks dinner most days.
Conversely I have a friend who has a three year old, an elderly mother and a very selfish husband. My friend also has T2 diabetes whilst I am fortunately free of health conditions. She is more tired than I am on a daily basis and I would never diminish or doubt her experiences simply because she 'only has one child'

I know it’s easier, it’s why I only had one. I have other goals I want to work towards that are not compatible with more than one child.

I suspect some mothers of more than one child do think I’m less of a mother than they are, there have been comments, but equally there are a few mothers I meet who I feel would be well served to get a life outside of being a mother which is an equally ungenerous thought to have so… who cares? None of their business, and none of mine.

Don’t you just want to feel like ‘you’, rather than more like a mother?

By the way, you might find that in a few years time the game changes and the mothers/ parents around you stop seeing being tired and busy as a badge of honour. People do actually eventually move out of this stage. Some of them will move on to patronising mothers of younger children, because theirs are older now therefore they know it all and think they are “more of a mother” because their kids are teenagers or whatever. That is just the type of people they are. Some people have to be winning an imaginary contest all the time for their life to feel worthwhile. Other people grow out of the competitive parenting phase when they realise how stupid it is.

are you deliberately trying to miss the point?

it COULD be the same because that mums 1 child might be completely different in personality and temperament to your 1 or 3 or whatever children.

You also might have no idea about her circumstances or anything.

To be so dismissive as to change the subject because you assume that her life is “not as hard as yours”, when all that mum might want is a bit of a rant to get things off her chest just shows what kind of person you are.

EVERYBODY goes through tough times as a mum at some point, empathy costs nothing.

🤭 I have 3 and they were all very much planned. I’m not more of a mother than someone who has one child though, if anything you have to entertain them more yourself when you have one. I think it’s disgusting that people have been made to feel this way.

🤣

You are creating that thought in your head. Though perhaps it's been prompted by some daft comments or perspectives you have read.

It's akin to saying you feel less of a human because you haven't gone through XYZ experience or trauma or difficulty. Total nonsense. There are, for example, people out there who will say that a person is "less of a woman" if they haven't had children - which is complete nonsense.

As for multiple children being more hard work: perhaps, though you don't know what you are going to get (usually) - there are plenty of children who have needs/problems/illnesses etc etc etc that are are vastly more "work" than having multiple children without those issues. So, comparing children and situations really isn't helpful.

If you are feeling depressed then seek help.

A better mum than whom?

This. ^ So narrow minded and ignorant to say a mum with one child will be much less stressed and tired than one with 2 or 3 children. Unless you walk in someone else's shoes, you know naff-all about them, and have no business saying this.

This too! ^

Yep, there’s just so many competitive mums. It’s ignorant to assume you have it much harder than others because they have less kids. There are SO many factors to this other than the amount of kids you have.

If you look at some of the comments on this thread you can see that mums of 3 plus get so much judgment too ‘selfish’ ‘insane’ ‘uncool’ ‘judgemental’ ‘not as good’, almost as if nothing a mum does is the right thing 😅

Exactly! 👏

totally agree with this too. It’s competitive and judgemental either way

It doesn’t make you less of a mum!

It does mean you undoubtedly have it easier (unless your child is a particular challenge due to a condition).

As a mum of 3 young kids, my life is a constant juggle in the way yours isn’t. It doesn’t make me more of a mum or a better one, but I can guarantee my parenting workload is higher.

Than she would have been with two or more children.

But even this just feels narrow minded.

I have two children so by your reckoning I must have it harder than my sister who has one. But I'm currently on maternity leave whereas she works full time, my children have no additional needs whereas hers does, I'm not a carer for an elderly relative whereas she is, she has a lot of animals to care for, I have a cleaner and she doesn't, she has outbuildings and land to maintain, she has a time-consuming side hustle etc.

And sure you could separate out the pure parenting aspects and say I have more of that to do than her but 1) I still think she has it harder because her child is objectively harder to parent than my two (not because of him, he's an angel, but because his additional needs require a lot of work to manage) and 2) you can't separate out pure parenting from all the other stuff going on in someone's life because it all affects each other.

I think at best you can say in general the more children a person has the more work, on average, they'll have to do in child-rearing, but that's no basis for assuming you're going to be crowned the automatic winner of the 'who's more busy and tired' competition (and since it's a stupid and thoughtless competition anyway let's just fuck it off and offer whatever support we can to those in need of it).

No one can make me feel anything. I am a mother as much as any other. The number of children I have is irrelevant.

Same!

Of course you are not any less of a mother. Being a mother is a binary thing - you either are or you aren’t. I can imagine that there will be some “mum” conversations you can’t join in with, like dealing with sibling fights or balancing competing demands, but polite friends would not talk too long about these things in front of you because you’d be excluded from the conversation. In the same way, a mum of only boys may not have lots to add to a chat about how to educate girls about periods, and a mum with neurotypical DC can’t really participate in a discussion of strategies for supporting a child with ASD at school (unless they have other expertise of course). We all have different experiences of motherhood.

I have to admit that I do inwardly think my friend with one DC who doesn’t work has it easier than I do juggling three and a part-time job but I would never dream of saying that to her and I listen to and sympathise with her moans! I’m sure mums of four or more also think I have it easy!