To dislike the phrase 'our family is complete'

[Newstarttoday35]

I see it constantly on social media when someone has had their second child and find it quite smug. Also implies that a 3rd child would be unwanted, I know it's just a phrase but it's just a little off-putting and engineered.

I don't think that it's that OP thinks people shouldn't have the number of children they want or feel content with the number of children they have and not want more. It's the public nature / social media announcement of that fact she's objecting to. I'm not talking about specific family planning discussions or political debates about the optimum family size, I don't think that's the context OP is meaning. I think it's more than she means it would be really quite odd in most other general social contexts to announce apropos of nothing to your circle of friends and family 'I'm so glad we didn't have another child', 'I wouldn't have wanted a second/third/fourth child'. Most public announcements of happiness are about positive things have have happened, not negative things that haven't happened. It would seem strange to us that someone wants us to know that they're really happy about the absence of a child that never existed. Just the same as we'd find it odd if someone told us they're happy they haven't moved house/changed job/got a new car because they're satisfied with what they have now and it's better than any hypothetical alternative option - it would be like, good for you, why are you telling me, the assumption would be that you are happy with the status quo unless you say otherwise?

And yet in the context of saying you are really happy about the children you do have, and specifically at the time you announce the birth of your youngest child, it's quite normal to announce to the world that you don't want any more children. I don't know, maybe I'm socially maladjusted, but that seems odd to me. Not the feeling itself, that's fine, but that this is the designated time for you to publicly state your 'completeness' - how do you know at this point and at no other that you have chosen the best of all possible options of family size?

Why are other people not allowed to think their family is complete? It isn't a comment yours or anyone else's family.
Perhaps there would be fewer announcements of completion if other people weren't so nosy and stopped asking about more kids?

It’s nauseatingly twee though isn’t it? People should have to state how many kids they want. Others shouldn’t speculate. It’s nobody’s business. I remember after having my second child (a boy to follow a girl) someone said how nice it was that I didn’t have to have any more children as I had one of each now. Mind blown! Who thinks like that???

I had two - my family was complete - I took steps to ensure I didn’t have a third. A third child would not have been welcome. I see nothing wrong with this. If you wanted 3 kids good for you! My sister used to say the shop was shut!😂

Yes it should be nobody's business. But some people don't get that. We've got 3 boys, we're totally done, DH is snipped. We get it all the time, are we trying for a girl?. Strangers, people who know better, our own families- it's relentless. I don't do social media, so I'm not making announcements one way or the other, but "we're done now" or "our family is complete" are phrases I have to say often so I can see people might want to get ahead of it.

My family is 'complete' with two children. I didn't post that on SM, but it is. Our 2nd little man rounds off how large we intend to make our family.

Doesn't mean a 3rd would be unwanted, just unplanned!

People were saying this decades before social media.

I probably said it when I’d had my 3rd….if I had thought I might have a 4th I’d have said it then

a family being “complete” doesn’t have to mean 2 children

I honestly can't get worked up about this @Newstarttoday35 Why are so offended? I am assuming you have 3 or more children? If you are happy and comfortable with this, you shouldn't be offended by other people wanting 'only' 2 children!

It’s a little cringeworthy, but then a lot of the stuff people say is borderline cringe/idiotic.

Don't use it then.

Yeah it’s a stupid social media phrase used by people who live their lives on Instagram and Facebook. They are the people who also post photos of their kids together with a caption saying “My 🌍”. Cringe.

I'm just saying I dislike it

I see it constantly on social media when someone has had their second child and find it quite smug. Also implies that a 3rd child would be unwanted,

And there's nothing wrong with saying that unless of course they have a 3rd child 😂 Like if they shared a throwback of when it was just them with the 2 kids and said 'ah, back when the family was complete'

I used it, along with a breezy “one and done!” to stop people asking about a second child. Which I desperately wanted to have but couldn’t.

I remember feeling very much that our family was complete after having our 3rd baby. My sister and my best friend felt the same after their second. Their feeling of what a ‘complete family’ looks like is unique to them, just as mine is to me. I also feel like this is a complete non-issue!

Although, just to add a thought, I have heard it said in relation to having one of each, and this I completely disagree with and very condescending. Do people who use it in this way think that if you ‘only’ have kids of the same sex, that your family is incomplete??

I also dislike the “this is the one who made me a mum” and “this is the one who completed our family

I said it. For us, two dc - one boy, one girl - and me being 38 years old, we knew it was complete and didn't want to be asked if we were having more.

I said it just to shut people up when they started banging on about "giving" DD a sibling.1 was enough for me.

Never move to Turkey. They have women named ‘Yeter’ there, which means ‘Enough’. It’s traditionally the name given to the family’s last child, implying a wish for no more children.

Agree it’s generally to ward off annoying comments about more children, especially if you’ve got 2 or 3 of one gender and don’t want the ‘are you going to try for a girl/a little boy’

Or a friend who recently put it when announcing her DDs birth, she has one son who is twelve (she had him very young) and was fed up with people suggesting she would need to have another close in age.

Yeah, this would be my assumption.

How can anyone look at a family who feel ‘whole’ and complete and content and make that into something you personally dislike? What does another person’s family and how they feel about it, even have to do with anyone else? Is it because it implies they are happy with their lot? Woe betide.
There are so many things in the world to have negative thoughts and opinions about ffs. Pick one of them to seeth at.

Our family was complete after one child. A second would have been unwanted and we took measures to make sure a second did not materialize. we knew we only had the resources for one child.

What is wrong with not wanting more children?