No I haven’t left and I wasn’t going to come back but Ive watched carefully as my words have been twisted.
I never actually said we were struggling financially - we aren’t. We may not be big earners but we aren’t big spenders either so it evens out.
I said we MOSTLY eat vegetarian meals.
MOSTLY.
I didn’t say any more but I’ll elaborate now as didn’t realise that would be jumped on and twisted from ‘mostly vegetarian meals’ to ‘can’t afford any meat’ - it’s partly due to personal choice partly for health reasons and partly for budgeting not a case of ‘can’t afford meat’. We have 2 meat meals a week a roast on sundays and Wednesday night some other meat based meal so twice a week, and yes, we can afford ham for sandwiches but we prefer wafer thin turkey if that’s ok with everyone. We even have some chicken nuggets in the freezer .... but the children only have those occasionally
I stated we have been in the house 15+ years NOT from the first child. I actually moved in here with 3 children- it was a 4 bed with 2 reception rooms and initially was used as such now we use the second reception room as a bedroom and divided up the biggest bedroom to make 2 smaller rooms with a partition sliding door set up.
When we were offered this house the stock levels were much higher and it was advertised in the bidding system as suitable for a family of 4-8 and we managed to get it because although we were one of many families in the same band some may have been larger families than us we had the furthest back priority date (they used a system then of band and a tie of who had been waiting longest). It’s a secure tenancy so yes I appreciate we are lucky.
The comments made by my family are mostly based on just then being how they are all those who have been that way don’t offer any practicl or financial support so I’m not sure why they are like this nor have I expressed any dire finances to them as it’s not the case for us
Yes the children do wear a lot of hand me downs but that’s not bad quality and they do get new when needed or wanted but if it’s a big purchase they ask for birthday or Christmas
Again , they do not go without they each choose one out of school activity - one has coding club (used to be ice skating but wanted to change ) one does (well did as we haven’t been in weeks due to covid) swimming, another football, one girl guides and actually although we could find this ourselves I actually use the money I get each year form my grandfather to fund these throughout the year so I suppose we even have financial help (he gives me £500 each birthday)
We do not get tax credits beyond the third child due to the dates they were born.
I absolutely do want to work at some point but when I’m ready to not just yet although I was doing volunteering locally till CV happened and I felt it too risky with my pregnancy.
I started this thread on larger families to try and vent my frustration and upset in what I thought would be the correct topic and a sympathetic environment of those who had possibly had similar reactions from people and although I’m grateful for the kinder responses even the ones who don’t agree with my life choices but were measured and explained well (and have actually made me think re the climate and population issue so I’m wondering now maybe this will actually be my last after thinking about these issues a bit more) I’m just really shocked how a lot of what I’ve said has been twisted especially the vegetarian comment ! I said ‘mostly’ vegetarian. But that’s just one example and I never professed to be doing this benefit free as I’ve said multiple times we get ctc and chb it was just we’ve never had housing or tax benefit.
Anyway, I think that’s everything. I probably will hide the thread now
Again thanks to those who either said congratulations or expressed their views against large families kindly