"And you only have one child"

[SarahLouise10]

Why do people feel the need to say this. Yes I know I have one child! Doesn't make me any less of a parent. And it's my choice to have one, and not a brood running me mad..😂

People comment if you have 1 or 3+. I think one is harder in some way - I was one of many and we just looked after each other really (whilst mum did the mountains of laundry and cooking).

I reckon the only people who don't receive some sort of comment on the number of children in their family are the ones who have 2!

The most annoying comments I receive are from a friend who has one, and uses it as a badge of honour to tell me how it's great that they can go on expensive exotic holidays, eat out as often as they want, have a really small mortgage because they've never needed to move to a bigger house.....breathe repeat.

I don't have one child, but I'd never make a negative comment to someone who does, nor did I ever use the fact that I had one child to make anyone with more than one feel shit (when I had one, and several of my friends had 2/3+).

This friend regularly says things like "Well, you will have x number of children....!" if I so much as say that I've had a busy day. You've somehow brought it on yourself if you have more than one child, work and are busy, but if you have one child, work and are busy, it's perfectly acceptable to be exhausted.

It's really shitty receiving negative comments about the size of your family, regardless of the size of your family. Some people just thrive on point scoring and one-up-man-ship! I hate it!

for you, OP.

This is very true. I would never say to anyone about how many children they have, recently I have been made to feel like having only one child makes me less of a parent. Like no one else has had the choice of only having one..

I hate people saying this, if I hadn't had multiple cycles of IVF and miscarriages I'd have more than one- that's what I wanted. It's even worse when they tell me that she will be lonely, or spoilt. I've started to tell them my struggles now instead of brushing it off. They are usually so embarrassed they back off and hopefully may think twice before asking someone else the same question.

I have a boy and a girl so you’d think I wouldn’t get any comments but no: a head tilt, and “Oh, well, they’d probably play better together if they were both boys or both girls.”

What?! None of us can win. Also they play together fine!

I really can’t win now my husband’s died - “Is it just the three of you?” when we go out for tea drives me mad.

You are 110% a parent. I think it takes over 100% to be a parent. Feels like it 😂

I have seven and people comment , you can’t win either way.

I was about to say I've never had this comment but can definitely recall a few 'just wait until you have another' or 'yeah, now imagine that with two' and similar. Which I know is throwaway but can hurt a bit - yes, I may have 'just' one child so can't know what it's like with more, but I also may have other things going on in my life which are different to you (family illness, money troubles etc) so you can't compare people's situation like-for-like!

As a parent of one though I have commented on other people with more children - but only ever in a positive way, e.g. 'I don't know how you do it, well done!' or 'god that was hard - and I only have one!'. Hope that isn't dickish, it's intended as self deprecating (realising now I'm probably not helping by adding fuel to the 'you've only got one' fire...)