Celebrating one child families!

[Mulanmum]

I know that a lot of families have one child through cricumstance rather than choice and I'm really pleased that we now have a topic where they can share their sadness and frustration. But to balance it I'd like to start a thread for those of us who have one child by choice and don't feel wistful, cheated or inadequate because we don't have a second, or third, or fourth ...

I belong to a forum for inter-country adopters and one member posted about a second child joining their family "now I feel we are a proper family. When it was just the three of us I felt we were a bit lame".

There was a fab thread in the Parenting section a while ago (anyone do a link?) where people were listing the advantages of having an only child. One member posted that she and her husband "glory" in their DS. I thought that was a lovely choice of word .

It's 3.10 in the morning so I don't really feel like glorying in anything just now but wanted to get this thread started and will add to it when I'm not shattered!

Millie - I love your day too. It reminds me of something that happened to us in September... My husband was away for a fortnight and we missed him lots! When he returned dd and I had a present for him.... a big box of duplo lego. We spent all afternoon all three of us playing with duplo to celebrate his return.... lego is so so great!!! Happy days!!!!

After this morning's delights I have got another point to add to the ever growing list...

• Doing things like laying in bed until nearly mid-day drinking tea (me), milk (dd) and listening to radio 3 while cuddling, tickling, chatting, making up stories and reading more books than we knew dd had!!!!

Though when we lie in bed its usually for me to catch up on sleep and DS to watch CBeebies or something along those lines, until he bounces on my tummy saying its time to get up!

arabicabean - Thanks for your comment... And with that teafortwo leaves Mumsnet for a while to go sportcar shopping. Writes note to dh...

Gone to buy a sportscar. It is what most one child families are geting around these days! So we need one too.

Wonders to self - while driving said sportscar should I be wearing a hat or a facinator???? Flats or Mary Janes???? Oh the things us Mothers of one child have to think about, hey?????

Oooooooooooh - how I long for cbeebies millie - we don't have UK tv so my dd and I have to get our Charlie and Lola hits through books and listening to radio 7 on the internet!

Perhaps santa might just about hopefully maybe manage to probably have a nice Charlie and Lola surprise for us in the shape of a lovely shiny dvd this christmas!!!

Hee hee, i recently got myself a lush Seat, often walk up to school and past the oversized, fuel guzzling, big booted 4x4s with the row of car seats in back, and the brat buses with lazy town stickers all over the inside windows.

This is a really encouraging thread. Thank you. I risked my life to get DD here, but will not risk her mum to get her a sibling.

Sometimes I hear people saying "only"s are cruel and feel like saying, well, would it be better to have a sibling but no mummy?

But these are the things I love...
Mummy and DD having lunch out sharing omelette and chattering away.

I think my sanity would go if I had two to get up with in the night. I really do.

My mental health has been better with one than with none. I doubt it would be the case with two.

Bike and baby seat = no need for a car, and DD loves it!

Imagine the mess, and the washing, and... I am a single mum that works full time, keeping the house well ordered is a struggle as it is.

I can enjoy her. When I have my nephew here, I do enjoy the both of them, but your time, if not your love, has to be split, surely?

I find this thread rather rude actually

celebrate your own life choices but by disrespecting other family structures it's actually rather rude

people with more than one child do not 'split' their love, they do not live in more mess, they do not fail to give their children adequate time.

And neither are us people with 1 child selfish or rolling in a pile of wealth. We all take life choices, and we like to feel happy and tell others about those decisions we've made. I personally suffered v v bad PND, begged my exp to push pram into middle of road and then was expected to cope whilst he swanned off to his new partner miles away from us. I'm choosing to keep it at 1 so i don't have to go thru that heartache again, so i'm happy to shout from the rooftops cos i'm here the otherside to enjoy him.

yeah me neither

but they ARE beginning to form their own little stereotype thanks to this section / thread .. and I don't like it at all

Well sod off then. I wouldn't go onto a breastfeeding thread and rant at them cos they're choosing to breastfeed till the children are 2, just because i chose not to breastfeed at all. Each to their own, thats the kindof message behind MN threads isn't it?

I do find this thread a bit well erm smug tbh. My niece is an only at 9 and is a lovely girl if a little bit spoilt and over indulged, nothing to do with being an only, rather the attitude of her mother.
There is nothing wrong with having only one child, I don't understand this topic at all. The whole we have it so much better than those who have more than one. Bi-fecking-zarre.

I don't see the need to be defensive about having 1, I had 1 for 3 years, never even crossed my mind that it was odd.

I agree Hatrick, this is an open forum, if you could only post in the subjects hatt directly apply, it would be v boring.

I take back the sod off. Not aimed at you Hatrick, just had a bad day. Some witch made a comment in the playground today about hurrying up and popping out another one cos by the look of things time was running out, followed by laughter from the other witches around her. So rather an inconvenient time to read that Only mums are being smug. Just riled by her nasty comment.

Well, I don't think that having a family with more than one child is a negative thing. I can see that there are plenty of positives to having a second child (or more than that). The point of this thread, I thought, was simply to celebrate the positives which can come from having one child and, inevitably, the list will be different from any that might be compiled on a 'celebrating having 2/3/4/5/... children' thread.

I haven't spotted any post which said or implied that children with siblings are less loved or aren't given adequate time. I thought what other posters had said - pretty obviously, in my view - was that if you have more than one child to nurture, there's more juggling to be done (one child wants to stay indoors and paint while the other wants to go to the park, or whatever). An only child will get undivided attention (which actually I think may not always be good for parent or child).

I hope that we can all live together in peace and love too.

Twig - I find it a bit strange that you previously voiced your objection to us having our own topic and now you are reading it. Why? Are you looking for something to wind you up?

Likewise Kitty: why are you bothering reading a thread you find smug and bizarre? There are thousands of other posts on MN that must be of more relevence/interest to you.

Thanks to everyone who is contributing (positively) to this thread. Millie - teafortwo will be along soon with something nice from the patisserie to soothe you . No-one ever makes those "you ought to have another one" comments to me because my DD is adopted so they assume I'm infertile (which I'm not) and therefore should be grateful for what I've got (which I am!)

If celebrating how lucky to are to have one

They don't make those 'hurry up and have another one' comments to me because they can see I'm geriatric!

ooops! Got distracted and hit "post" before I'd finished my sentencebut think I said what I wanted to say anyway!

Teafortwo hands round pain au chocolats!!!

Mulanmum - You are so very very sweet to have set up this thread!!! A thread for simply celebrating one child families in order to balance the sadder issues (a few of which have made me cry) being dealt with in the one child topic. It is a delightful sprinkling of complete unrefined happiness! This reflects what a lovely person you are because we all need to hear happy stories too! I certainly do!

I had good idea - Perhaps we need a thread called "Celebrating large families" so parents of larger families can talk about what is great about having more than two to counter-balance this thread. No competition, no desires to pop into each others threads to make catty remarks - just nice ones like "Oh that sounds like fun" and "Mmm... you are living my dream!" if we happen to be checking out if the grass is greener!!!

I really believe that life isn't a competition! It is all swings and roundabouts! I am suggesting the celebrating large families thread, not to be sarcastic or nasty (I have to be careful to say that because my posts have been misread in the past - trying to be nice can get me in deep trouble on mn) - Just because it is fun to talk about just the positive things in your chosen or fallen into life situation (I must admit I fit into the second group)and I think you would have just as much fun as us thinking about all the good bits and writing it all down!

No, no, no - don't leave now... you have said some really nice things about the one child topic, hatrickortreat! Hey, pull up a chair and have another pain au chocolat!!!