Getting bored with MumsNetters who ...

[Mulanmum]

Leave their 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 kids to cuddle each other and play harmoniously whilst they come onto this topic to tell us that only children are:

spoiled/spoilt
likely to prefer their chaotic household to the sad and lonely bleakhouse inhabited by an only child
will be lost and lonely without the comradeship of sibs when parents die

and that they have never met an adult who enjoyed being an only child

and on and on and on!

It isn't helpful for those who, unlike me, would have liked to have more children.

I don't go sticking my nose into the Larger Families topics posting tactless and unhelpful comments about children I know who LOATHE being one of TOO many or adults who DETEST their brothers/sisters.

Supportive and constructive posts are welcome from multi-kid mums but if you can't manage that then please get back to your kids and stop little Jasper hammering on little Jocasta's head.

Thank you

shame on you, mulanmum.

Squeaver, I don't want to post again either, for exactly the same reason, but I did just want to say thank you to all the lovely posts I've just read.

I read the 'chill' advice earlier and just thought 'meh' - no apology is expected.

The best thing I've learned from the internet is not to get riled by people I don't know - if I don't know them, I shouldn't care enough about what they say to let it get to me. Yesterday I broke that because I was tired and shitty about all kinds of boring, mundane, niggly things.

But anyway, I did spit out some pretty personal stuff and you've all been very kind.

I have lurked on here and read this with interest at times and concern at others.

I totally dislike it when people make judgements about the choice to have one or more children or none for that matter. People do it all the time and are crass and insensitive, mostly it is none of their business and I do think people are as judgemental of one child as they are of four or five. There are special things about having one child and about five neither are better or worse than the other.

Mulansmum you should be ashamed for posting such insensitive things to flummery.

flum, fwiw i thought the same thing yesterday when i read the 'anguish'post.

Flum et al, nip on over to MadBad's tearoom. I don't know why she calls it that though, seems everyone is knocking back the hard stuff there. More like a speakeasy really.

"Just chill, flum" is one of the most callous responses I have read in a long time.

Mulansmum, I have never called anyone a cow on mumsnet before, but really.......

YOu take the fking biscuit.

No, no, no, sprouts are great. Give them to me!

I was really excited about the one-child topic. I imagined it to be a friendly place, full of people dealing with the same sort of issues I've been dealing with. But the OP has, as has been mentioned before in this thread, seems to have ruined it for everybody else with her judgemental, sneery, chippy comments about anyone who hasn't made the same choice she has. So I'm going to hide it now.

hear, hear, rabbit.

or is it here, here...

Agree with ll and aitch.

FWIW I can completely see the point in having the topic, but perhaps you (ie the posters who want to use it for its proper purpose) could, if you get fed up with people barging in causing trouble, do what we do with SN and ask mumsnet to make it an "opt in"?

Can't be bothered to read thread, but what I would say is no matter how many children you have, people always lecture you on why it's wrong. Just take no notice.

ROFL. i like jeee's style. pithy.

One parent families are a minority and come in for a fair bit of bashing by certain folk both in real life and on mumsnet.

OP is just reacting to the torrent of one child family bashing that this topic has unleashed.

There is so much prejudice on mumsnet directed at families of one that the mere presence of a topic for one child families has attracted a deal of aggressive and negative attention like moths to a flame. Do we have to go underground and organise secret forums to confess that we have only one child and that it's not all "the same but less" as those with multichild families?

I really have seen a different side to many posters on this topic.

No you don't podrick, but neither do you have to start a wankey op and be really nasty, especially to flum, what a shitty reaction from the op, shameful, shameful behaviour

My suggestion to flum that she chill was in response to her last paragraph:

"To have someone, IMO, be provocative, be divisive and then set themselves up as some kind of protector of others hit me at a moment when I was feeling down. I'm sorry if I didn't express it well"

Flum was apologising to Kew rather than me, even though I was the one she had misinterpreted and insulted. First of all saying that I'd "claimed" to adopt when I am in fact the lucky mother to a gorgeous DD adopted by me and DH. Then suggesting I'm a hypocrite rather than acknowledging that I - just like her - can empathise with people who would desperately like more children but are unable to have one.

By saying "chill" I was echoing Justinenet who on another message about this thread in a different topic advised everyone to chill.

Of course I am sad for Flum's experience but there was no point in saying so because she and many of you would just twist whatever I'd said - you've been doing it for 12 pages now!

My OP was borne out of frustration and whilst it was snippy it was nothing in comparison to the venom, vile insults and sheer nastiness that some of you have responded with. It's a mob mentality "oooh look at her saying something we don't like, let's all pile in, twist and exaggerate what she's says, swear at and belittle her - that'll teach her". Sadly you've just demeaned yourselves and I really don't think I've responded in kind which actually says a lot abot the person I really am as opposed to what some of you are trying to make me out to be. Thank fully you're just a minority on MN.

I'm only responding because, as the OP, if I don't then you'll start baying that I started this and did a runner! But why not do as Justinenet suggests and chill, let this thread go. Surely EVERYONE has had their say now?

at some of this thread, I have 4 DC. I always wanted 3 and the 4th slipped in there. I would probably feel disappointed if I only had one DC.
But I don't have a problem with only child families, loved children are a blessing however many in number. I envy people who can give their one child so much quality time.

I do think there are specific drawbacks to only having one, but there are plenty of specific drawbacks to having many, too.