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

can I be very difficult and have coffeee and a muffin. Tea makes me burp

yeah. world peace. right on.

I'm sorry Pagwatch I didn't really imagine people did that on those threads.

I don't think the "rudeness with impunity" thing you said, I just felt like the only one who could see that she had a point so swung rather over to the other side. Of course I wasn't the only one, but there we are. I just hate the barging thing -- my problem!

Mahoosive double chocolate brownie for me with an entire pot of Assam. Happy to sit at a table outside and be looked at, askance if necessary .

looked at I presume?

ah yes

Forget it blue. I really did get where you were coming from.

you want to nip to mad bads.
apparently I am giving massages behind the aspidistra

Yes, do please come to my cafe.

I must emphasise that it is a very reputable cafe and pagwatch's massage - it started with a head rub for squeaver but the customers clamoured for more - is of the therapeutic, medicinal, sports-injury kind. Nothing sleazy. Oh no.

Yes of course.. simply batting eyelashes for entry to MadBadandSleazy's House of Fun.

Madbadandsleazy? How very dare you!

...err

did I not mention the extras then?

yeah but why on earth do you need your own topic? I just do not get this.

I've had on only, as have the majority of posters, and it was like having 3 kids, really, but less so. Same issues.

Ok them, can we have a 3 child and 2 child topic? And keep tresspassers of through vigilant checking of profiles and apprpriate weaponry

Go Filly Go!!

What I've always found strange about this is that the majority of us have all been a "one-child family" at some point, and therefore we all have a say in this topic, so why can't it be dealt with in the greater MN sphere?

What happens if someone who thought they only wanted one child then decides to have another?
Will they only be allowed to discuss one child at a time?

Having read some of the other threads, I am surprised that some posters believe that everyone 'gets at' one-child families.
I never experienced this when I had one child, and I would never think to comment on anyone else's family situation.
It must be a phenomenon that has passed me by.

I did have naive hopes originally that this topic might enable me to chat to others who had only been able to have one child.

It might have been somewhere I could express my immense regret,sadness and frustration at this fact.

Instead it's full of smart arses and people wanting to argue and score points.

I've now hidden this topic.

Vapido - while this thread is dreadful and I've gone right off the one child topic, there is something very different having one child knowing you're going to have more and quite another when you can't. And I'm sure that you don't remember people asking you if you're going to have another child if you know that it's merely a question of when you choose to make that happen

I do remember people asking me if we were planning more children.
I don't remember being got at about it.

There are, of course, people who have more than one child who subsequently are unable to have any more.

Oh well, it seems you know very polite people

I often get people saying 'ohhhh, aren't you going to have any more?' like it's a dreadful thing. Like I have much of a choice in the matter.

Come and have a cup of tea (Horlicks will be available after 10pm).

Agree with others.

This topic area is not offering what I thought it would.

It just seems to be full of people arguing over the rights and wrongs of having one child or more than one child.

I wanted to discuss stuff specific to having one child.

I wanted to be able to discuss the issues surrounding having one child because I can't have any more.

I don't want to read that I am selfish or cruel, or my child will grow up to hate being an only child. It is in no way beneficial to me and makes me feel bad - as posters who post it must realise (they can't be that niave surely or maybe they do it deliberatly to offend?!) I can't do anything to change things. I can suddenly invent a sibling for my child - my body won;t make one. Simple as. I want to chat about those issues.

Equally I don't want it to start lots of arguements about why having more than one child or large families is wrong either.

There are good and bad points for any size of family. There are examples of positive and negative experiences of only children and of having siblings. No one thing is right. What works for one family doesn't for another.

Stop criticising people's decisions - and have some sensitivity to those who have struggled ith their choices or what life has chosen for them on both sides).

Vapido - I have ad people be very ride in real life and definitely online, inc on MN, criticise me for only having one child. Even recently.

What a strange and depressing thread this has turned out to be. MN at its worst.

I certainly hope that squeaver, oggsfrog and others, that once this has all calmed down, we can have a nice quiet chat about how it feels to only have one child. Certainly I have been made to feel very guilty about it. It must have passed you by Vapido, it is strong round here.

I feel guilty not because oggsfrog I cannot have another child, but because I had such a ghastly pregnancy that DH and I have decided never to put me through it again. In a way, that is the most horrible and selfish decision to make. I should have liked to talk with others who made the "selfish" decision to guard their own health and sanity at the expense of their LO's potential siblings.

But it looks like I shall have to wait for all the big girls to stop fighting first.

Hula - exactly. Perhaps we should all try to start a thread examining an issue specific to only children which concerns us? I've started one about holidays. What's yours?

Well said Hula.'

We are a very happy one child family. I also love the famlies close to me that are larger. I have no need to compare or be critical of any other family, although I have felt the need to challenge some of the stereotyped generalisations about only children that have sometimes been trotted out on MN and in the wider wold. I don't need a whole blimmin topic in which to do that though!

And i do think that any specific questions I mighht have about the one-chiidness of our family can be dealt with in the other topics.

Frankly, I have mostly wanted to dissociate myself from this topic as it stands.

Agree with Hula.