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Original poster

Struggling to be happy for the peer-group couple who announce the Stealth Third Child

237 replies

suzywong · 02/06/2006 07:22

Anyone else?

I mean it's all well and good if you have always announce your intention to have more than two, but then to sneak another one in after a few years of being compadres in the quadrilateral 2+2 family/friends strata. But to sneak another child in, right under my nose!

I want to be happy for them, very happy - it's a wonderful thing of joy BUT why do I feel a slightly abrasive knot of jealoulsy in my stomach? Is this other couple blatantly announcing their superior dedication to children and chid rearing and happy families? Am I not dedicated enough? Was my confinement not sufficiently radiant, was my Maternal prowess not gracious and mild enough to make me and dh want another offspring?

Anyone else find it initially hard to be happy for contemporaries, I mean same age or older and pretty similar people, who suddenly announce a third child in the offing? I don't having this knot and I am jealous of their dedication and decisiveness.

Is this a syndrome or am I a bitter and twisted old hag?

OP posts:
expatinscotland · 02/06/2006 10:21

i look like shit, hunker. i can't figure if it's age or the babies.

grey hair, lost a cup size and saggy tits, poochy tummy, laugh lines and lines on my forehead, age spots, spider veins on my legs.

meh!

i'd have: laser resurfacing on my face, veneers, tummy tuck, that laser treatment on spider veins, hair transplant and boob job.

morningpaper · 02/06/2006 10:21

Hmm I think we would deffo need a bigger car

I don't think that the other things seem TOO bad

Not enough to put me off

Bear in mind we never do anything pleasant like go on holiday though ...

hunkermunker · 02/06/2006 10:23

I look better than how I did after DS1 - I looked appalling then, so it's only a small improvement, EIS Grin

I'd still have bits altered. Heck, actually, I'd go back to my 26yo size 8 but with big boobs figure - I didn't know how good I had it then!

thewomanwhothoughtshewasahat · 02/06/2006 10:25

ime there are only 3 ways of having more than 2 kids. you either leave them to the nanny whilst earning loads of moolah; or you already have so much money that you don;t need to work and can afford "help"; or you are a full-time earth mother (or in theory father but haven't seen it). In all of these cases the roles are fixed; everyone (mum, dad, nanny, au pair, cleaner) knows what they have to do - it stays the same, no-one flits from one role to another, everyone has their bit to do and gets on with it. I just can't see how you can fit 3 or 4 kids into a juggling / waivering scenario.

morningpaper · 02/06/2006 10:27

REALLY womanofhat?

that sounds like a MUCH bigger sacrifice than being poor

madmarchhare · 02/06/2006 10:28

Be secure in the knowledge that she will be sobbing into a muslin at three in the morning and you will be sound asleep Grin Wink.

Kelly1978 · 02/06/2006 10:29

hmm, I dont have help ( I wish), or a nanny, and I'm not an earth mother! I'm frazzled and stressed and run aroudn like a headless chicken all day! Not working yet (not doen that for a while!), but studying with the intention to work once they are all in school. Oh and do a bit of work from home here and there.

morningpaper · 02/06/2006 10:30

hmm perhaps there is a 4. frazzled and stressed headless chicken scenario

not v. attractive either

morningpaper · 02/06/2006 10:31

2 children is so BLAH though

luchar · 02/06/2006 10:31

My sis has recently had a 3rd and I've found it really difficult too. I have 2 DSs and when my sis just had her 2DDs everything felt really balanced IYSWIM - I had no DD and she had no DS. She always said she was only having 2 but then decided to have a stealth 3rd (when the DDs were 8 and 5) and she now has a DS - and I've found that SO hard, as even though I don't really want a third I really feel I'm missing out on knowing what it's like to have a DD. I'd have been fine about it if she'd had another DD. DN is now 6 months old and absolutely gorgeous but it's taken me this long to come to terms with it and that makes me feel awful!

Original poster
suzywong · 02/06/2006 10:32

good points WWTSWAH

OP posts:
thewomanwhothoughtshewasahat · 02/06/2006 10:35

ok, maybe 3. shouldn't be earth mother but what meant, I think, was someone with a degree of commitment to mothering, and a certainty about their choices, that is way superior to anything I could muster. and please don;t undermine my theory because on it rests my whole reasoning for not having no 3. Grin

Original poster
suzywong · 02/06/2006 10:37

yes MP, that's the way I feel too; well if you think you're such a dedicated mother why not have 3?

But of course now I know this is a Recognised Syndrome I can approach it in an abstract fashion and no longer feel twisted

OP posts:
Bink · 02/06/2006 10:40

oh suzy, WHAT a good thread title.

I know precisely what you mean - we had a matchy family across the road from us, boy 8 days younger than ds, girl a month younger than dd, each best friends with the other, loads in common in outlook and lifestyle and everything ... and then when the older two were 6 & 5 they HAD ANOTHER. I am the most phlegmatic and unjealous of people but at some prehistoric gut level I felt betrayed ...

morningpaper · 02/06/2006 10:40

But 2 feels like I'm missing one

Just a small one

I REALLY WANT ANOTHER SMALL ONE

OH THE PAIN OF NEVER FEELING THOSE TINY STARFISH HANDS AND THAT LITTLE SUCKY MOUTH NURSING AGAIN

THEY ARE SOOOO CUTE

someone slap me

morningpaper · 02/06/2006 10:40

But 2 feels like I'm missing one

Just a small one

I REALLY WANT ANOTHER SMALL ONE

OH THE PAIN OF NEVER FEELING THOSE TINY STARFISH HANDS AND THAT LITTLE SUCKY MOUTH NURSING AGAIN

THEY ARE SOOOO CUTE

someone slap me

morningpaper · 02/06/2006 10:41

shit got carried away with me clicks

expatinscotland · 02/06/2006 10:43

I have a 6 month old and she's SO cute! That round head. The ways she looks at us whilst she is feeding. How she's discovering her hands and feet. Her chubby legs, plump tummy and bum.

She smells positively edible.

I can see DD1 making a FAB big sister - she already is.

expatinscotland · 02/06/2006 10:43

I'd also love to adopt a baby girl from India like my aunt and her husband.

And just have all the sisters in the family.

How cool!

morningpaper · 02/06/2006 10:46

I have blatantly started another thread to discuss HAt Woman's theory. I want to know if all those with +2 will confess to being in a category or not. :)

Bagpuss30 · 02/06/2006 10:47

But MP, someone forgot to tell me the most important thing about a third baby, they grow up - and quicker than the first two! Think about all those toddler tantrums! Things have been so easy for us up until now and I dread to think what ds2 will be like when he is walking independantly and I can no longer get away with putting him in a pushchair. That has been quite a downside for me actualy, the reality of juggling three is quite different from the dream Grin.

Original poster
suzywong · 02/06/2006 10:53

Actually my two hitting each other with metal Thomas trains in the other room, and I don't care. Could I really muster up enough parenting dust to care for a third, starfish hands notwithstanding?

OP posts:
dinny · 02/06/2006 11:17

I can't possibly say never ever to another This thread is making me feel that biological pull (noooooooo!)

hannahsaunt · 02/06/2006 11:20

Smile Suzy. I felt irrationally jealous of SIL being pregnant with her first depsite already having the 2 most beautiful boys in the world (obviously Grin); it's a security within the family unit thing I think - no probs with my brother's wife producing them but this was dh's brother's wife and wondering how my boys would fit etc. Utterly irrational.

That said we are hoping for #3. (S)he will have to be passed off as stealth baby to both sets of grandparents despite being the only one we have actually made a concious decision to try to conceive. (Actually, should point out am NOT pg; just hoping soon).

Stealth for my parents because I was really sick, in hospital etc when pg with ds1 and they don't want me to go through it again.

Stealth for ILs because MIL really wants me to have three because she had three and we have two boys and they had two boys then a girl so we should be trying for a girl too!!! So, have denied all intentions of ever having another as can't bear for her to be smug! (Actually don't mind either way but another boy would be lovely).

Bumblelion · 02/06/2006 11:38

In my ex-husband's family, he was one of 4. 3 born to the same dad, then his dad died Christmas Eve when he was 6 - he was youngest of 3. His mum remarried and had another one, girl. He has eldest sister, older brother, him and younger sister - 9 years younger than him.

His eldest sister has 3 children and fosters another one. His brother has 5 children (and an irish wolfhound). His brother's children are now 16 (boy), 14 (girl), 11 (boy), 8 (boy) and 6 (boy).

I have 3 children, girl (13), boy (9) and girl (4 - special needs) and I am on my own. People that say you have to be rich so you can afford childcare, etc. or on benefits are so wrong. I am a single working (part-time) mother to 3 children, pay my mortgage, go on holiday abroad every year with the children. I am not well off, nor am I poor. I just am what I am.

Not sure why I said that, to justify my 3 children's existence I suppose, but when I go to my ex-SIL's house (we are still very good friends) I love it. Not so much now the children are older, but say 4/5 years ago when the children were so much younger it was mayhem but wonderful to see all these children.

Okay, my ex-SIL doesn't work but she always said the hardest thing was to make sure that every child's needs and wants were met because they were at different stages emotionally and physically and what the youngest liked doing the oldest would not be interested in.