Is six children too many ?

[mozhe]

Someone,( a colleague..but I do not know them well ), just stopped me in the corridor at work...noticing I was pregnant they asked me if it was my first, when I told them ,' no, it's my 6th '...they said,' six is too many ', and strod off....Is six too many ?

Agree, I was desperate to go back to work then, as the first few months were not my favourites. to be fair maybe I wasn't ready for it so i will tell you more with my second, when it happens, but I am pretty certain that it will be somewhat similar.

I do love it now but not sure I could do it all day. Maybe I will, maybe I won't - still I don;t understand why men are never asked such questions and never agreed with the fact that women are 'born knowing' ... pants: I knew nothing and all I knew now is because I have spilt blood learning it!!

to respond to the OP: I am not sure how many would be too many for me. If I didn't have to go through 9 months of pregnancy all the time maybe more than I am planning. I ahve got only one at the mo and def want more. I guess I will now...

I guess I will know, even! sorry, tired

Xenia - you and mohze need to stop equating motherhood with breastfeeding

any old mammal can stuff a tit in a babys chops

6 children is environmentally unsound - but they're cute little beggars sometimes so I can see the appeal.

personally I started too late to have that many..unless I have a record number of multiples this time.

definitely think 6 is too many to have if you're going to have them all at once

I donT agree with the environmentally unsound argument. The worst threat to environment is materialism. So you can have one child who is raised to be materialistic, thereby consuming a lot, and putting a lot of strain on the environment( Some people who own big houses and fly away on holiday 2-3 times a year may be from a family of 1 or 2 children and may have only one child.) Or you can have six children who are raised to appreciate nature, taught to recycle and not to consume endlessly. THey may go on a camping holiday once a year, and then take their children on camping holidays. Just look at how many children people have in Africa and Asia per woman, and then look at how <span class="italic">little</span> damage these countries do to the environment, compared to the damage the Western countries do with their 2.4 children. I just dont think that the "ecologically sound" argument applies here.

Go on then Otter enlighten us ....what is mothering ? What are xenia and I,( oh and millions of others out there...),not doing then ? As far as i can see the only thing we cannot compete on is the number of hours clocked up in a child's actual presence ! we both breastfeed, provide for our children, love them...and are succesfully bonded with them.We have both provided them with them with consitent/stable carers over a number of years.....nor are we unusual! I know scores of women who have bought up larger than average families in a similar fashion...go on let us in on your little secret

OMG xenia, did you really go back to work after 2 weeks??!!!?? Im not shocked because the baby was so young, Im shocked that your body could cope with it.
I was 25 when I had DD, in good shape, did maternity swimming on the Wednesday and DD came on the Sat. Natural, uncomplicated, drug-free birth but the shock came afterwards, when I realised that childbirth knocks you for six. I thought you had the baby and that was it but I read that our body need at least 18 months to recover its iron resources. Did you have to walk a lot, how did you cope?

Can I just throw into the debate... I personally could not have gone back to work so early. My sister had a baby almost 2 weeks ago. She is returning to work on Satyurday. She runs her own dancing school - all day saturday and several evenings a week. SHe has cut her hours down and i am doing some of her saturday classes for her. She is a great mum and idolises her baby girl. BUt baby is only 2 weeks old. Not sure what my point is but thought I would throw it in

Mozhe - I think that the number of hours a mother spends with a child(ren) are crucial for its emotional, moral, linguistic and cognitive development.

Obviously, a mother who just babysits a child and doesn't spend time doing age and developmentally appropriate activities with it for several hours a day won't be giving a child that input and he/she might be better off in a nursery. There are plenty of programmes to take children out of bad homes and put them in nurseries, though I very much doubt any MNers are in that category of mother.

But no nanny can replace or do better than the mother in the mother's role unless the nanny actually replaces the mother in a child's affection. Not many mothers are happy when that happens, so they purposefully don't employ child carers where that is likely to occur.

Obviously a small amount of childcare doesn't have anything like the impact on a child's development that full-time care does, and in many cases is probably a good thing.

mohzhe - millions of mothers do not breast feed their child. neither do they even contemplate leaving it to work full time at 14 DAYS old

there have been countless studies on child carers and 'eye contact' Maybe you should aquaint yourslef mohze

Sakura you are absolutely right re one greedy child = 10 environmentally friendly children.

I hate this "children are environmentally unsound" argument. It seems to me to be a secular updating of the old misanthropic religious arguments such as humanity being the product of original sin.

Anna8888, I'm sure you will find that the very same children are well behaved when with their Nanny.

The reason children play up imo is because Parents whom work full-time tend to be slightly more leniant on their children when they are with them.

Do parents who wft tend to be more lenient?

Is there any research done into that, or is that just anecdotal?

Come on your husbands went back at 2 weeks and you're not syaing they shoudl be hung drawn and quartered. Why are women so sexist against other women? It's disgusting.

And whey are they so physically feeble that they think at 2 weeks after birth you can't walk to a tube station, sit on a train adn then sit at a desk all day. Why is that any more onerous than chasing after 3 under 5 s all day whilst hoovering? I will never ever understand that point. I was 22 with the first and work is easier. Obviously depends on the work and depends on the set up at home. 6 weeks at home waited on hand and foot whilst you have one baby only very different from most people's second child first 6 weeks.

Plenty of women choose to go back quickly and love it and their babies thrive with a loved nanny or husband or granny at home.

On what is mothering when you're with your children is't parenting. It's interaction. It's seeing to their needs, responding to them, understanding them the things all working nad non working fathers and motehrs do.

LOL, full-time working parents are more lenient!

Tell that to my dad. He worked his arse off full-time. Dead strict, too.

'Come on your husbands went back at 2 weeks and you're not syaing they shoudl be hung drawn and quartered. Why are women so sexist against other women? It's disgusting. '

Point taken. I agree.

6 kids, a full time job and time to waste on MN...

No research, simply based on the families I've worked for & those my friends have worked for over the years.

Not written to cause an arguement as I'm not saying all working parents are more leniant & that all sah's are strict.

I've also found that older Parents are also more leniant!

Xenia - I would agree that going to a paid job is easier than doing all the stuff at home running after kids etc. BUT what you hjave to realize is that most women who work have to come home and do all the home stuff too.
How is that easier?? sounds like double the work to me.

" Why are women so sexist against other women? It's disgusting."

Said by the worst offender

It felt like double the work when I was 22 and we had no help. We certainly did it equally in terms of washing up etc and the nanny gave the 3 under 5s their tea but it was hard work. On the other hand it was worth it and the only way I would have had it. Their father agreed to give up work if the nanny didn't work out but that worked fine on the whole. She was very bad domestically but we thought the continuity of care over 10 years (she lived out) was more important than replacing her with someone who tidied up a bit better. Nothing is perfect. It made a massive difference to our lives because of the career I was in and the pay scales in that over 20+ years if you're any good at it. It was worth a few hard years with under 5s and also would have been hard if I had been home or their father had been home which is the more likely option.

By the way it should never be a mother coming home to do all the work. Women like that unless they're single, are idiots. You share tasks at home. you don't marry sexist men. you effect change if they are like that.