Facing criticism/judgement over baby no.6

[Loudhouse6]

hi, are there any ladies here who have experienced judgement or criticism for the size of their family? How did you deal with people judging your families size?

me and my husband have been together 20 years. We have five children together 18,8,7,5&2 we are expecting our last baby later in the year. We had our first child when we were 18&20. No one believed we would last being so young but we proved everyone wrong. When we became more financially stable we had our second and subsequent children.

I’m so anxious at the thought of announcing because we’ve already taken a lot of criticism from friends, family and even strangers when it came to babies 4+5.

to give some context we both work full time running our own business which means we’re financially independent and are sensible with money. Working together means we are more than able to juggle work and kids without relying on childcare.

We don’t rely on friends or family to take care of our children and our oldest child who is soon to turn 19 is not asked to baby sit or take responsibility for her younger siblings in any way. I have heard of older siblings becoming like second parents but this is absolutely not the case with us. We may have a babysitter once or twice a year so me and my husband’s life is literally raising our children and work.

giving all of the above I don’t understand why we have been judged so harshly when we are hard working parents who don’t depend on anyone for any sort of support. All of our children are well cared for and loved. We make sure we have one on one time with our children whether it’s activities or a trip out and we also do activities as a whole family.

my brother has said some very derogatory things to me in the past about how many children I have and it makes me wonder if other people think the same way of me too.

sorry for the ramble it’s just we’re a big happy family and I don’t want our joy spoiled. How did you ladies cope with the criticism?

Well 6 is rather a lot

They could be earning more than 98k a year between them at least?

Thank you, yes our festivities are always full of joy, laughter and love. We devote our lives to our children and work. We hope in the future to pass our business down to our children. I do think some of it is that they could never imagine coping with so many children and work that they don’t think anyone can.

If that was the case then they’re not putting in as much as they say in tax.

I was asking on here of other families in the same position as me and how they dealt with it. However criticism on an online forum doesn’t bother me in the same way as friends and family members do or even strangers face to face being rude. Or people saying derogatory comments which I don’t think is called for at all

Who cares. Working couple having another baby isn’t a bad thing. There are much worse things going on in the world than a baby being born into a happy family.

I didn’t say there was but I’m doubt some things that OP says. Working that much with 0 help is pretty much impossible!

Just in case you've not seen it, this will be the best place to ask families in same position - https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/larger_families

I judge a bit because I think it’s shit for the planet to have so many children. But my judgement doesn’t have to have any impact on you 🤷🏼‍♀️

As a director of a company I take a salary. We pay thousands in coperation tax and vat as well as national insurance contributions. Child benefit is not a lot and my oldest is already in full time work herself so we don’t claim for her. Most people are claiming child elements and work elements of universal credit we don’t get those. In the grand scheme of things we take very little out of the public purse.

Also my BIL has loads of kids so we have to spend a fair bit on Xmas and birthday gifts for the nieces and nephews, which we can’t always easily afford.

Threshold is 60k after pension contributions now, so could be 119.9k! This is if it's full child benefit.

So? Still not something random people need to judge them for. Some people just do well with busy lives though, it’s not a bad thing.

Its no ones business.

I've chosen not to have children, the OP can have my allocation of education and pregnancy/birth related healthcare.

Some people are in a huge family and hate it, some people are in a small family and hate it, there are also those in both types of family who love it. Everyone can only make the choices for their life and family that they think is best at the time, they can't predict how everyone in the family will feel about that in the future.

A little more maybe, but for that they have to house and feed 8 people. Do the kids have their own bedrooms, how much actual one to one time does each child get? Cost of schooling and healthcare to the public Etc. They can have as many kids as they like but they will get judge.

Well we have 9 from twins age 2- 17 yr old and also been married many years, never had any criticism. We made sure we were stable in all ways financially, relationship, living arrangements etc before starting a family. I left a good career to be at home and adore every day ups or downs. Your older kids shouldn't be baby sitters totally agree with you and soon as dh is on from work he dives in with making tea, baths or park time etc. We have one credit card for absolute emergencies think we used it once in 5 years for a car repair. All bills etc up to date, no loans. Yes we have like 2 quid left at the end of the month however holidays etc I pay up front monthly for. Anyway kids want for nothing, we adore our family and judging by how much laughter and pranking we have I think there happy to...I was brought up in a large family so had very good role models of a happy family life tbh

People are being judgemental here.
Ifv6bis what you want, it's your business. My sister has 8.
We have one. Horses for courses

I also want to mention it doesn’t cost as much as people might think to sustain a big family if you’re sensible. By that I mean food clothing etc.

as husband and wife we don’t spend a lot on ourselves no fancy labels and expensive stuff, we pass things down from one child to another if it’s still in good condition. When it comes to food shopping I always look for offers and we don’t over indulge.

Our children have nice things but we don’t over spend and spoil them ridiculously. It doesn’t cost anywhere near as much as people think

As a family we have an average people carrier, we don’t eat out often or waste money on takeaways. We use our money to take our children out places couple of times a month as a family at weekends and we do activities like swimming and boxing or football through the week. They don’t all have to cost money either parks and outdoor spaces with picnic and a football, day at the beach.

were going away on holiday this year and I’ve saved every month for the past 14 months to make it happen. We’ve learnt from a young age how to manage money

Feeding and housing 7 people on potentially over 100k would not be that hard. Why don’t care if 2 of OPs kids share a room? I had one sibling and we shared a room, what’s the problem?

I suppose it’s because most people shudder at the thought of having multiple children spread out over 20 years, and a small minority are rude enough to say it rather than just think it

So why not have fewer children, have to scrimp less, and give a smaller number of children a nicer life, more attention, more space, more choice?

I imagine what happens is people look to their own experience and scale up. Many people of my age (late 40s) felt enormous pressure to have a dc, and a sibling, without really having enough freedom to think it through and figure out whether we should be dps at all. More people choose to be cf now, which is a good thing. I think it’s better that people who live family life, and can sustain it, have more dc, and those not suited to it can opt out without taboo.

My husbands parents couldnt careless about their grandchildren, they don’t buy for any of them. Never have done even when we only had two children. Personally I don’t think they really wanted to be parents to their own children so don’t really make any effort with ours and that’s ok I’ve accepted that.

Sadly my dad passed away a few years ago and now my children only have their maternal grandmother in their lives but money isn’t an issue for her. She’s not in great health and and we would never put on her. I think maybe she worries about my health and finds it hard that she can’t be as active in their lives due to health reasons.

But it’s mainly my siblings and aunts and uncles, my brother who said some really filthy things to me that hurt too. friends have been judgemental too. I know if my dad was here and my mams was well they would’ve have been a big part in their lives like they were with our first three children