15 kids and counting

[AKissIsNotAContract]

Starting in 15minutes on channel 4. Anyone else going to watch this?

I'm either unlucky or a societal shift has occurred as the probability of one of my teenagers lifting their pinky to help me is extremely slim ... Raising their siblings? Not going to happen
My teens demand far more of my time than my smalls but I figure they need it right now...
Mine are spaced but parenting them is most definitely a full time job

I don't think being one of five is an issue. It's when you are one of 8,9, 10 etc that it really starts to kick in. It also depends, to a large extent, on where you are in the birth order. My youngest siblings had a radically different upbringing from me. No enforced nappy changing for one thing and far far less babysitting.

I agree with slug. When I was talking about my feelings about large families, I was careful to say 'very large families' because I'm not talking about 5 or 6 but 9, 10 or 11 - at which point it becomes very, very hard to provide each child with sufficient parental input. Again, I'm not saying it can't be done - but it is obvious it would need a very special parent to do it.

My mum is the eldest of 11 and feels that her childhood was entirely swallowed up with caring for young siblings. For her, the company of those siblings is not a consolation - she feels as though her mother basically abandoned her.

Her youngest brother - my uncle, who is my age - was bullied and scapegoated throughout his childhood. Children hunting in a pack is not a pretty sight, and there was insufficient parental supervision to control that.

My gran often tells me, "It gets much easier after the first four!" but I think she can only mean easier for HER, and that is because by then you have an oldest child who can start taking over. She also tells me that they all got individual time, but sometimes only by getting children out of bed for bathtime...

It is difficult to discuss this without stereotyping, and I do think some really disagreeable things get said to and about large families that I wouldn't want to ally myself with. And I am NOT saying large families = crap families, because of course that is very far from true. But in everything we do, it is easy to do a good job if you have sufficient resources. And large families generally have less in the way of resources. So the larger the family, the more skilled the parent has to be to maximise the positives and mitigate the drawbacks.

Tee hee renee!! I hear what you say and do agree to an extent as I watched those programs with a wee feeling of horror and also judged a bit... I can't see any one to one time but maybe there was

I have a few children and am expecting but my eldest is at university albeit for only 23/24 weeks a year and I still have to patent him a lot as he still needs me ! Some of that age may well not need it. Modern day teenagers are far to quick to assert their all pervading sense of entitlement - I don't see many willing to babysit or change nappies - they're too busy asking for help with homework or needing taking somewhere

Despite having a lot of children we have 3.5 yr gaps which some could see as making things more manageable - id argue that I have forgone a career to parent them full time and dp has made career choices like wise to enable him to be here for them in the day sometimes ( lucky)

I try not to over generalise slug but found your comments on 'detachment' hurtful. Dp and I are devoted parents it's 'what we do' and not much else - parenting is pretty intense in our house not detached

But there is a very different experience in being the parent of a large family and the child of one. While you may think that you are doing a good job, I I don't doubt for a moment that you are doing your best (aren't we all?) it's just worth considering how different it may seem from your childrens' perspective. They may be fine about it now, because it's what they've always known, but you may find they have no wish to recreate the experience for their own children.

I'm not saying being one of double figures is all bad. You learn to be incredibly self reliant and realise very quickly that there's no point in having teenage tantrums if you have to compete with others all doing the same thing at the same time. This saves an awful lot of time and effort. We are all successful, independant adults. None of us is a criminal or spends very long unemployed (the need to earn money was installed very early). We all have our quirks. I. for one, have a real problem with DD's tendency to use my room as a reading/playing den. I never had a space to call my own until I was in my 20s, so I tend to get a bit terrortorial about the little privacy I have now.

When we have children it's natural to try and recreate the good things about our own childhoods. I think it's telling that children from very large families rarely voluntarily have large families themselves.

"about 4 children is the maximum before you start to see the detachment happening."

you say its not about 5 or 6 children but more, but in your post on the last page you said this ^ therefore implying that in families with more than 4 there would be issues.

i have 5, eldest is 12, youngest is 13mths and my children are happy and they DO get one on one time, we make a point of it, probably more so than other parents who only have 2 or 3.

my children love being part of a 'larger' family and my middle two would like more siblings, we are done now (baring a lottery win!) and none of mine have EVER been expected to change nappies or do childcare of their younger siblings.

i think like everything it depends on the parents and the family dynamics, some parents with large families can be good, some not so good, but you can say the same of parents with only children or just 2 or 3.

It's not all they've known though slug the first three were just that until the youngest was nearly seven

I'm a relatively bright woman - capable of understanding other people's pov.... I am the child of crap parenting absent alcoholic and abusive - I am very aware of the difference between good and bad parenting and a happy or sad childhood

You are insinuating that despite my best efforts I can't possibly know that my children are happy

I have six - eldest almost 20 youngest 3 they do all get their own time... Many of my friends with teenagers our teens age spend far less time with their teens than we do as they have their own adult lives

Dp and I are forced to be close to our teens as we are home all the time with the smalls- swings and roundabouts

Slugs - I know plenty of families who have replicated their own families in the five or six range

"I think it's telling that children from very large families rarely voluntarily have large families themselves."

Whether this is true or not, I think similar could be said of some children from small families who decide to have a larger family themselves. Possibly influenced by what a particular child considers would have made their childhood better for them.

I'm more inclined to agree with 4madboys:

"i think like everything it depends on the parents and the family dynamics, some parents with large families can be good, some not so good, but you can say the same of parents with only children or just 2 or 3."

Some very interesting comments. We have 5 DC but in a way they get the best of both worlds as we are a blended family. So when they are all here they are one of 5, but sometimes we have just 2 or 3 here and one of the DC is an only child when with thier other parent.

I personally think that children (and adults looking back on their childhood) have a "grass is greener" approach to their own situation, being able to see perceived benefits to doing things a different way but not necessarily appreciating the downsides.

I say that because my DC definitely do this - when all 5 are here they sometimes complain that they want some space to themselves, or they want their own bedroom, or one to one time with a parent when they CHOOSE rather than when we make the time available (which we regularly do), however the other parent of the DC who is an only child when with them often despairs that she is always bored there, complaining about having no one to play with, not wanting to do things with the adults and asking for sleepovers as she doesn't like sleeping alone. When we have 3 DC they invariably miss one of the others and when it's just the 2 smallest they miss their older siblings, even though they spend much of the time arguing with them when they are here!!

So I do think there is an element with only children thinking how nice it would have been to have grown up with siblings and people with multiple siblings to thing how nice ti would have been to have had more time and space but the reality is that there are pros and cons of any situation.

Long post - phew!! I wouldn't change my family for the world. We are happy in the main our kids are well mannered, doing well at school, clean, happy and well adjusted. What works for you works, different strokes for different folks...etc

elvis "nail on the head" phrase springs to mind with what you say about the grass seeming greener. Also, I do think that parents can be 'whipping boy' to some children for whatever they see as being a problem for them as children. Not in all cases but in quite a lot.

juule - I agree kids can't always see the cons of other alternative situations. But tbh you sound just like my mum who could never admit that some of the things she did/decisions she made made us unhappy as kids. In fact you sound so like her that if she wasn't dead I would be seriously pm you to check if it was her.

I have 4 brothers 5 sisters and nobody gets on in our family for long. I didnt grow up in a house with 10 kids tho my mum only had 4 and was a single mum and that was chaos enough. The rest were dads kids. I haveto say the siblings with mum dont argue much. I guess big family big fall outs. My sister has 8 and i dont know how she does it and her house is tidy too just wierd to me. Im a wreck and i only have 2

lockets - Of course I have no idea what she is like or what she is like with her kids. She may be a wonderful mum. But it does sound exactly like the kind of thing my mum would have said.

lesley33 Your mum sounds very intuitive. It is only as I have got older and the various experiences I've had with my children that I can see just what and why my mother did things that at the time seemed unreasonable and upsetting to me. I can now see that sometimes it was a case of hobson's choice for her and a lot of the time she had my best interests at heart even if with a bit of a skewed viewpoint. Some things I still don't have a clue what she could possibly have been thinking. Having been in the position of blaming my parents for some of my misfortunes, I have no doubt that there is a likelihood that I'll be blamed for something or other by my own children at various points in time. However, I try my best for them, always. Things seem to be working well up to now.

And there were only 3 of us.

Well I love juule and have massive respect for her insight!

I think that the answer to this is that there are great parents not do great and rubbish ones and frankly it's naff all to do with the number of kids but more to do with the above!

I LOVE my kids life and would have loved this growing up - its not all spline sailing but then with three teens it wouldn't be normal if it were. The generalisations that these threads evoke in people really do not always ring true

Lockets -- ooh she let's me know alright - far far too often!!

Plain sailing - not tried spline sailing but sounds painful

Why, thank you notnotter
You're not so bad yourself.

Ok, I try not to be too judgy too quickly but Geez, that make up!

oh this family was in the papers last year