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I think I've created a monster


Captain Turdseye
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Absolutely see where you're coming from Brownie. We stopped at one too. For several reasons, one of them being financial I. E. We can give one child a lot more than we can two. It's all very well saying you cut your cloth, but the fact remains there's only a finite amount of cloth to cut.

Obviously it's an easy, even flippant thing to say but much harder to do. That said, there are very, very few people who couldn't make big savings in their lives if they had to - and I totally include myself in that.

 

How much money do we all spend on inessentials and fripperies these days? We're a proper consumption obsessed breed now and certainly our idea of struggling bears no relation to that of our parents and especially grandparents.

 

Still, I respect anyone's choices over their family. It's a completely personal thing that changes depending on your experience. I always wanted four kids until we had two. Ours are great - no trouble at all - but it's fucking exhausting having kids and both working and we decided to stop there.

 

If we'd started earlier or if Mrs Paul had been up for it, we'd have carried on. However, she was 37 when she had our daughter and didn't want to be pregnant again.

 

Having four kids is tough no matter how much cash you have though. My cousin has four and so do our good friends. However both families earn six figure salaries and have paid for daily child care and cleaning. Despite all that, they "struggle". A far cry from my mum being one of five with only her dad earning and no money for clothes. Is this what they call first world problems?

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We are stopping at 1, I'm 44 in April so don't want to be the oldest dad in the play ground. Finance also played a big part, one of our friends has just had another and childcare costs them £1400 a month (that's including the free 15 hours for the 3 yr old). The wife earns a good whack but does 4 days so she gets a day with Izzy, that would have to change.

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I think that's a bit contradictory to be honest, to say that it's selfish but then that they get spoilt.

 

You could argue the opposite and say that it's selfish to have two when you know it will impact on how much you can provide for the first one.

Firstly,I am not having a go at anybody,just giving an opinion like others are too.

I said selfish on the parents part as I think kids are far more important than mortgages and up to date cars and gadgets,maybe thats just me? but no problem. I also used the term spoilt in a bad way as I think its often a bad thing to spoil kids constantly rather than just every now and again as part of a group. I've seen it happen a fair bit myself and mostly the kids are not nice kids.

Anyway,we disagree and thats fine as I wasnt having a go at anybody,just an opinion on a forum full of them.

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Kids are more important than most things but it doesn't mean you have to have loads of them.

 

I'd say it's more selfish to have 7 kids and struggle to provide for them than to have 1 and be able to give them a good start in life, just as an extreme example. Having said that, it's each to their own, my wife and I are planning to stop at 2.

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Firstly,I am not having a go at anybody,just giving an opinion like others are too.

I said selfish on the parents part as I think kids are far more important than mortgages and up to date cars and gadgets,maybe thats just me? but no problem. I also used the term spoilt in a bad way as I think its often a bad thing to spoil kids constantly rather than just every now and again as part of a group. I've seen it happen a fair bit myself and mostly the kids are not nice kids.

Anyway,we disagree and thats fine as I wasnt having a go at anybody,just an opinion on a forum full of them.

Mate that's fine, I was just countering your arguments. Perhaps my tone wasn't the best so apologies if it came across the wrong way.

 

I agree with you on the point about spoiling kids. I think we were guilty of that at first and me and my partner have had some heated discussions about it. There was a stage where every time she went out with him and came back in he had something new. I felt it was affecting his behaviour/attitude so we've readjusted and it's having a positive impact.

 

Going back to the point on financials, the child care situation in this country is disgraceful in my opinion. We both work full time and we have no family close enough to help so Kyle was in nursery full time from 6 months old up until school. It was costing me £700 a month for those 4 years. My mortgage is considerably less than that. It had a real impact on our lifestyle and family life in general, so much so that i'm now left trying to clear credit card debts that just built and built over that period.

 

As people say though it's not all about money and times have changed of course. But we live now, not 50 years ago.

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No way am I having kids. Depression is absolutely the worst thing in the world and I can't imagine anything more cruel than passing it on to a kid who also has to suffer society's stigma. Deffo getting a vasectomy when I can afford it.

Just repeat this exact passage to any women you meet and it'll be the greatest contraceptive money can buy, no need to let someone butcher your balls.

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No way am I having kids. Depression is absolutely the worst thing in the world and I can't imagine anything more cruel than passing it on to a kid who also has to suffer society's stigma. Deffo getting a vasectomy when I can afford it.

You have way more to give than your depression

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I have a daughter who's 6, and am currently single, so although I'm only coming 28, I'm not sure I'll have any more. I love her to pieces but we had her quite young and I don't know if I want to start the whole process again in a few years. I'd rather save a few quid and show my daughter some of the world.

 

Her mum has 3 other kids so she has siblings, so she's not missing out in that respect.

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  • 5 years later...

Six years on and the boy is soon to legally become a man. 
 

Three or four university offers in the bag already and he got an email tonight inviting him to interview for Oxford. 
 

On the flip side to that, the other day someone called him a racist and he randomly owned up to once stealing a £1 coin off the top of the microwave years ago, amazingly without anyone knowing it had gone missing. There was nothing in the racism thing, as I posted in another thread, but retrospective punishment will be handed down for the pound. Little bastard. 

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