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December 2010 Moms
lrn327
member
Finally broke it to the ILs....
lrn327
member
that we're probably only going to have Christian and no other children. My MIL burst into laughter. She seriously thought I was joking. When DH confirmed what I had just said, of course she tried to talk us out of it. Was her reasoning though the typical "but Christian won't have any one to play with"? No! It was "but that means he'll be the only one to take care of you when you're old. How's he going to do that by himself?" Huh???
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Re: Finally broke it to the ILs....
what the heck?? lol
I am an only child, as is my mom. She would argue that even in families where there are siblings, it is usually only one person who steps up to the plate when it comes to taking care of aging parents. One sibling usually stands out as more responsible, or having a closer relationship, or is geographically closer. I would tell your MIL that.
Aging parents aside, I'm totally fine being an only child. I've always had many close friendships, and these women are like my sisters. Would it be nice to have a sibling? Sure. But I've fared just fine without one.
i agree with the above statement 100%. its usually one person who deals with everything...and sometimes, that person ends up very bitter because they think the others should help. her argument is bunk. thats no reason to have more babies. i also dont feel like you should have to explain your choices to her. she had her time to raise her baby(ies). this is your time to do what you want.
I agree that it's weird that that was her first thought. I'm curious as to why you needed to "break the news" to them in the first place, though? Were they nagging you about it?
I am one of 3 girls & last year as we dealt with my father's decline & passing, there were several times where we said, "thank God there are 3 of us!" b/c there was just so much going on at once that needed attention.
With that said, I don't think that's even in my top 5 reasons for choosing to have more kids!
Everyone on DH's side of the family keeps referencing "when you have another baby" and his mom said something about it today again. They called us the other day guessing baby names for a child that I'm not even pregnant with nor even thinking about. We're just trying to focus on Christian right now and honestly tired of hearing about a second child that we're not ready for now.
I have a brother and I still end doing all of the decision making...taking care of...etc.. I hav a brother and I still spend holidays and birthdays without a sibbling. Far easier to not have a sibbling than to have one that doesn't come around!!!
We are having only one child as well. I can't imagine having to split my time between 2 kids. We also want to take LO on great trips for learning and vacation and fear we wouldn't be able to do that with more than one.
I think a well adjusted person will have the family/social connections needed to get through tough times later in life.
This. Also, I'm taking it a step further, and wanting to have at least 3 in case one of them dies, the other one's not left alone. I realize that's kind of morbid, but it's a situation my family has dealt with, when my mom's only sibling died young and childless. She had to deal with that on her own, and be the strong one for my grandparents. And now she's alone when it comes to taking care of them. Maybe I've let that influence me too much, but it's hard not to...
All that being said, it's totally your decision how many kids you want! It's really annoying when other people try to influence your decisions, and even more annoying when it's your MIL :-/
It's so strange that was her first thought.
But like others have said, it doesn't always work out perfectly when there are multiple siblings taking care of aging parents. With my mom and her siblings doing all the end of life care and dealing with all my grandpa's stuff/property/etc. has actually caused more damage in the sibling relationships than good.
While I am slightly terrified that both DH and I are only children so that leaves us with 3 elderly parents to take care of (my father has already passed), I'm pretty sure that we'll get through it. After all there is professional help out there, and my mom has already agreed that when the time comes she'll happily go to rest home of her own choosing.
The fact is regardless of how many children you have you may still end up having to be cared for by others. My grandmother had 9 kids and 3 grandchildren of driving age, and we still couldn't manage to have someone with her 24 hours a day to take care of her when she got very ill.
I'm adding this to my list of bad reasons to have children.
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That sounds like something my MIL would say. She never passes up an opportunity to tell us how wrong it would be to only have 1 child (which, at this point, is most likely how it will be, but I'm avoiding telling her flat out because I don't want to open that flood gate).
I'll definitely admit that the idea of DS being alone some day is always going to be an issue I'll agonize over. We've got dozens of other good reasons not to have more kids, but I know I'll always come back to this issue in my head.