If you could, would you decide on a 3rd child?

[mathsparks]

Deleted.

[skunk]

mathsparks:

Hi Skunk,
I'm neither a winner nor a loser. Just someone trying to share my experience after seeing how my daughter struggled thru her sec years. I just can't bear to bring another child to this world to suffer. She's turn out tougher of course. So, should I jump and die? Perhaps both she and I should jump and die if she had succumbed to the pressure?

You seem very confident of yr child rearing skills. Are your children in sec years yet or are you enjoying the toddler years.

Would you tell yr child to jump and die if he starts to play truant, smokes, drinks and lies despite your best upbringing. Would you breed without control like our ancestors? Or would you limit the no. What then is the max no. of children you will have? Why the limit?

Pls, this is an open forum for parents to share experience. There's no need to be so extreme in yr views.

There is no place in the world for a view where we should not bring a child into this world because \"it's so stressful\". I'm determined to put down such a dangerous view wherever it surfaces. If humanity learns to be weak and refuses to propogate because it's \"afraid to bring children into a difficult world\", we won't be the masters of the earth today.

I myself i was a very difficult child, I smoked (i still do), i played truant, i took drugs, i did everything that was bad. Had my parents decided not to bring another 3 of my younger siblings into this world, i would have lost 3 best friends. Another 3 wives would lose their husbands, and needless to say, they would never have seen wonderful children.

What's the big deal with having a difficult teenaged life? Or a difficult childhood, or marriage, or adulthood, or old age? Life is full of difficulties and is downright shitty at times. But i refuse to give up and i believe nobody should. My view is very extreme, because it's no longer a personal choice, but a societal one. In choosing to bow to adversity, a person lets down his own descendants, entire clan and community.

Btw, I plan to have 6 children, should The Almighty allow me to. My dad had 4, and despite very delinquent teenaged years, he told me he was glad he was tough enough to survive through it all I want to do better than him and i will, because i've already willed myself to.

Should my child play truant, i will homeschool her. Should she smoke, i will quit, or join her LOL If she drinks, i will share a beer with her, if she tells lies, i will tell her not to lie to me, because there's no need to lie to her best-friend-dad, who will go through everything with her, through thick and thin, sickness and health.

If u care for my advice, just swallow the pain of Life, when u feel Pain, u know u r truly alive

[skunk]

mathsparks:

Ask around if you've kids/friends' kids who are all grown up what they remember about their childhood. It's endless rounds of tuition/music/ballet/projects/exams/competitions. Of course, the luckier/richer ones would remember the holidays they have at the end of each year.

yup, that's Life. To expect otherwise is to live in a fairytale that doesn't exist anymore.

Even our distant ancestors, they had to learn how to hunt the moment they could walk, pluck berries from the trees the moment they grow tall enough, and their \"play fight\" is actually a dress rehearsal for the next battle with marauding enemy tribes. Since when Life is supposed to be fun and games?

We're living in a world designed by adults, for adults. To prepare your children well for adulthood as soon as they are ready, is the greatest gift to give them.

[skunk]

mathsparks:

I intend to enjoy my life to the fullest now. I don't need to feel pain to feel alive. I'm truly alive having time for myself and my 2 kids.I don't need to divide my time into parts and feel guilty when I can't make time for the people I care about.

wow, we can see how \"alive\" u r lol have fun managing the \"extreme stress of society\"

[momoshop]

mathsparks:

You guys are probably missing my point. I was trying to convey the extreme stress we (society, parents and themselves) place on our kids. That's why I refuse to have a 3rd child. Not when most of them don't have much of a childhood to remember. I wasn't talking about the monetary sacrifice!


Ask around if you've kids/friends' kids who are all grown up what they remember about their childhood. It's endless rounds of tuition/music/ballet/projects/exams/competitions. Of course, the luckier/richer ones would remember the holidays they have at the end of each year.

Momoshop, you are entitled to your opinions but have you seen a child thru sec?

Mathsparks.. I do feel for you, in the tedium of raising teenager kids. We dun need to have put kids thru them to know what it is like. I was a hellish tennager who ran away from home, stole, and was so emo that I almost killed myself, even though I was considered smart, in the good schools and my parents worked real hard to see me through a gd education - so yeah, you could say I belong to one of those kids who ought to be grateful but I was willing to throw all that away. I saw my sis thru her sec school years and I also saw many of much younger cousins smoke and \"beng\" their way thru school and some eventually ended up in jail for some illegal acts. We read news papers everyday on sexuality issues with teens, cyberuse and its abuse, and all the problems associated with teenage angst.

It is stressful, and it is costly, not just in terms of fiances, but in time, in emotions. However, ultimately, there is so much that we can do. We are all humans, we do the best we can and leave the rest in fate/ God's hands, whichever you believe in. Having 1 kid carries that risk of a problem teen and having 2 or 3 carries the same risk. However, IMHO, having more than one gives us more hope, and also that the kids will rally and come through together. I know my sis was a source of comfort for my mum when I was a bad kid.. and years later, when my sis had her own bad patch and was really problematic, I was there to help her and my mum .

I think part of the stress comes from our expectations of the kids too.. It is easy to fall into the trap of cute tods = successful cheerful responsible adults later, or we wish for that so badly. Or we hope that kids will mature into adults without having to go thru the extreme dark side of life.

But in the very end, we know their life is their own when we pass on. If they have to come around after much hardship in life, that is it. We cannot always wish and hope to prevent it for them, no mater how hard we wish and try. And When they come of age, it is their life. Even as parents, we can't control that anymore.

It may seem very tough during the times when the kids are having problems and issues etc, but try to see it as a process, a part of life that some just have to go thru..

And I say this because, I feel that I will not be who I am if I have not been what I was.

take care Mathsparks

[skunk]

momoshop:

Having 1 kid carries that risk of a problem teen and having 2 or 3 carries the same risk. However, IMHO, having more than one gives us more hope, and also that the kids will rally and come through together. I know my sis was a source of comfort for my mum when I was a bad kid.. and years later, when my sis had her own bad patch and was really problematic, I was there to help her and my mum .

well said. Life has always been tough. It was tough in the old days, it is tough now, and it will always be tough. That's Life. But a meaningful life is one where the family rallies together and doesn't give up.

Imagine a mother saying to her kids, \"I don't want another child, just to see it suffer in this world.\" And her kids wondering, \"if u had known earlier that it was this tough, would you have killed me in the womb?\"

And worse, the mother's own mother, thinking, \"so it was my fault for bringing her into this stressful world so she must suffer? And have more children so they suffer too?\"

Suffering is part and parcel of Life. Take it, swallow it and try to enjoy it

[tony]

skunk:

I myself i was a very difficult child, I smoked (i still do), i played truant, i took drugs, i did everything that was bad.

Skunk, I can't believe how illogical this is. You mean, you were a bad egg in your teen years and you presume to be an authority on parenting teenagers?

This is a forum for discussion, not for pounding your opinions into others because they differ from you. Being passionate about your stance is one thing. But being disrespectful to other forumers is another.

[skunk]

tony:

This is a forum for discussion, not for pounding your opinions into others because they differ from you. Being passionate about your stance is one thing. But being disrespectful to other forumers is another.

I don't see how i've been disrespectful. I think her opinions are no good, that's a personal view, similarly, others can think my opinions are crazy too.

She's the one who chooses to feel hurt, I'm not hurt if others think my views are crazy.

[skunk]

insider:

Whether to have 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6... children, it's a personal choice...

well, sometimes it's not our choice. I know of ppl who got pregnant even using condoms, even a rare documented case of pregnant after ligation. Of course, there's always abortion, but then that's another discussion.

There are many reasons to have/not to have children. Money is one consideration, sometimes there really isn't enough, or is it? One can always choose to give up luxuries, or even give up their own dreams for their children, that is so noble.

Space is another consideration...to have more than 4, is hard, even if living in a large HDB flat. But then one can always install bunkbeds...

Some reasons are more valid than others. But the reason why I was so fervernt against Mathsparks's reason, is because it's one that leads to a very dangerous argument.

To decide not to bring a 3rd child into the world because it's \"too stressful\", is to regret bringing the 1st and 2nd into the world, in fact, it repudiates the mother's own mother's efforts of bringing her into the world in the first place, as a mistake. Since the world is so stressful and horrid, why live in the first place?

It's the line of thinking that leads to an endless downward spiral.

[skunk]

tony:

you presume to be an authority on parenting teenagers?

I didn't presume to be an authority, u presumed that i presumed to be an authority.

Teenagers were hard, is hard and will forever be hard to bring up, and no one can dare say they are an authority. But parents just need to be strong, don't give up on them, and don't give up on Life, and everyone can ride out this very rough patch of life smoothly.

To just have difficulty with one teenager, and to give up hope on children and the next generation, is to give up on a Full Life, one not just filled with joy and happiness but also the tears and blood that make up a wonderful world.