Is there such a thing as having too many children?
In general, a pregnancy announcement is happy news that most people celebrate. However, for some families, it can be a very contentious issue depending on a lot of different factors.
Raising a child is not a budget-friendly endeavor. Data estimates that it costs anywhere between $10,000 to $15,000 a year to raise one child in the US.
These realities were touched on in a recent online post in which a mother begs her daughter to not have another baby.
Is there such a thing as having too many children?
A Reddit post published on May 23rd, reported on by Sara Santora from Newsweek, has gone viral with 14,600 upvotes and 1,900 comments.
The author begins her post by explaining that the pandemic had a massive influence on her family. In particular, her daughter and son-in-law asked for the author and her husband to take care of their two children full time so that they could continue to work throughout the pandemic.
The author says that there wasn't much discussion beyond the grandparents agreeing to look after their two grandchildren, but after 3 years of full-time childcare, the author and her husband started to feel like they are being taken advantage of.
Already feeling a little put-out, the author insisted that her daughter and son-in-law take their children for two days of the week, while the grandparents would look after their grandchildren 3 days a week. While they complained about this, they still complied. She says that she and her husband were finally starting to feel like they were getting their life back when their daughter surprised them with the news that she and her husband were trying to get pregnant with a third child.
The pandemic has created massive issues in terms of childcare.
Not only has the pandemic increased costs of childcare, it has also reduced the amount of available childcare spots around all the US. Many parents have reported that there simply isn’t anywhere to have their children cared for, and many have turned to family members to help close the childcare gap caused by the pandemic.
The author was shocked by the news that her daughter was trying to get pregnant again, and she immediately asked what their plan was for childcare moving forward. The daughter looked at her mother with a stunned expression and said that she still expected her parents to offer childcare three days a week, even with a newborn baby in the picture.
The author became incredibly upset with her daughter, and begged her fiercely to not have another child. She expressed that she didn't want to offer five more years of full-time babysitting and made it clear to her daughter that she and her husband were not going to be a viable or continued option for full or part-time childcare.
The daughter became distraught and accused her mother of forcing her to 'choose between her dream of three kids and financial stability'.
What do you think? Was the mother out of line for asking her daughter to reconsider having another child, and is it any of her business? Or was the mother entirely within her right to ask this, considering her daughter made it clear that she expected her parents to still continue offering free childcare, when her parents simply want to be able to enjoy their life again after being a huge help during the pandemic?
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