How Many Is Too Many?

Welcome to the great debate that often rages around myself, Other Half and Small Child; notice that I say around and not amongst! We know how many children we want and we already have her - other people however seem to think that they should have a say in how many times I have to get pregnant! Which begs the question, exactly who's uterus is it anyway?! (Wasn't that a sartorial current affairs quiz on Channel 4?).

Anyhoo...I've always been of the opinion that a family can be of any size, shape or form. For example, seeing as my family tends towards the dysfunctional variety, I considered my friends my surrogate family before I met, married and propagated the species with Other Half. I remember we were walking along the beach one day just before our wedding and stopped to watch a family playing - one mum, one dad, one child and one dog. At that point we were both of the view that we would do the standard 2.4 children thing but as we watched them messing about on the sand, I remember saying that I didn't mind if we only ended up with one child and one dog. He was in agreement and the subject never came up again.... until the day after we brought Small Child home from hospital approximately one year later!

Having gone through some, what I now know to be fairly common but extremely worrying health problems with her, we finally got home, totally head over heels in love with her but shell shocked at the whole experience. To cut a long story short as it's one I could go on for pages about, for reasons of our own, we decided there and then that we wouldn't have anymore babies. Three years on we haven't wavered but seriously.....you'd think we were committing a crime against humanity by bringing up an only child! Even the phrase "only child" has it's own connotations.....depending on the emphasis placed on the word "only".

Parents, grandparents, well meaning friends and even complete strangers emphasise it the ONLY way they know how and seem to think it is their place to tell you how many Small Children you should or should not have. I would never dream of telling anyone how many kids to have or how to bring them up for that matter; some family members have intimated that they don't agree with our parenting methods too! To that I say "Butt out, take a good look at your own offspring and come back to me when you have something to add to the conversation"!  Whats good for Earth Mother Goose is not always good for Mrs I'm Doing The Best I Bloody Well Can Gander! Goodness I'm on a rant today, must be something in the air....apart from the sideways drizzling rain!

We didn't get the dog either by the way!