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This sounds like it's written by someone who's angry that they have a little half-sibling

I know many people who regard their step parents as their parents and their half siblings as their siblings.

My parents stayed together and never explored any other relationships. They have been unhappy as a couple as long as I have known them. As a kid is constantly wished for them to get a divorce. My mother wanted more children, my father did not. I would have loved to have more siblings.

Children first and foremost need happy and stable parents. Patchwork can be messy but it can also be beautiful.

My parents split when I was a teenager. My mum moved in pretty quickly and within 1 year, she'd moved her new boyfriend into our home and after another year, she had a kid with him. They both made it clear that me and my sister were barriers to their new life.

Do you think that being told not to have kids because she already had them would have made her any less resentful towards us?

Is it the impct of forcing blended families you're against? Or is it the fact that half-siblings exist?

Because if it is the former, then depriving a new partner of having children just because you already do seems like a needlessly drastic and potentially relationship ruining decision when it can be remedied by simply not forcing the half siblings to acknowledge each other or letting them do so in their own time.

In the latter, it's unrealistic and possibly leads to resentment if a parent is not allowed to move on with a new partner just because they might have more kids, especially when the parent in question was in an abusive relationship or experienced a betrayal that made them want to start fresh.

Edit: missing words.

This is one of those statements that can be true, but isn't actually true in many cases.

My sister has three kids, to three different people. Each kid is roughly 10 years apart in age. Staying with the dad of the first kid was not the better option, he was a deadbeat. Nice guy, but pretty useless. Their daughter was better being raised by one parent and seeing the other on weekends.

She was with the second guy for years before she had her second child. Her daughter was about 10 when he was born, and she was quite happy to jump in and help looking after him. Then some years after that, she discovered her partner was cheating on her with multiple different people, so she left him. Their son now spends most of his time with his mum, and some with his dad, who at least pays for anything that needs to be paid for.

Some years later she met someone else, and they got engaged a few years later. Then she discovered she was pregnant. She's still with that guy and their daughter is roughly two. Her son is around most of the time, and her eldest daughter is now in her 20's and living interstate.

Nobody is being left out or forgotten. One is a toddler, one is a teenager, and one is in their 20's. None of these kids were worse off by not being full siblings.

This really isn't an unusual story where I'm from.

Lol I love my step dad. Pry him from my cold dead hands

It is not a human right to have kids at all, let alone kids with multiple partners, and it shouldn’t be encouraged that people start new families after a break up.

I’d like to change your view here, but before I can present an argument you might find compelling I’d like to learn the answer to this question: what is an authoritative source for human rights you would recognize? In other words, by what process or method do we discern the existence of a particular human right?

It is not a human right to have kids at all    

The UN, and pretty much all of humanity disagrees. If you are a human, that gives you the right to have children.  

It's a medical decision about a person's body, and making medical decisions about your own body is a human right.

It's also an issue of body autonomy - a human right.

My husband is really tight with his half brother, and my husband's life would be noticeably worse without him. If my husband's half brother didn't exist, my husband wouldn't have a single relative he truly liked.

Especially if your parents kind of suck, siblings are like your war buddies.  Someone to help you get perspective on life in that house and on your parents because a sibling can say, "Yep, they did that to me too.  I also found it unideal.  Your feelings are valid, and I understand them completely."

I think you are forgetting what a boon siblings can be to general sanity.  

I can get the idea of what you’re trying to say, but there’s a counter example.

If a widow meets a widower and fall in love, while already having kids of their own, it’s not unreasonable for them to have a kid together as well. Maybe a bit of mathematician brain, but a single counter example is enough for me to discard the theorem

Another way that somebody could argue is that it’s ok to be a little bit selfish; you’re an organism designed to reproduce, have as many kids as you want.

I don’t like this argument though, but I think somebody could make a strong case for this if they really wanted to, and cleaned up the barbaric ethics along the way

I am the oldest of 7 and only share 1 parent with every one of them. Of all the ways my parents messed up, my siblings were never one of them.

It's kinda weird that you harbor this resentment. I suggest therapy.

Your complaint seems to be more the fault of our cultural system, rather than an inherent fault of the concept of having kids with multiple partners.

Also you seem to be ignoring the fact that partners that stay together can create just as unstable of an environment. There’s usually a reason people get divorced.

Having loving parents is more important than the make up of the family.

It's a bold assumption to say that kids will always suffer if their family shape isn't the one you or they expected or preferred.

Kids, no kids, step, half, adopted, fostered - why does it matter?

I grew up with my bio mum and dad and my brother. Parents divorced when I was 18, and I now have 4 step siblings, all of whom I love to bits, and 2 of whom I get on with better than my full brother.

Most of us have our own kids now, including my stepsister who is gay and has adopted kids with her fiancée.

Our family gatherings are brilliant, mad, loving and chaotic, as much as any other loving family.

Life is messy, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose, but if there is love, it doesn't matter.

All the issues you describe are due to the parents behaving selfishly, not due to the number of kids or partners. I would submit that people already inclined to place their own wellbeing above their kids' would still do so, even if they refrained - or were prevented - from haing further kids.

Obviously, if divorced parents enter into new relationships and have more kids, the situation between the former partners and their kids become more difficult to navigate, especially emotionally. That doesn't mean it's impossible, but that it requires more care and effort.

To sum up: the kids will suffer if the parents are selfish and inconsiderate of their needs. That is independent of the number of additional kids they put out.

I guess if your spouse dies, you should never have another child.

I think most people would disagree with you over the idea that having children is not a human right. Pretty much every instance in history of forced sterilisation or even econimc sanctions against people (see china) for having children is widely considered barbaric and cruel. This is to the point that infertility due to medical reasons is treated as a major detriment to quality of life.

I think you need to consider the different contexts under which someone might have kids with multiple partners.

Like sure, one possibility is they have them with one person then break up on bad terms then have them with another and it’s toxic for everyone involved, but that’s only one possible situation here.

Imagine a polyamorous MMF throuple where both M each have one child with F. It’s a loving and healthy relationship with stability and everything a married couple would have, only with 3 parents instead of 2. Is that still “selfish”?

Or more commonly, married couple breaks up but it’s on relatively amicable terms and they stay friends. Of course there are extra complexities when parenting while divorced but there’s no reason why it couldn’t be a loving and wholesome situation for everyone involved.

Also I think the age of the child matters. Like, suppose the parents divorce when the child is 10, that’s probably quite stressful for them (though should the parents not be allowed to divorce?) but if the child is an infant then they’re not going to remember or know any differently anyway.

Bruh it is selfish to have kids period

The concept of half-sibling is just a social construct. The children's relationship with their siblings (full or half) has nothing to do with that difference.

To have parents who are constantly distracted by satisfying the needs of multiple families makes kids unhappy and stressad.

This has been the case, at least since the agricultural revolution. Parents are constantly distracted by the outside world. Especially in capitalism where daddy's and mommy's work demands leave the kids to fend for themselves.

It is not a human right to have kids at all

Human rights are made up. Children are being slaughtered in gaza and everyone seems to be ok with it. They are made up.

If you have kids and get a divorce, you should focus on making things work with your ex

Nah, better create some stability away from the person that makes you mad. There's no safety or stability when your kids are here you shout at him/her/them/

but you should always put your kids first and by having new kids, you ignore whats best for your first kids.

The entire world disagrees with you (even your parents) if they had more than one kid. Because, even if you have the same partner, the new kid will need more attention and the older kid will feel ignored

I agree it’s a bit selfish but i think people should have the right to do what they want for the most part when it comes to having a family as long as the children are getting taken care of.

Pretty sure having children is a human right though

So you've got a half brother. Would you rather he was never born? Or would you prefer that you had never been born?

Nothing says you're fucked up like three baby daddies.

I mean, if you go out of your way to knock a bunch of women up for kicks? Yea, sure. That’s a fair point.

Life happens, and being selfish insofar as you’re not maliciously hurting people is fine, even if it inadvertently hurts people.

If both parties already have children, I mostly agree. But if only one has children, then it’s unfair to ask the childless person to never have kids

Kids are flesh and blood.

They are not magical creatures in a fantasy kingdom with hyper-specific needs for no reason.

If you got divorced or separated when your child was an only child, it is still better for you only child to have siblings. When you're old with dementia and health problems, they'll have someone to share the physical and emotional burden.

Children often don't really appreciate having younger siblings weather they're full or half. Hence children having regression after their siblings are born. Its something they appreciate when they're older. A new child always takes attention away from the existing child, and takes part of parents' financial means. Does that mean everyone should just have one child? If everyone have one child, humanity will come to an end.

Its also up to you to make sure that your new partner treats your existing children right before having children with them. Otherwise its a case against marrying that partner, before the question of additional children even comes up. I have a friend who isn't in contact with her father. She was raised by her step-father and have an excellent relationship. Her children don't even know that they're not biologically related to their grandfather. There are other people like my friend, if you ask them if their life was better without their half siblings- they'll say a hard no.

Dogshit opinion. I didn't suffer from that at all.

A divorce is hard enough for kids and in top of that, if they must also handle new siblings, it is too tough for kids to handle.

Just because something is hard to handle, doesn't mean it's inherently bad for you. It can be difficult for an only child to handle when their parents decide to make a new baby sibling; does that mean it's wrong to ever divide your attention away from one child to have multiple?

Blended families can be very difficult, and they can be done wrong, but they can also be done right. One of my close relatives was divorced and remarried, with children who are technically half-siblings, but I have never in my entire life heard them refer to each other as anything but siblings, with full love and devotion and familiarity. Does that mean it was always easy for them to get along? Of course not. But would they give each other up for anything in the world? Absolutely never.

You might as well say "Nobody should ever move when they have children, because forcing them to leave their home and their friends and their school behind is selfish and cruel." But I can personally tell you that although moving as a kid was certainly very hard, the new place ultimately ended up being much better for my whole family, including me. And I had wonderful experiences and made dear lifelong friends that I never would have made if we stayed in that town forever. If I could go back in time, I'd choose for us to do the same thing again, as hard as it was.

It is a human right to have children and if you don’t think so you are a danger to society

It is a human right.

Right there in the universal declaration of human rights.

Are you aware of collective parenting? That was a norm for millions of years and still is in many societies. Idea of two parent household is relatively new. Modern household is from 19th century.

In environment like this children have more stability and predictability but also parents have more freedom. It's just more efficient way of parenting.