Hello!

My son asked me a question this morning and it really shook me. Before him, I never wanted kids and now he is my world and my heart. My partner and I work full time on minimum wage so we just afford the basics in life and barely have enough money to save to take him to circus.

This morning he said “mummy, can I please have a baby sister?” I was shocked and didn’t know what to say and under pressure, I freaked out.

I said: “Mummy and daddy just want you to love and don’t want to share their love with another kid”
4 year old: “I promise to share you with her and all my toys”
So I said the truth: “mommy and daddy can’t afford to have another baby honey”
4 year old: “you can have all the money in my money boxes”
So I freaked out and just said “we will talk to daddy tonight”
How do I tell him he can’t have a sibling?


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  • I would love to know how things worked out here. Wish we had updates.


  • Just tell him you’d waited a long time for someone special to come along and now you have him. You don’t want to share your love with anyone else for now. As he gets older and asks again then the situation may change.


  • MY ADVICE IS TO TELL HIM THAT PARENTS CANNOT ALWAYS GET PREGNANT AND YOU WRE BLESSED GETTING HIM, HOPEFULLY YOU WILL BE ABLE TO DO SO WHEN TIME IS RIGHT.KEEP IT SIMPLE. MY mUM TOLD MY OLDEST SON THAT SHE WOULD ONLY LOVE HIM SO WHEN I HAD MY SECOND CHILD HE TOLD HIM THAT NANNA DID NOT LOVE HIM, STILL DOES AND THEY ARE GROWN UP, TOLD YOU THIS AS YOU WROTE NOT WANTING TO SHARE YOUR LOVE WITH ANYONE BUT HIM. AS i WRITE THIS i FEEL YOU WILL HAVE ANOTHER CHILD IT JUST CAME TO MIND AND YOU WILL ALL BE HAPPY


  • I am really confused why mom has posted this story to us now …this story was posted 5 years and 4 mths ago. This little chap would be 9 going on 91/2 now so do hope all worked out well for this family. LOVE TO ALL.


  • Sounds like you have already told him. Maybe explain your money situation again and say if that changes in future sometime, you’ll re look at maybe having another baby.


  • 4 years olds don’t get to decide how many brothers and sisters they get. Fake a big smile a cheerfully say “sorry bub, you’re on your own”. Unless you want to relocate to country vic or something where cost of living makes two full time minimum wage jobs gofar enough for 2 or 3 kids.


  • Your son sounds like a beautiful kind soul. My question is – would he be disappointed with a brother? He specifically asked for a sister. We can’t choose these things and we can’t even choose to fall pregnant when we’d like to. I’m the 4th born and I wanted a younger sibling – it never ends!


  • I would just say families come in all sizes. Some have one, some have more and there are lots of reasons they do that. But right now, we have the right amount for us, and you are such an awesome child, we don’t need any more right now. It can be hard but I don’t think it is right to burden a child with the money side of thing, there is nothing they can do to change or help that and you don’t want them feeling it is some how their fault or feeling guilty you can’t afford another baby. You just need to emphasis how awesome it is having the family you do, if they keep pressuring, you’ll just have to play the wait and see card. Maybe say some people can only have one baby, and how lucky you are that it was the one you got.


  • Oh, so hard! In time, he will understand. He’s a bit young at the moment to fully so preened your reasons, but he will grow to understand


  • Yes I’d just be honest too!


  • This is a really interesting question, how did you handle it?


  • What a difficult situation for you. Hope it’s all worked out.


  • I would also love to know how this situation worked out. I think it would break his little heart.
    definitely don’t give in because you don’t want to upset him especially if you really don’t want another child. If you have nieces and nephews just nurture the relationship with them and your son.


  • I wonder what the outcome of this was? What a heartbreaking thing to have to discuss with your child :(


  • the truth is always the best also he will probably get over that phase quick


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