Comments on: One is fun, two is double trouble

By: Legal Eagle

Legal Eagle — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 22:09:23 +0000

Suzanne, I know, it’s so disappointing. My initial desire was to take these two women and shake some sense into them.

If my brothers-in-law are anything to go by, you’ve got lots of fun ahead of you. My husband remembers that they used to gang up on him (the older brother). A twin would take one of his legs each and then they’d jump on him.

The twins read this post and naturally they thought it was terrible. One questioned the fitness of these women to be mothers.

Motherhood is a blessing. I love my time at home with my daughter too. I work two days a week, because I need to pay the bills. After I had my daughter, one career-oriented friend asked me what I was doing about my “career”. I tried to tell her that it didn’t matter so much anymore, and my main job as far as I’m concerned is “mother”. She reacted with incomprehension.

My aunt has a high powered career, and she was telling me that people sneer at the fact that she still manages to drive her sons to basketball practice. How awful! My aunt has started not telling people what she did on the weekend because of the sneers from others.

So I agree: motherhood is a blessing and a joy, and I think that’s been forgotten in our modern society a bit. And I think this tendency to sue for every inconvenience is a bad thing too. As Cherry says above, sometimes bad stuff happens and there’s no one to sue. It’s better to have proper support for mothers than to broaden the categories of people you can sue.

By: Suzanne

Suzanne — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 20:47:54 +0000

As I was reading this article I was disappointed in how our society is becoming concerning children. I read this for the humor factor. I came across this article while looking for some fun things to talk about with my family concerning twins as we just found out we are expecting twins. It was a shock, but a happy shock. We have 5 children already, and love them all. They are a joy to us. We do not feel the financial burden of having children because we manage our money well. I get to be at home with the children during the day while my husband works, which is a blessing I didn’t enjoy while the first three were growing up. I love being a wife and mother, something that not many women say anymore. If society would look at motherhood as noble and children as a blessing, the ills that have befallen us would slowly disappear.
Suing for every inconvenience that we go through as part of life is also something that our society needs to turn away from. Coffee is hot! Duh!! Sidewalks have cracks! Use caution! Life isn’t fair. (Do you need a sign?)

By: guera

guera — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 18:18:11 +0000

Pete M and Cherry Ripe - I agree that the very act of “calculating their loss” is a serious concern. In preparing for this litigation the mothers would have spent many hours with their lawyers and themselves discussing and identifying all the ways their lives are worse since they had 2 babies instead of one. This process in itself must be damaging to their relationship with each other and with their children. The fact that they were able to sustain the level of hurt, outrage or anger needed to see litigation like this through to trial makes me worry about their abilities to mother even one child. The Sydney Morning Herald reported on Wednesday that the mother who bore the children “has since lost her capacity to love”, according to her partner. She also said “the pair lost their lives functioning as a couple, becoming mired in everyday tasks associated with raising two children”. Every new parent goes through these problems when they have children and you would hope they can find support through their family, the community or doctors if necessary. How is a financial settlement going to help them with this problem?
I guess my only sympathy from the financial point of view is merely that kids are expensive to raise and the hopes they may have had for providing for 1 child might be diminished when spreading their funds between two. I know some part of my husband and my decision to have 2 children and whether to consider a 3rd are financial. Can we provide as well for 3 as we could for 2? But even if the decision is to stop at 2 if an unplanned 3rd baby was to come along we would certainly not be spending our time dwelling on the financial loss we have suffered as a result. Speaking as a very jaded former commercial litigation solicitor the trend of quantifying every human emotion and possible twist of fate is a sad development. One of the many reasons I had for getting out of the industry!

By: fairlane

fairlane — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 13:57:18 +0000

I agree with Guera, what wonders this will do for their children’s self-esteem.

By: Cherry Ripe

Cherry Ripe — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 12:56:55 +0000

And by the way, for LE’s readers, I’m about to have a second baby, so I’m closer to the “extremes” of parenting than usual at the moment!

By: Cherry Ripe

Cherry Ripe — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 12:56:08 +0000

Could you sue a condom company if it broke?

In reality, I am more concerned that these mothers are able to identify such significant losses in their lives that they need to sue for having a second child. They should have enough support - psychological, physical and financial - to manage the extra baby.

This is where the House of Lords’ observation about the benefit to society of healthy children comes in - the logical conclusion of which is that the community, society or state needs to shoulder a great deal of the burden of children, in order to avoid a healthy child being nothing but a great loss to someone. Children have historically always been a group concern, yet suddenly we have atomised our social units into nuclear families, and parents can’t cope alone.

Maybe there’s an argument that there has been some serious loss - that a doctor, aware of the lack of finances of these mothers, failed to respect their wishes. That’s a big call. But then again, I know of a family who had twins, whose mother was admitted to hospital three times in the first year with exhaustion. No doubt about it: raising babies is an EXTREME SPORT. If you are inadequately supported in early parenting, then there is indeed a risk that you will suffer a great loss in your life, and that your child will be resented and depressed. This is a loss to everyone, not just the parents and the child. The parents’ recourse for an unwanted child should not be to a doctor, but to society at large.

If mothers are provided with the means to raise twins adequately and healthily, then I must agree with the House of Lords’ view. If a child can be raised without pitching its parents into some kind of backward disrepair, then you take a child as it comes. Having children is - to quote J’amie - “like totally random”.

Which brings me to the sister cases of the ones you’ve described - those where parents of severely disabled children sue doctors for poor obstetrics. Is this appropriate either? Taking my analysis above - well, maybe it is. But taking the House of Lords’ approach - that you take a child as you find it - you may find a different outcome.

One of our playgroup mums contracted a common virus in the first three months of pregnancy, and now has a little baby who is profoundly deaf and who they know has some brain damage. She can’t sue anyone, she just has to rely on the support and humanity of the state to make sure her little one is cared for, and that her family doesn’t fall apart. Why should they be any different from those who relied on faulty obstetrics?

Maybe when it comes to children and babies, the risk of introducing “fault” is that the value of children themselves is the subject at hand. Even more strength of argument for decent health care and support, rather than medical negligence cases, which do not suit the subject matter whatsoever.

By: Legal Eagle

Legal Eagle — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 02:52:22 +0000

Pete, I feel exactly the same way. The joy my daughter provides is unable to be calculated. If I had two of her - gee, what a handful, and a financial burden, but also double the joy!

By: pete m

pete m — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 02:50:02 +0000

I think of more distress will be not knowing their father, and perhaps (not knowing their plans) not having a decent male role model.

The fact is she changed her mind on 1 over 2 embryo implants at the last minute, but still, this should have been respected.

I do feel uneasy about calculating the “loss” caused to them, and then working out the gain. In my case, there is not enough money in the world to represent the gain my daughter is. Not even close. The joy I get each day living with her is irreplacable and incapable of calculation by some commercial quality.

Sounds gushy, but it is just how I feel.

By: guera

guera — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 17:03:25 +0000

My immediate reaction to the story was to worry about how the children would feel when they are old enough to understand the action their mothers have brought against the doctor. I have some sympathy for the financial argument that perhaps they were only prepared for one child and the added cost of twins could be difficult for them, particularly given that (it is being reported that) they specifically told the doctor they only wanted one embryo implanted. But for the mothers to bring an action saying they were “devastated” when they learned they were having twins will surely be distressing to the children when they are older. I’m sure every parent of twins is shocked when first learning they are carrying 2 babies, but at the end of the day, you just have to get over it and get on with it and focus on the important things which are raising and enjoying your children, not looking for someone to blame.