For all that LI is a “professional” network platform, and all those who keep telling us to keep it about business, the posts and comments that get the most engagement are still the personal ones.
Take this post from last week that I commented on.
The CEO of Koru Kids asked this question:
“This makes me question everything
Having 7 kids is somehow… easier?!
I’d love to ask, ‘Is this true for the families of 7 you know?’ but – do they even exist any more in the UK?”
With this image of ARondomerDude’s declaration that the solution to parenting being hard is to just have more kids.
I responded (ignoring the physical labour involved in 7 pregnancies):
“As a 6th kid, I have experienced many of those benefits. We did a lot together as a family, and we always helped out.
And I know that it can’t have been easy for the oldest kids looking after us younger kids – did they want to? What did they have to give up to do that?
And how much time and attention is each kid getting?
I know that I cannot do as much as I want with the 3 that I have been bringing up.
It’s not the number of kids, though.
Where the 7 kids bit really worked out for us is when we lived in Pakistan. When there was more communal and extended family involvement. More adults taking care of the kids.
When we moved to England, it was harder for everyone because that involved network was no longer there. We made it, but it was hard work for all of us.
Have more kids seems like a great out of the box solution, but it misses the real point about what makes parenting hard: we’re trying to do it with just one or two people. What we need is community.
Maybe we’re not producing 7 kids families any more, but hardly surprising considering all the social infrastructure that has been removed. That removal makes it unviable.”
What are your thoughts on this?
This comment garnered the most amount of interactions I have on a LI post lately.
We all love to chat about people things.
Having said that, my posts about my We Must Rise program are getting a lot of interaction offline, in the real world. I’ve got people unlined up for cohort two in Jan, and I’ve got people ready to start next week.
I’m so exciting about it, I even made a webpage (entirely from scratch) for it.
If you’re nosey and want to check out my coding/building skills, check out the page here.
This is part of my Thought Piece Series, where I explore topics related to leadership and provide both answers and questions. My intention is to start meaningful conversations that help us move forward. Want to connect? Click here.