Two lumps or three?

There are some funny old forces at work in the world of peer pressure. When I had my son I became aware very quickly that breastfeeding versus bottlefeeding was a contentious issue. I watched as a friendly coffee between chums turned into a narrow eyed, bile spitting contest. Equally hard to navigate between pregnant mums is the Cesarean/natural birth conversation. Just like the breast v bottle choice, opinions voiced are defined by angry defensiveness or smug self righteousness depending on which side of the fence you sit on. Recently I have noticed another gremlin forcing a blue corner/red corner fight. Two or three children?

If you have two children, there seems to be a bit of an insinuation that you aren't doing enough or that you have failed in the supermum stakes. Having a minimum of three children is worn as a badge of achievement. "Ooh, you can't POSSIBLY imagine how hard my life is as a natural birthing, breastfeeding mum of three but look at me! Hark at my incredible ability to achieve!"

I am, of course, generalising heavily here and many families wisely eschew this rather ridiculous form of competition and get down to the much more fun business of enjoying their life without giving a fuck about how anyone else decides to run theirs. I would say rather shamefacedly that I suffer slightly from sitting my opinionated cake hole in one corner of some of these conundrums but that I wholeheartedly admire those who don't.