I’m a mum-of-eight & five of my kids share one room – trolls all make the same cruel criticism
BEING a mum means you’re often given unsolicited advice on how to raise your children, as Desiree Luna knows all too well.
The mum-of-eight has been inundated with mean comments saying she should never have had so many kids if she couldn’t afford a big house for them.
However, the 42-year-old from Los Angeles has hit back in an exclusive interview with Fabulous – revealing the family never wanted a big house anyway, and living in close quarters has even helped her children.
The nanny who lives in a three-bedroom house with her husband and eight children aged 22, 21, 20, 16, 12 11, 9 and 8 has a five-bunk bed system to keep her five youngest kids in one room and shared the hack on her TikTok account @raisingeightarrows.
But it seems not everyone was impressed as the mum recalls she was inundated with cruel comments.
“Lot of people were like ‘you shouldn’t have so many,'” she recalls.
Desiree adds: “Me having a big family and not having the big house doesn’t make me a bad mum or my children unhappy, those are the negative comments I got.”
In fact, the mum wished she could show the haters just how happy her kids were living in the tiny house, but she’s been put off by the negative comments.
She adds: “I didn’t put my family out there as much as I wanted to because it threw me off, but I wish I could so they could see how happy we are, we’re always laughing.”
The five youngest children, 16, 12 11, 9, and 8, who Desiree didn’t want to be named, all share one bedroom while the three eldest children share another.
The bed structure for the five kids takes up most of the room, on the right-hand side is a bunk bed with double beds, and a high sleeper single bed is placed next to it on the left-hand side of the room.
As she pointed to the lower bunk, the mum said: “Two of my boys go in that bed.”
She explains that two of the girls share the double bunk on the top and that her 14-year-old daughter sleeps on the single bed.
Although many claimed they felt sorry for her children in the comments section of the post, Desiree revealed the kids love their room.
“They enjoy it for the most part, every kid, especially teens, want their privacy so the little ones usually hang out in the front room so usually the older ones are hanging out in the bedroom,” she says.
And the busy mum admits that the family did try moving from LA to get a bigger house, but nobody was a fan so they packed up to live in a smaller space.
“It didn’t bother me, because I choose to live in LA Cali where the houses are small, we had a big house for a little bit but our family was happy with a smaller home because we lived here and our family are here.
“We had a ranch house with the swimming pool but the kids weren’t happy there, the size didn’t matter for our family,” she explains.
Not only do the kids prefer living by the beach and near family, but Desiree reveals it’s made her children better people for it too.
The matriarch adds: “Having a big family, sharing a room, they’ve learnt to share, it helps in this day and age, kids think everything is handed to them or they’ll get everything they want, my kids don’t.
“They have to work for it and have to share – it benefits our family and society so I see it as a positive thing.”
Whilst Desiree says there are lots of positives to having a big family in a small house, there is one thing that will never stop getting on her nerves – laundry.
Every day the mum has three piles to go through at least, and the food shop is always on the pricier side.
“I try to budget, but we spend around 3 to four hundred dollars a week, we have Costco and buy in bulk and coupon which helps as there’s so many of us.”