To ask why you have just one child?

I found parenting hard. I have a very strong willed child who is a drama lama and am honestly knackered at the end of everyday. Can't imagine having another kid to cater for. He was hard work as a baby and hard work as a primary aged child. I love him very much but am done.

Lack of maternal desire, cost. My son is 21 now, he’s amazing and I love spending time with him. I can support him financially as he establishes himself in a way I couldn’t if I had another child.

An incredibly traumatic birth following a terrible pregnancy. I also really only truly started to enjoy DC once they went to high school (away at uni abroad now). I love my own, but I’m not a fan of kids in general!

I was quite serious and quiet myself as a child, and preferred sitting and listening to adults or reading/colouring. I can’t remember ever really ‘playing’ so I found it difficult to play with my own plus I really struggled with the noise and mess and disruption!

I have one adult DD. I wanted more but exH did not and the marriage was not good, so in a way I am glad I don't have any further connection with him. I didn't have a very good experience of labour and having a baby/toddler with him.

Having just DD meant that I could do things with her that it would have been difficult to do with more DC, especially once I was divorced. It also meant I could more easily provide for the two of us.

I have a long term partner now, he is amazing and we would have been wonderful parents together. He also has a grown only, who I can't count myself as stepmum to, but who I would do anything for. I'm 44 now, so no babies together in our future, but we channel that energy into our very spoiled pets.

I would have had more children and less career given my time again.

Simply that motherhood has not come naturally to me and I could not cope with more than one

We had to have 4 years of IVF treatment. It worked on our 5th go so I counted my blessings and didn't try again. 🥰

Age, post-natal depression and lack of support. Never again.

I'm an only and I had a wonderful childhood.
I didn't want any until I was 32.
I was lucky with an easy pregnancy - didn't want to risk a second.
Mat leave was shit.
DS is amazing but also the most energetic, loud, outgoing person I know and I don't have the capacity to parent 2 of him! And he still gets up in the night at nearly 6!

Re: finances, you can't spreadsheet it. Yes, nursery is expensive, but if I had another now I'd probably be part time at work for another 5 years, we'd need a bigger house so would pay £1000s more in interest on a mortgage, we'd need a bigger car and obviously about 20 years of bigger supermarket shops. With one we can pay for holidays and 3 weekly activities pretty easily.

Because dh's chronic severe mental illness took a nosedive with the broken sleep of ds's babyhood and tbh although he had further patches of recovery and stability, essentially he deteriorated from that point until his death when ds was 14. It has been hard as ds was born to be a brother and would have loved a sibling, but there's such a thing as the art of the possible.

The most important is that I just don't want one, and don't feel the need to add anything to our family. It's complete as it is. We are in a good place where he's independent and very chill. But also:

Finances/logistics: we could afford a second, but would be on a strict budget. With one child, we can afford anything now and in future. I don’t want to have to say no or be stressed juggling two schedules for after school activities.

Mental health: the newborn stage was the worst of my life. I don't want to take the risk that I couldn't handle a toddler and a newborn.

Other: I don't want to divide my time and everything else between two children, or miss time with one child to “divide and conquer”. Neither of us want to have to solo parent two kids to give the other time alone. I hated my own sibling so I don't see them as inherently valuable as a concept. I don’t want to do the baby stage again.

@Donotneedit I'm sorry that happened to you. You aren't the only one.

After ds' dad being a normal affectionate person for three and a half years, he changed overnight. We were still in the maternity unit after a slow & difficult delivery. DS was 3 days old. Staff nurse said we could go home the next day. Ex stood up, shrugged, said 'I'm busy tomorrow, you'll have to wait.' and walked out.

That was the start. The staff nurse asked if there was 'anything I wanted to tell her.' I remember being embarrassed, angry and bewildered. It deteriorated from there.

Why do they do that? 🙁

We tried for a second baby but I miscarried every time and then Covid hit so I couldn't access infertility treatment. I'm too old now and tbh I don't want another child so perhaps it was meant to be!

Was told I’d probably never have children . Met my son’s father and fell pregnant but then we spilt up . I would have loved a little girl but it just never happened. I’m grateful I at least have one child .

I didn't meet ds' dad until I was 42. Had DS at 45. Having another would have been unrealistic and risky, and anyway ex morphed into a nasty controlling person as soon as DS was born. I tried for two years to persuade him to act normally, but it was getting out of hand so DS & I had to leave.

No family support, so everything falls on dh and I.

Finances - we earn enough, but I’m aware even now things are so much more expensive than 10 years ago. In 10 more years I have no doubt things will
cost even more. I don’t want to struggle unnecessarily or have to stop Ds doing things due to cost if unavoidable.

Space. Both house wise and head wise. I like peace and quite and it’s hard enough to get 30 mins peace with one.

Logistics. It’s easier to just take Ds with us as only him to find things he and us like. Can work around 1 child with work and freetime easier. He’s young now, but I imagine teenager needing picking up and dropping off to various things.

i was very very poorly having my son, and we decided we didn’t want to risk my health having a second - it felt too risky and I wanted to be there for my son! but this aside, one is enough for us so perhaps we wouldn’t have had another anyway. i do feel some guilt that he doesn’t have a sibling - but on balance this was the right decision for us as a family i believe.

It's been easy from the beginning, didn't want to make things hard

Ah I see. Yes if I were asked straight out about it at work or something I'd feel insulted. There was something different about the way OP asked that made me feel it was a genuine discussion with no loaded judgement. Thanks for highlighting this point though as it is something that bugs me in the "real world".

IVF for one. Partner struggled when she was very small. Didn’t want me to use the other embryos.

I'm so sorry

I had one for 8 years, because we wanted to buy a house, then we bought a house and had another baby, my cut off age for having another was 36 after that I had decided no more kids, fell pregnant 3 months before I turned 37 😂
otherwise it would have just been the one as I didn’t want anymore after that age.

One just seemed like the perfect number.

Childbirth was horrific - no way I was going through that again!!

So sorry to read this, l hope you are in a better place now