To wonder why we have more than one child?

I find this attitude completely baffling. What is so appalling about having one child that you’d make yourself have a second you don’t really want?

No idea. Satisfied my curiosity after one - it is very very hard work. DH had a vasectomy not long after and I happily drove him to the appt!

Why?

I had a different experience to you OP, I had my first and he demanded my attention the whole time which was lovely but when I found I was expecting my second I was worried how I would be able to share my time and affection. When my second son was born my eldest had an initial period where he was jealous (3 year gap) but then they became close and spent lots of time together and it actually made everything easier, I then went on to have my DD and as I also looked after my sisters 2 DDs who were a similar age while she worked, it was much easier as they all played together.

I was never broody for my second but I didn’t want an only child.

I'm one of two, and the high expectations of me didn't get dropped because my younger sister was a different kettle of fish.

Instead I was expected to achieve, and met with either "well yes because you're very capable" or disappointment it wasn't better. Whilst my less capable sister had the tiniest of achievements celebrated loudly and proudly.

DH is the middle of three and found the same, his elder brother had high expectations on him, his younger had everything celebrated. DH, unfortunately, had the typical middle child experience where he was kind of skipped over.

As a result we only have expectations of DD to do what makes her happy, and we make sure she knows this, other than being expected to try her best.

Lord only knows what the expectations on me would have been as an only. Could have gone either way, too intense or having no frame for comparison (sister) they'd have just let me be happy.

I think this could be personality dependent.

It is true for me.

Dd1 is a high achieving, diligent people pleaser. I am prone to high expectations. If she had been our only I think it could have been pretty intense.

By having dc2 in close succession, I had to drop my standards completely. Dc2 is mad and feral and feels no pressure to please. So I have had to chill the f out.

My parenting has been more about fire fighting and keeping everyone fed and alive which has meant less pressure for everyone. We all have a lovely time!

A different mix of personalities may have led to different conclusions.

I do have a sliding doors comparison in the extended family of someone who just had one, and they are very intense and over involved and perfectionist and I can so see that is how I would have been before it was beaten out of me.

The flip side is their child gets a lot of time and attention and is always in the right place at the right time with the right and clean stuff. Not something that can always be said for my family. They do lots of travel and trips and experiences that can't really happen in a gang.

It is all swings and roundabouts.

I felt it wasn't good for one child to be the sole focus of all our attention, it was too much for his own good. A second child spread the love out more evenly. And now they are grown they have their own relationship which is brilliant.

Looking at my decision to have 4 children, with hindsight, I think that I was very aware that giving birth to a child doesn’t mean the child will outlive you. I was one of 10 cousins - only 2 died before I had my first child, and one was seriously ill, and died shortly after I had my last child. That’s a 30% premature mortality rate.

I guess subconsciously I thought having more children acted as a kind of insurance.

I don’t regret my choices, btw. In fact we referred to dc4 as our luxury extra - expensive, unnecessary, probably unjustifiable, but makes our life that little bit better.

I also feel better about having four, as all of my children say we should have had another, so they clearly don’t feel short changed by our decisions.

Now I have no opinion on the number of kids people have nor any desire to be telling people how many kids they should have due to population decline etc etc.

However, if we want people to have more kids then there actually needs to be proper investments in the structural and societal issues that prevent people who want more kids from having.

PROPER investment in early years childcare for example places like Finland where it is mostly state run not for profit, the people working there are degree educated and the cost is subsided from a young age so that families aren't paying out astromonical amounts on childcare. Better paternity leave, more affordable housing, more investment in community spaces like the Sure start centres which many were closed down, affordable childcare during the holidays.

The problem is all this costs money and tax payers money which I'm guessing the people banging on about having more kids aren't willing to pay. There are many people who would have loved kids earlier or a bigger family and for them it is simply out their reach or unaffordable for them.

The population decline isn't for women to solve. Women can't be expected to just pop out more babies if the supports and structures aren't there to support them.

Beats me. I don’t have any 🤷‍♀️

I think we don’t realise we’ll be unhappy with two until the second one comes along…by which time it’s too late obviously

Or, we get over the "immigration problem" and allow skilled worked from elsewhere to fill those gaps. Society here continues, the world population stabilises.

Diversifies the gene pool here too, not a bad thing.

@BlueSherbet so your answer to people having too many kids in the past is for everyone to have THREE kids. Really? So the generation that come after them will also have to have three kids to sustain it? And how are you going to implement this-force everyone to have three kids?

God no, 8 billion people is far too many as it is. We need another solution. And I couldn't be happier the birth rate is dropping either!

That might be the case overall but for a highly structured society like the UK its a big problem - as it creates an ageing society, meaning there are ever less younger taxpayers to pay an ever bigger NHS / care / pension bill etc.

Trying to offset the inadequate birth rate is one reason why the govt is so lax and permissive with the small boat people.

There is obviously some practical limit to the world population, but I do not think we are anywhere near it and our society should at least be able to sustain itself - currently it isnt doing so.

You hear conspiracy theories like "population replacement" - but this is just people arriving at the wrong answer as to why our society is changing. Our problem is inadequate birth rate. It wouldn't be that difficult to fix this - 3 kids per couple would do it (instead of just 2).

Only you know the answer OP. I stopped at one. Thank god.

I don't get why people are still trying to convince each other they are right on here.

There is no right or wrong, we are all different and what's right for one person might not be for another.
No one needs to justify why they had one child or ten children or whether they love having one child, hate having one child, love having more than one, hate having more than one.

There are some properly daft comments on here and some that could be seen as quite hurtful.
Just try to enjoy the kids you have, however many that is, because (without trying to be too sentimental) children are a precious gift that not everyone gets to have and their childhood is fleeting even though it doesn't feel like that at times.
One day you just wake up and they are moving on and it feels like only yesterday you were counting down the days until their birth. But that's life, everything is bittersweet.

It still doesn't make sense. Children and partners are different relationships. Most people who want more than one child because they want their child to have a sibling, that family relationship with each other, a play mate etc.

Choosing a romantic, life partner is an entirely different decision than choosing how many children you want. Honestly I think you're scrambling for analogies that don't really work!

Sure, and you might feel that a parent-child relationship is inherently better if it's one to one, like many/most people feel about romantic relationships. That's a valid view, but it's very obviously not a majority one, which is why I think that friend is a closer analogy for most people. Maybe close friend would be better still, as some people would say it's best to have one best friend, whereas others might prefer a close knit friendship group. But both friend and partner makes a lot more sense than comparing having a child to buying a car.

@whydowe I kind of understand what you’re asking if you mean, ‘once you realise the reality of life with child is vastly different to the imagined life with child, why would you then go on to have another?’

I suppose most people forget about how they imagined it to be and just live with their new reality and learn to like / love it and continue on this path until it doesn’t suit them to have anymore.

But that's such a inapplicable analogy for this - parenting is a relationship, not the purchase of an object. What you're actually saying is more like 'why would anyone who already had a friend want to make a new friend?'

This is my exact experience too!

My grandmother lived in sheltered housing so there was no attic and they did the smoke alarms for her! We lived 3 hours and her other son was an alcoholic so I'm really not sure what support he offered. Yes my parents did some things when they went down about once a month but for the vast majority of the time she managed independently on her own.