To think lots of people have a second child just because it's 'the done thing' ?

[DairyMilkMaid]

DS has just turned 3, which means the question of whether or not to have another baby has been coming up a lot more recently. DH and I are leaning more towards being one and done (for lots of reasons) but we're still not 100% certain.

I met up with a friend this morning and she asked if we thought we'd have any more DCs. I said I wasn't sure and asked her how she knew she was ready for her second. She sort of shrugged and said 'I wasn't, but it's just what you do isn't it?'. When I asked what she meant, she basically said that it never even occurred occurred her to stop at one, and she never felt the urge to have a second, she just....did.

I was a bit surprised, but thinking about it, I've seen this attitude a few times. Another friend of mine really struggled with PPD and her relationship nearly broke down, but she went on to have a second. Her whole pregnancy she was depressed and was dreading the baby being born, and though she loves her DD2 dearly, she quite often says life would have been easier if she'd stopped at one. She never wanted a second either, she just didn't want her DD to be an only child.

You see threads on here sometimes where women had a horrendous experience of pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood, but are reluctantly going for a second, and I can't help but wonder why. It's like for some people it's not even an option to just have one child.

Don't start insulting me, there's no need. I'm trying to discuss what seems to me a pretty important issue.

Would you mind expanding on your post? I genuinely want a reason to feel optimistic.

ETA: I think you're somewhat proving my point. It's the more affluent, educated families who are electing to have fewer and fewer children, largely because it better suits their lifestyles, or they were career and leisure focused for such a long time that the clock ran down. Surely we need more children from these sorts of families, who would not need state support and would be more likely to be net contributors.

I had two lots of two. 18, 15, 10 and 8. So did a second round of having a second....I didn't want my third born to not grow up with a sibling close in age.

@LarryMiddleman No amount of money/state support or anything else would have made me want more than one, nor will it make my DD and her DP want any. How many children do you purpose the women who want more than one should have to ensure that there are enough future taxpayers, which isn't a sure fire thing as AI will take over many jobs in the coming decades, meaning that many of those DC in their adult years won't be paying tax as there will be no jobs.

I loved having siblings, still do, and wanted my child to have one.

Following your argument to its natural conclusion, current birth rates are more likely to be children from deprived backgrounds, so society at large is expected to cover their costs via its taxes, with the entirely limited funds currently at the UK’s disposal and taxes higher than ever? What do you suppose would be the effect of that? I don’t think you are considering the broader impact, both environmental in a larger sense, but also the current child poverty index. Spaffing out kids you can’t afford to cover the costs of; isn’t helping anyone.

Ok, let's assume you're correct.

What do you see happening over the coming 30-50 years? Do you think there's no problem?

How many children do you have?

I have two. This isn't really the point though. If I were on a personal campaign to fix this problem I'd have to be pumping them out every year and it still wouldn't touch the sides. I just wanted to flag it as an issue, and it seems that nobody cares. So maybe I'm just worrying unnecessarily and everything will be great?

But @LarryMiddleman I don't think you quite understand that affluent educated families who have fewer children to support their lifestyle don't just miraculously increase their income with each child. Our one child has significant needs which are expensive. Very expensive. We are net contributers, now, but if we had more children- even a second or perhaps a third without the needs of DS, our income does not change, but our expenses would. I can honestly say we would be in penury if we had a second child we had to provide for in the same way we can now provide for DS1.

I'm not going to lie- I have a resentment towards people who have more children because the state is picking up the tab. Most, if not all, families who are middle earners have had to make very sound fiscal choices about the size of their family.

I thought birth rates were down in all social economic groups in UK now especially since cost of living crisis- I've seen figures saying 40% of children in UK are now only kids.

It's not all free choice as many want more kids than they end up having - for every 2 child born a third is wanted but not had in UK. UN did a recent report that said similar more kids are wanted than born due to many barriers in differnt countires and money/cost of living was often one of many factors.

My entire life the birth rate in UK been under the replacement level - that happened in 1973 - population still increased due to people living longer and immigration. TBH most of Euorpe and many other parts of the world have baked in aging populations and we'll all have to adapt to that.

I have 2 op. You have do whats right for you. I know alot in my friend group we 50s dont see their siblings at all so its not all happy clappy either. I feel 2 is expensive these days we one in college.

You may well be right.

It's the "we will have to adapt" that always gets me.... How? We will have a proportionally tiny working age population and therefore tax base.

At first people were always asking when we we're going to have a baby then gave up as we'd been married for 14 years. Took ages to conceive DS so he was very much wanted.

He was such an easy baby and we were already older parents. We didn't think we could get that lucky twice so we just decided not to go for a second. Never regretted it. He's a lovely grown man now.

Making women who do not want children feel "less than" is not the answer.

That's been neither stated nor implied so I suggest you remove the chip from your shoulder.

Are you concerned about the demographic situation at all? If not, why not?

I was always absolutely certain I'd have a big family - at least 3 DC, but maybe 4+. I felt this way even after having my first. But now I have two very young DC (and a horrific/almost deadly second birth) and I honestly don't want another.

So no, I didn't have two because it was the "done" thing, but I've certainly changed my perspective on how many kids I want since having two young ones. I found having one baby/child really easy!

Immigration - longer working lives - more people in work force ie women working even with young kids is now the norm - that's been happening for a while.

Having people on work place pensions so fewer just dependent on state- bringing in some payments for healthcare dentists/perscriptions and hinting at further reforms. They should do more round social care but polticans don't want to touch it so families will be left to cope and social servcies to pug what gaps they can. They'll raise taxes till can't - borrow till that hits limits and cut services - all done all three slowly- seen economists point where deaths overtake births - economics tend to start to stagnage around then Japan and Italy already there - we may be already.

More accomodation for older ages in infrastructure would be nice - but would take money - but products and service will likely continue to develop to sell to section of population with assets. Likely tax will also look at inhertiance probably by not movging threasholds with inflation. Schools and maternity servcies start to close or get starved of cash - (maternity services being so poor also isn't helping the birthrate as bad births can reduce likelyhood of later ones).

We've already reached point where adding more kids ie dependents for 18 years + to existsing older post work population it would just add further streses ie taxes and energy costs to current working population. We may also not be keeping current adult young population as immigration is up - so may not add to working population just costs anyway with no pay off long term.

We are thankfully not at point bar on MN where we talk about killing the post work population - so we'll have to find ways to cope and adapt - other countries are ahead of us in the population decline situation so we do have examples to follow or avoid.

I agree with you. I see it in a lot of my friends who have really struggled with 2 dcs as they had them in quick succession with a partner who is not around much.

I've never been one to follow the herd and took quite a while to have dc1 after getting married, as we were still considering whether we wanted any dcs. I was happy to stop at one when dc1 was born and didn't go into having a family with a plan to have more than one. I certainly wasn't planning my family out before I had even met DH like some friends had. We did decide to have a dc2 but only after I knew that DH would be hands on and would not be working long hours or away so I wouldn't be juggling 2 preschoolers on my own, and after we'd been married almost a decade so we had a secure relationship. We had a gap of almost 4 years so I had a break between them dcs and had dc1 in school so I could give one to one attention to dc2 and didn't struggle with breastfeeding, bonding or trying to attend to 2 young children at once. A lot of families I see out with 2 dcs are having a really miserable time and there's lots of ppd amongst women I know because they've gone straight into it just because it's the done thing without careful consideration about the day to day impact it will have.

I think that two kids is still seen as the default and that's often what people think about when deciding whether or not to have kids.

I was very anti the idea of becoming a parent until I befriended an older couple with an only child and realised that most of what put me off about parenting was related to parenting multiple kids.

We had much the same thoughts, also DH and I are both only children so a single child wouldn't have had aunts/uncles/cousins either.

Yes it's unnecessary, there's nothing wrong with having one. Siblings aren't guaranteed friends and so many don't get on or bother.

For me personally I don’t agree on being one and done deliberately ….i think it’s pretty selfish so it never occurred to me not to have another in fact I spent thousands on IVF to have more children

Let’s unpick your ‘logic’ here, shall we? If we agree that having a child is always a selfish act — people have a child because they want one? But you think they should then have a second child out of altruism?

Because I have a sibling & whilst we aren’t particularly close, I have always appreciated having him - shared childhood, someone to share hard times, looking after elderly parents & sharing the load etc. I do also have friends who are only children & when you talk to them about their childhoods, they were lonely & quite sad.

I have 3 DCs & they are very close. I know that might not always be the case, but it has been very special for our kids & I hope they do end up close as adults.

Wow. You can't possibly consider that what is right for you may not be for others? Some might also consider your own actions selfish.