In hindsight (mums of three)

[Bryleejane]

Calling the wisdom of parents of three or four adult children:

(Especially those with children who have VERY strong personalities and are not one but 'easy going' and are all close in age )

Three children is going to be more work then two, no doubt! My partner and I are not shy of hard work and are a very strong team. . .

My question is do you think it was worth it to have more then two in the long run? Did havjng three enrich everyone's lives (siblings and parents) over the course of the years enough to offset the challenges/workload? Or do you feel that your relationship with your children was diluted too much and that you as parents were overstretched and so enjoyed parenting much less?

I know there are many factors to this. Just looking for a rough consensus to guide my ovaries

Added info that might help: we are in no way wealthy but can afford to have one parent be at home with the kids and my sons (currently 4 and 2) fight incessantly, and only play together peacefully on the rare occasion. We have absolutely no family support but are a strong team and relatively youngish parents. We live opposite my sons schools so have no school run.

If you've read this far thanks a mil and I look forward to your thoughts.

I have four and I don’t feel like it’s diluted my relationship to have that many. I feel it’s enriched our family dynamics as we are a team with so many people that things are never boring and our lives are full and fun. It’s not the Brady Bunch, the kids fight, i lose my temper, but when it’s good it’s amazing and when it’s bad I’m not sure it’s worse than with one, two or three. I wouldn’t change it for a thing.

I have three. But two have disabilities so this might colour my view. I would personality go for two or four. A friend of mine is one of three and he warned against having three. A lot of stuff is geared towards families of four and when there’s two kids it’s one parent per kid. Minor point but cars are crap for three. We’ve got an suv which is massive. You’d need a four bed unless kids are happy to share (I value my personal space so do my kids).

I think it has diluted my relationship with my dcs as I’m too tired to be devoted mum (but that’s because of work and dh is away a lot) But I think it’s a good thing too as it’s made my dc more independent and closer to each other.
I still have an excellent relationship with them and we spend a fair bit of time together. It’s hard work but we relax a lot too and the dc are good at helping out. Many more positives than negatives for us.

I think it is entirely dependent on the family. I have friends who breeze three and more but I definitely feel like three is one too many. Our third is extraordinarily strong willed though. The logistics of after school activities with three children with different interests is a lot but I guess it’s our choice to allow them to do those.

Goes without saying that I am not wishing our third away but in our case two was a much easier and more content number.