are 3+ kid families becoming more common?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see a lot of accidental 3 kid families lately, one older kid followed by twins. When I was growing up, I didn't know a lot of families with more than two. In fact, a lot of my friends were only children.

How do you know the twins were an accident? And lots of twin accidents? You just live in a neighborhood where everyone is accidentally having twins after an older child. Mmmhmmm

Uh, you can't just....have twins on purpose. You understand that right? Twins are spontaneous. Maybe some of these families would have gone for a third regardless, but they didn't plan their twins...

They are much more common with fertility treatments. That’s what PP is talking about.

Yes. I should have been more explicit. Most people doing IUIs and implanting multiple embryos either want twins or are well aware that they may get twins. Twins have become much more common due to fertility treatments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see a lot of accidental 3 kid families lately, one older kid followed by twins. When I was growing up, I didn't know a lot of families with more than two. In fact, a lot of my friends were only children.

How do you know the twins were an accident? And lots of twin accidents? You just live in a neighborhood where everyone is accidentally having twins after an older child. Mmmhmmm

Uh, you can't just....have twins on purpose. You understand that right? Twins are spontaneous. Maybe some of these families would have gone for a third regardless, but they didn't plan their twins...

They are much more common with fertility treatments. That’s what PP is talking about.

As someone whose kids were conceived via fertility treatment, accepting the higher risk of multiples does not mean that you intend to have multiples. They’re still very much a surprise.

If you don’t want a surprise of two only implant one embryo. How can you read the fine print, make a decision where having twins is a distinct possibility, and then be surprised?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see a lot of accidental 3 kid families lately, one older kid followed by twins. When I was growing up, I didn't know a lot of families with more than two. In fact, a lot of my friends were only children.

How do you know the twins were an accident? And lots of twin accidents? You just live in a neighborhood where everyone is accidentally having twins after an older child. Mmmhmmm

Uh, you can't just....have twins on purpose. You understand that right? Twins are spontaneous. Maybe some of these families would have gone for a third regardless, but they didn't plan their twins...

They are much more common with fertility treatments. That’s what PP is talking about.

As someone whose kids were conceived via fertility treatment, accepting the higher risk of multiples does not mean that you intend to have multiples. They’re still very much a surprise.

If you don’t want a surprise of two only implant one embryo. How can you read the fine print, make a decision where having twins is a distinct possibility, and then be surprised?

They can split. I have a friend who implanted two and got three.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not in my [UMC, DMV, mostly dual income family] circle. Recently a slightly younger friend announced they are having a third and while I am happy for them, as they seem excited, privately I was shocked. I cannot imagine having 3 kids and living the life we currently live, which I think is great.

Should have said: most families we know have 2 kids. Way more only children in our circle than I knew growing up in a similar community. Definitely seems like a trend towards more onlies -- I think there is less stigma to doing this now. People don't always assume it's due to secondary infertility or marital problems (30 years ago everyone would have assumed that was it) and it's become more acceptable to say you're one and done by choice. To me, that's the big shift, not more 3+ families.

The kids who I know who are onlies have older parents who got married later and had a kid later. I don’t see people getting married at 30 and only having 1. It could just be that if you get married later you value your personal time more and don’t want more than one or that you don’t want to risk complications that come with being older if you get lucky and have a healthy baby. I would never assume an unhappy marriage was why someone only had one child or that infertility was involved. Even when I see big spaces between kids I don’t assume infertility. My default assumption in that case is that they wanted a larger gap between kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looking at everyone I know, I’d guess it is like this:

50% 2 DC
25% 3 DC
20% 1 DC
5% 4+ DC

I also know an absolute ton of couples that are childless by choice, or single people who never married or want to marry.

Most of the families I know with one DC didn’t plan on just one (for those who have said)…more commonly fertility issues or divorce/single parent.

A lot of the families with 3+ are due to an “oops”. I had a friend who had an oops #3 that turned into 3 & 4! twins. LOL.

I’d still say 2 seems to be the default.

Agree that a LOT Of the 3+ kid families are oops babies, or include multiples. I know two families that had oops triplets.

You're real gullible if you think this.

Why? She could be talking about me. I have oops triplets.

You're the unicorn. Every single person I know with twins, and there are a lot of them, used fertility treatments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Only see Mormons with this many

Do you live in Utah or a place with a large Mormon population? You really don’t know anyone who isn’t Mormon with three kids? I mean, this is just a bizarre thing to say.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see a lot of accidental 3 kid families lately, one older kid followed by twins. When I was growing up, I didn't know a lot of families with more than two. In fact, a lot of my friends were only children.

How do you know the twins were an accident? And lots of twin accidents? You just live in a neighborhood where everyone is accidentally having twins after an older child. Mmmhmmm

Uh, you can't just....have twins on purpose. You understand that right? Twins are spontaneous. Maybe some of these families would have gone for a third regardless, but they didn't plan their twins...

They are much more common with fertility treatments. That’s what PP is talking about.

As someone whose kids were conceived via fertility treatment, accepting the higher risk of multiples does not mean that you intend to have multiples. They’re still very much a surprise.

If you don’t want a surprise of two only implant one embryo. How can you read the fine print, make a decision where having twins is a distinct possibility, and then be surprised?

They can split. I have a friend who implanted two and got three.

But that's known to happen. I'm sure it's as surprising as needing fertility treatments and then even getting pregnant at all. Suprise! But that means the treatment you sought out worked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not in my [UMC, DMV, mostly dual income family] circle. Recently a slightly younger friend announced they are having a third and while I am happy for them, as they seem excited, privately I was shocked. I cannot imagine having 3 kids and living the life we currently live, which I think is great.

Should have said: most families we know have 2 kids. Way more only children in our circle than I knew growing up in a similar community. Definitely seems like a trend towards more onlies -- I think there is less stigma to doing this now. People don't always assume it's due to secondary infertility or marital problems (30 years ago everyone would have assumed that was it) and it's become more acceptable to say you're one and done by choice. To me, that's the big shift, not more 3+ families.

The kids who I know who are onlies have older parents who got married later and had a kid later. I don’t see people getting married at 30 and only having 1. It could just be that if you get married later you value your personal time more and don’t want more than one or that you don’t want to risk complications that come with being older if you get lucky and have a healthy baby. I would never assume an unhappy marriage was why someone only had one child or that infertility was involved. Even when I see big spaces between kids I don’t assume infertility. My default assumption in that case is that they wanted a larger gap between kids.

Same. Another scenario is a second marriage for the husband who has grown kids and compromised on having just one more with the new, younger wife.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only see Mormons with this many

I'm in my late 40's and grew up in an area with a lot of Mormons (I'm not Mormon.) Back then, every Mormon family I knew had at least 4 kids--a few were bigger like 8-10 kids--but four kids was by far the most common number.
Now, all those people that came from families with 4 kids? They have 5. Seriously every Mormon I know has 5 kids.
Five is the new four.

I think Mormons used to want to be done with having kids very early--I think of my mormon relatives and they always talked about being done having kids in your 20s. But now I see more and more young mormon families saying they want to have kids well into their 30s.

Except that the number of kids per woman/couple is falling among Mormons as well (I believe it's something like 3 on average). Maybe the ones who are very religious (so easier to identify as Mormon) have 5 and others have fewer, don't get married (until later), have come out as gay (which they used not to do decades ago) etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m in a wealthy neighborhood and almost every family here has 3-4 in rapid succession. I grew up lower middle class and most families were 2 so I’d say it’s less of a “sign of the times” and more a sign of wealth.

Both DH and I grew up in wralthy 3 kid families. We only ever wanted 2 kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see a lot of accidental 3 kid families lately, one older kid followed by twins. When I was growing up, I didn't know a lot of families with more than two. In fact, a lot of my friends were only children.

How do you know the twins were an accident? And lots of twin accidents? You just live in a neighborhood where everyone is accidentally having twins after an older child. Mmmhmmm

Uh, you can't just....have twins on purpose. You understand that right? Twins are spontaneous. Maybe some of these families would have gone for a third regardless, but they didn't plan their twins...

They are much more common with fertility treatments. That’s what PP is talking about.

As someone whose kids were conceived via fertility treatment, accepting the higher risk of multiples does not mean that you intend to have multiples. They’re still very much a surprise.

But the pregnancy itself probably wasn’t a surprise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m in a wealthy neighborhood and almost every family here has 3-4 in rapid succession. I grew up lower middle class and most families were 2 so I’d say it’s less of a “sign of the times” and more a sign of wealth.

Both DH and I grew up in wralthy 3 kid families. We only ever wanted 2 kids.

I grew up in a 2 kid family and desperately wanted more siblings. I would’ve gladly given away much of what I’ll inherit for a sister or more cousins for my kids.

[Anonymous]

I live in a wealthy neighborhood (Palisades) and I felt like my kid with one sibling was the minority in kindergarten. Lots of 3-kid families and even some 4 or 5! What’s crazy is that in most of these, both parents work full time (eg 2 doctors). But lots of generational wealth too and grandparents paying for private school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see a lot of accidental 3 kid families lately, one older kid followed by twins. When I was growing up, I didn't know a lot of families with more than two. In fact, a lot of my friends were only children.

How do you know the twins were an accident? And lots of twin accidents? You just live in a neighborhood where everyone is accidentally having twins after an older child. Mmmhmmm

Uh, you can't just....have twins on purpose. You understand that right? Twins are spontaneous. Maybe some of these families would have gone for a third regardless, but they didn't plan their twins...

They are much more common with fertility treatments. That’s what PP is talking about.

As someone whose kids were conceived via fertility treatment, accepting the higher risk of multiples does not mean that you intend to have multiples. They’re still very much a surprise.

But the pregnancy itself probably wasn’t a surprise.

Let’s hope not. Fwiw I’m a twin and I have three children, none of whom are twins, but I knew that I was more likely than the average person to potentially have twins and I would not have been surprised. That’s why I have trouble wrapping my head around someone doing something that way statistically increases the risk of having twins and then being surprised. Maybe I understand probability better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see a lot of accidental 3 kid families lately, one older kid followed by twins. When I was growing up, I didn't know a lot of families with more than two. In fact, a lot of my friends were only children.

How do you know the twins were an accident? And lots of twin accidents? You just live in a neighborhood where everyone is accidentally having twins after an older child. Mmmhmmm

Uh, you can't just....have twins on purpose. You understand that right? Twins are spontaneous. Maybe some of these families would have gone for a third regardless, but they didn't plan their twins...

They are much more common with fertility treatments. That’s what PP is talking about.

As someone whose kids were conceived via fertility treatment, accepting the higher risk of multiples does not mean that you intend to have multiples. They’re still very much a surprise.

But the pregnancy itself probably wasn’t a surprise.

Let’s hope not. Fwiw I’m a twin and I have three children, none of whom are twins, but I knew that I was more likely than the average person to potentially have twins and I would not have been surprised. That’s why I have trouble wrapping my head around someone doing something that way statistically increases the risk of having twins and then being surprised. Maybe I understand probability better.

I think you’d understand better if you’ve been through infertility. Maybe “surprise” isn’t the right word, because it’s not really surprising, but it is a bit shocking. When you’ve lost all hope in your ability to conceive at all, those twin numbers mean nothing to you. It’s not really logical at all, because your emotions take over.