Is it selfish to only want 1 child?
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Anonymous
| 3 is definitely the new two |
Anonymous
| I am an only child and loved my childhood for the most part. It is not selfish at all to only have one kid. For some trips I invited friends or cousins to come with, which may be something to consider for a few vacations as your DC gets older. It helped that I was the child of an only child on one parents side and the the other parent had an incredibly large family. Honestly, seeing both perspectives growing up allowed me to see the positives of life as an only child. One word of advice, if you stick will only having one child, don’t put too much pressure on them. (My parents didn’t, but my type A personality made me feel like I had to be the best at academics, athletics, social life, etc...). |
Anonymous
This assumes that brothers and sisters are close in old age. |
Anonymous
| Only children are the best. It’s no more “selfish” to want 1 child than to want 1 dog or 4 cats. Just raise that one right and you’ll be doing the world a favor. |
Anonymous
What about 4 or 5? I've noticed some upper class families with 4 or 5 kids, all in private schools and only 1 parent employed, like it's no big deal. Kids = status symbols? |
Anonymous
Of course you should have the number of kids to reflect what is acceptable in your social circles, bleh. This type of thinking comes from someone with herd mentality, a sheep that follows the crowd and doesn't have an original bone or thought in their body. Op do what you are comfortable with. One would be great. You have more time, energy and money for that child. I have a sibling who I don't talk to, we are not close at all. I am left to do all the elder care as well. Having more children doesn't guarantee you anything. From what I can tell people with more kids like the chaos, noise and busyness of having more kids. If you get overwhelmed or stressed then one would be a better fit. Of course later in life yes elder care falls onto that one child but you can plan for that and with more money outsource rather than depend solely on your child. Do what makes you happy. I have heard that if the first is a great kid the second is usually the devil so be warned about that. |
Anonymous
Usually those parents are pretty checked out. Either the oldest raises the kids, parents play favorite and usually the youngest or 1-2 get ignored or all get ignore. |
Anonymous
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LOL, OP. Since you and your DH are in deadlock regarding having another child, are you counting on strangers's experiences as tie breaker?
Neither you or your DH is selfish. I guess it's bad enough for you to post this online. Sign up for therapy or something. Talk it out between you two (and a therapist) to sort this out. Your family long term happiness depends on it |
Anonymous
| OP: What about having another child makes you anxious? Is it the cost, the work, the chaos, etc? Do you question whether your DH was actually lonely? |
Anonymous
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not selfish, but I don't think 2 is a "big" family either.
I think the people with 4+ kids are the selfish ones |
Anonymous
| Not at all. Given how many screwed up kids there are stopping at one is not a bad idea. |
Anonymous
Why? Having 4+ pretty much requires you to be selfLESS most of the time. |
Anonymous
Because very few people have the financial resources to help 4+ kids pay for college, etc. Not to mention the fact that I don’t believe anyone has the time to give 4+ kids the attention they need to bring them up well. |
Anonymous
I'm one of seven and I never felt I wasn't getting love and attention from my parents. My mother was a SAHM which obviously helped and given that all of my siblings adored my mother I'm sure none of them felt deprived of affection. Yes, finances were tight but we survived. |
Anonymous
Wow. Some of the best families I know have 4+ kids. Yes, it is costly. |