Why does 4 kids seem so much more than 3?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Both my parents come from big families, I have close friends and ex boyfriends with 6+ kids in family. I am an only child and DH has 1 unmarried brother.

I would love a big family. Truly, I think though these days are different than 5-10 yrs ago. It really is. There was a time when your kids go play outside with other kids v now just online. There was a time when you had buses for school and post activities. It's not always the case. Public school now isn't always great. You have to take into account logistics.

I don't care how much you enjoy having 4 kids, unless you had daily help, you're challenged in some way with that many kids you have responsibility for. I for one understand why someone wants a big family but I think it is selfish on a purely objective level.

I have 2 and it's exhausting. I often think having one is a lot and enough. But being an only child I wish I did have more siblings.

It's just so hard now with finances on top of logistics as a serious consideration. I think anyone who suggests otherwise is lying. Whether you love having 3+ or find it hard, it's a lot. I think you also have to figure into what pregnancy does to the body.

Even with daily help, granted you can completely outsource parenting but kids need time with parents and treated as individuals who have individual needs, not just a pack.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone who grew up in a family of four-- I think people who say that adding additional kids after 3 is "easy" do not think of their kids as individuals (or at least not all of them), probably rely on a good bit of childcare from their eldest, and better pray none of their kids has special needs in any way. Not just something like ADHD, ASD, or a learning disorder, but even subclinical issues like being slow to warm, mild sensory processing issues, etc.

Look, love is not a finite resource and kids need a lot less space and material goods than modern American consumerist culture currently dictates. But time and energy ARE finite, and the idea that adding a while other person to your family, a child who will be at peak "need," is no big deal is deranged.

I don't trust people who treat that cavalierly.

As a counterpoint, I grew up as one of four (and as the oldest, no less!) and our home was one of absolute love and joy. I can’t imagine it any other way - I felt (and feel) very lucky to have grown up with 3 siblings

Same experience. I don’t think life was as intense back then. We all did a couple of activities. Our house was ALWAYS a mess. But we had fun, we were loved, well cared for, attended to and well educated. My mom always wanted a big family and she and my dad were very devoted to us when we were growing up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think once you get to the 4th kid you tend to have a parent who is not working or only working very part time. So in that regard there is always a dedicated parent whose life is very kid-centered. I have 3 and my career is my 4th kid. I think one more kid would be the tipping point. I’m also still hanging on to keeping my home fairly near and tidy/organized. Whereas I think once you hit 4 + you’re the type of family that embraces the chaos so to speak. (Unless you’re like a Mormon blogger type with family to help you so you can maintain that Pinterest home).

Once you have 4 kids in after school activities, it really doesn’t matter that one parent is home. There are still only 2 adults to manage driving/dinner/homework/bedtime.

Signed,
A SAHM of two with not much evening bandwidth to spare.

That’s assuming there’s no extended family that helps out, no mothers helpers, and that all 4 kids do after school activities.

Assuming all four kids are neurotypical, by the time the youngest does after school activities and has actual homework (8?), the oldest kid or two should be able to do their own homework and manage their own bedtime, no?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think once you get to the 4th kid you tend to have a parent who is not working or only working very part time. So in that regard there is always a dedicated parent whose life is very kid-centered. I have 3 and my career is my 4th kid. I think one more kid would be the tipping point. I’m also still hanging on to keeping my home fairly near and tidy/organized. Whereas I think once you hit 4 + you’re the type of family that embraces the chaos so to speak. (Unless you’re like a Mormon blogger type with family to help you so you can maintain that Pinterest home).

Once you have 4 kids in after school activities, it really doesn’t matter that one parent is home. There are still only 2 adults to manage driving/dinner/homework/bedtime.

Signed,
A SAHM of two with not much evening bandwidth to spare.

Or you have help or grandparents. There are ways to involve more than 2 adults.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone who grew up in a family of four-- I think people who say that adding additional kids after 3 is "easy" do not think of their kids as individuals (or at least not all of them), probably rely on a good bit of childcare from their eldest, and better pray none of their kids has special needs in any way. Not just something like ADHD, ASD, or a learning disorder, but even subclinical issues like being slow to warm, mild sensory processing issues, etc.

Look, love is not a finite resource and kids need a lot less space and material goods than modern American consumerist culture currently dictates. But time and energy ARE finite, and the idea that adding a while other person to your family, a child who will be at peak "need," is no big deal is deranged.

I don't trust people who treat that cavalierly.

This may be the most sane post I've ever read on this website. I am one of six, and I firmly believe that no one needs more children than two. I don't care how much you want a big family. There is no way to take care of a child's emotional well being when there is so much need. It's batshit crazy to me that in this time of climate crisis (and when most children make it to adulthood) anyone should be having large families. Just don't do it.

Why 2? Why not 1?

There is so much need with 1...

If you think some people can handle 2, then it's very likely that some people can handle 3 or even 4.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think once you get to the 4th kid you tend to have a parent who is not working or only working very part time. So in that regard there is always a dedicated parent whose life is very kid-centered. I have 3 and my career is my 4th kid. I think one more kid would be the tipping point. I’m also still hanging on to keeping my home fairly near and tidy/organized. Whereas I think once you hit 4 + you’re the type of family that embraces the chaos so to speak. (Unless you’re like a Mormon blogger type with family to help you so you can maintain that Pinterest home).

Once you have 4 kids in after school activities, it really doesn’t matter that one parent is home. There are still only 2 adults to manage driving/dinner/homework/bedtime.

Signed,
A SAHM of two with not much evening bandwidth to spare.

That’s assuming there’s no extended family that helps out, no mothers helpers, and that all 4 kids do after school activities.

Assuming all four kids are neurotypical, by the time the youngest does after school activities and has actual homework (8?), the oldest kid or two should be able to do their own homework and manage their own bedtime, no?

I'm the PP. If I had two more kids right now, (let's call them 9 and 6 since my kids are 3 years apart) they'd either be stuck home all the time with a grandparent or "mother's helper" or being drug to one of their two sibling's activities. Either way, its not remotely the experience my older two children had at those ages. Seems pretty unfair, but large families aren't concerned with individual attention, or actual parents caring for children.

[Anonymous]

I've not heard 4 is easier than 3, rather that 3 is already chaos and 4 is just more chaos so not much different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think once you get to the 4th kid you tend to have a parent who is not working or only working very part time. So in that regard there is always a dedicated parent whose life is very kid-centered. I have 3 and my career is my 4th kid. I think one more kid would be the tipping point. I’m also still hanging on to keeping my home fairly near and tidy/organized. Whereas I think once you hit 4 + you’re the type of family that embraces the chaos so to speak. (Unless you’re like a Mormon blogger type with family to help you so you can maintain that Pinterest home).

Once you have 4 kids in after school activities, it really doesn’t matter that one parent is home. There are still only 2 adults to manage driving/dinner/homework/bedtime.

Signed,
A SAHM of two with not much evening bandwidth to spare.

That’s assuming there’s no extended family that helps out, no mothers helpers, and that all 4 kids do after school activities.

Assuming all four kids are neurotypical, by the time the youngest does after school activities and has actual homework (8?), the oldest kid or two should be able to do their own homework and manage their own bedtime, no?

I'm the PP. If I had two more kids right now, (let's call them 9 and 6 since my kids are 3 years apart) they'd either be stuck home all the time with a grandparent or "mother's helper" or being drug to one of their two sibling's activities. Either way, its not remotely the experience my older two children had at those ages. Seems pretty unfair, but large families aren't concerned with individual attention, or actual parents caring for children.

What a gross thing to say.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think once you get to the 4th kid you tend to have a parent who is not working or only working very part time. So in that regard there is always a dedicated parent whose life is very kid-centered. I have 3 and my career is my 4th kid. I think one more kid would be the tipping point. I’m also still hanging on to keeping my home fairly near and tidy/organized. Whereas I think once you hit 4 + you’re the type of family that embraces the chaos so to speak. (Unless you’re like a Mormon blogger type with family to help you so you can maintain that Pinterest home).

Once you have 4 kids in after school activities, it really doesn’t matter that one parent is home. There are still only 2 adults to manage driving/dinner/homework/bedtime.

Signed,
A SAHM of two with not much evening bandwidth to spare.

I imagine there’s a lot of carpooling and siblings getting toted to practices. That is already how we manage 3 kids with full time jobs. I think if I didn’t work I’d have a bigger network of other moms to trade off with. Anecdotally I know some SAHMs of 3 or 4 and they seem to not mind having an extra kid in tow and will then trade off. Especially the military moms. It’s like an entire village just coordinating getting kids places or hosting a sibling for drop off. I think if I didn’t work/wanted a 4th I’d just lean into like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think once you get to the 4th kid you tend to have a parent who is not working or only working very part time. So in that regard there is always a dedicated parent whose life is very kid-centered. I have 3 and my career is my 4th kid. I think one more kid would be the tipping point. I’m also still hanging on to keeping my home fairly near and tidy/organized. Whereas I think once you hit 4 + you’re the type of family that embraces the chaos so to speak. (Unless you’re like a Mormon blogger type with family to help you so you can maintain that Pinterest home).

Once you have 4 kids in after school activities, it really doesn’t matter that one parent is home. There are still only 2 adults to manage driving/dinner/homework/bedtime.

Signed,
A SAHM of two with not much evening bandwidth to spare.

That’s assuming there’s no extended family that helps out, no mothers helpers, and that all 4 kids do after school activities.

Assuming all four kids are neurotypical, by the time the youngest does after school activities and has actual homework (8?), the oldest kid or two should be able to do their own homework and manage their own bedtime, no?

I'm the PP. If I had two more kids right now, (let's call them 9 and 6 since my kids are 3 years apart) they'd either be stuck home all the time with a grandparent or "mother's helper" or being drug to one of their two sibling's activities. Either way, its not remotely the experience my older two children had at those ages. Seems pretty unfair, but large families aren't concerned with individual attention, or actual parents caring for children.

What a gross thing to say.

What's "gross" about it? Are you 9? Its not logistically or mathematically possible for parents of 4 kids to parent as much as a parent of two kids or 1 kid. Its just not. And rather than admitting they are fine with this arrangement, parents in big families argue their kids aren't short changed at all. I can't believe these families are getting babysitters 3-4 nights a week so that the younger kids don't have to be schlepped around. And even if they are, that's a lot of time to spend with a babysitter when you've already spent the entire day away from your parents at school. We had kids because we actually wanted to parent them ourselves.

[Anonymous]

PP It's offensive to act like it is neglect if you have more than 2 kids. Having grown up as 1 of 4 I was not neglected. At all. And neither were my siblings. Maybe it's not best for you to be so invested in your importance to your child's life that you can't let them have any independence. We did things together they just weren't customized to each of our demands - we had to agree as a group on what game to play etc.. IMO it gave us a sense of the world where you have to work with others and not always get your way which is harder to achieve with less children

[Anonymous]

Among women with an advanced degree, only 8 percent have four or more kids.

In other words, it's extremely rare in the first place among the DCUM demographic.

[Anonymous]

Is this choice or timing? I would have liked to have 4 but couldn't as I had to wait to make equity partner to start having kids and then didn't have time

[Anonymous]

The few four kid families I know started early and often have what essentially amounts to two sets of kids with a very large gap between them (in fact, sometimes one of the sets is twins).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think once you get to the 4th kid you tend to have a parent who is not working or only working very part time. So in that regard there is always a dedicated parent whose life is very kid-centered. I have 3 and my career is my 4th kid. I think one more kid would be the tipping point. I’m also still hanging on to keeping my home fairly near and tidy/organized. Whereas I think once you hit 4 + you’re the type of family that embraces the chaos so to speak. (Unless you’re like a Mormon blogger type with family to help you so you can maintain that Pinterest home).

Once you have 4 kids in after school activities, it really doesn’t matter that one parent is home. There are still only 2 adults to manage driving/dinner/homework/bedtime.

Signed,
A SAHM of two with not much evening bandwidth to spare.

That’s assuming there’s no extended family that helps out, no mothers helpers, and that all 4 kids do after school activities.

Assuming all four kids are neurotypical, by the time the youngest does after school activities and has actual homework (8?), the oldest kid or two should be able to do their own homework and manage their own bedtime, no?

I'm the PP. If I had two more kids right now, (let's call them 9 and 6 since my kids are 3 years apart) they'd either be stuck home all the time with a grandparent or "mother's helper" or being drug to one of their two sibling's activities. Either way, its not remotely the experience my older two children had at those ages. Seems pretty unfair, but large families aren't concerned with individual attention, or actual parents caring for children.

What a gross thing to say.

What's "gross" about it? Are you 9? Its not logistically or mathematically possible for parents of 4 kids to parent as much as a parent of two kids or 1 kid. Its just not. And rather than admitting they are fine with this arrangement, parents in big families argue their kids aren't short changed at all. I can't believe these families are getting babysitters 3-4 nights a week so that the younger kids don't have to be schlepped around. And even if they are, that's a lot of time to spend with a babysitter when you've already spent the entire day away from your parents at school. We had kids because we actually wanted to parent them ourselves.

You’re too entrenched in your own bias to consider other perspectives. I hope you aren’t teaching your children to be judgmental.