For the people who were on the fence about having a 4th, whatever you decided...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Merit based is the key. Not illiterate, no more landscapers.

Who is going to cut my lawn though?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I posted earlier about being happy with three, and I think the focus on the long-term misses the point. There's a long, LONG time between now and 2060, or whenever those imagined big family holidays with functional adult kids and grandkids will be. A long time. You have to raise your kids to get there. It's not just about getting through the newborn phase, it's about raising your kids into early adulthood; even then, parents are parents for life. Adding a fourth person into the mix is a big deal. Mosey on over to the Midlife (or whatever it's called now) forum and see the parents upset that their adult children don't want to spend time with them. Don't have children because of what you imagine their and your future to be, and think about the practical reality of raising kids.

Also, OP, part of my reason for not having a fourth is that I really value my workouts. It's not shallow to prioritize my health and to consider the effect a fourth child would have on my ability to do that (or to sleep well, etc.). I want to be there for the kids I have now as long as possible.

Good thoughts. ~PP with 3.

[Anonymous]

I love kids but honestly have a hard time giving enough attention to two, let alone 3 or 4. Kudos to those of you who can. I thought I wanted 4 when I was young, but realized after #2 that I didn’t have the bandwidth for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

A lot of people have mentioned not being able to travel and not having the time/money to redo the kitchen as a downside of having four. So if having a fourth means that all of your travel becomes domestic instead of international, and you don’t remodel your kitchen with Italian granite countertops, does this balance out the environmental impact?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:all the rental places have minivans. love our four

But where is there room for all the luggage then? With the third row up in a minivan, trunk space is limited. It wouldn’t hold 6 suitcases say if you were doing a weeklon* trip to the beach.

[Anonymous]

You need to make 200k/child

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Yeah, but the key word here is "Personal." Personal choices absolutely pale in comparison to corporate polluters, etc., which are the cause of the vast majority of the problem.

And I say this as someone who tries to make less-impactful personal choices and has only one child, by choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:all the rental places have minivans. love our four

But where is there room for all the luggage then? With the third row up in a minivan, trunk space is limited. It wouldn’t hold 6 suitcases say if you were doing a weeklon* trip to the beach.

I have four. We would have to rent two hotel rooms, so we typically do a vrbo for a weeklong trip to the beach. Then I just pack enough to last 2-3 days and do a load of laundry every day. We typically pack 2 suitcases, and there is plenty of room.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wrong place to ask, OP. DCUM viscerally hates bigger families.

Nobody viscerally hates big families. I hate people who use religion to pressure families to have more children than they want, and people who can't give their kids enough attention.

How do you feel about cultures that pressure people to have fewer children than they actually want? Or pressure men and women to work abnormally long hours in order to have well-regraded or “prestigious” careers?

Totally fine, actually. Those are not at all the same kinds of pressure that, say, ties a woman's worth to mothering, or declares birth control to be evil. And they don't result in unwanted/mistreated children.

[Anonymous]

No more uneducated immigrants. Too many kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My fourth is 5 years old now. Oldest child is 11. There is absolutely no part of me that regrets having him. He is just a great little kid, makes everyone laugh, and just has a great little personality about him. And I have no anxiety parenting him, which is fantastic. I know what I am doing and what kind of parent I am, so there is none of the stress I have with my oldest where everything is new.

One thing with having four though, is that for whatever reason, this is where you cross the line into “big family.” When I had one, I had one, two I had two, three I had three, but when I had four...suddenly people couldn’t remember if I had four or six or eight. When I went places with all of the kids, people would ask if they were all mine or if I was running a daycare. (It didn’t help that my best friend has five about my kids ages, so we often go out with all nine kids).

It can also be difficult to find a sitter sometimes.

The bolded is *so* true - random people asked us all the time when our kids were little things like: "Are they all yours???" "Are you Catholic?" "Are you Mormon?" "Are you missionaries" (this when we would travel internationally), "Do you homeschool?". It seemed like we went from a very normal three kid family and then all of a sudden, we were an odd "large" family.

I will say that now that our kids are older, four kids seems way more normal. And of my parents and ILs grandkid numbers, even with our four, our family is below replacement value because neither DH or my siblings have any or more than one kid each.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My fourth is 5 years old now. Oldest child is 11. There is absolutely no part of me that regrets having him. He is just a great little kid, makes everyone laugh, and just has a great little personality about him. And I have no anxiety parenting him, which is fantastic. I know what I am doing and what kind of parent I am, so there is none of the stress I have with my oldest where everything is new.

One thing with having four though, is that for whatever reason, this is where you cross the line into “big family.” When I had one, I had one, two I had two, three I had three, but when I had four...suddenly people couldn’t remember if I had four or six or eight. When I went places with all of the kids, people would ask if they were all mine or if I was running a daycare. (It didn’t help that my best friend has five about my kids ages, so we often go out with all nine kids).

It can also be difficult to find a sitter sometimes.

The bolded is *so* true - random people asked us all the time when our kids were little things like: "Are they all yours???" "Are you Catholic?" "Are you Mormon?" "Are you missionaries" (this when we would travel internationally), "Do you homeschool?". It seemed like we went from a very normal three kid family and then all of a sudden, we were an odd "large" family.

I will say that now that our kids are older, four kids seems way more normal. And of my parents and ILs grandkid numbers, even with our four, our family is below replacement value because neither DH or my siblings have any or more than one kid each.

I am glad to know that someone else had this experience!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No more uneducated immigrants. Too many kids.

We literally don't have enough kids. That's what "not at replacement level" means dumbass.