If you don’t have more than 2 children, why?

[Anonymous]

I wanted 4 but stopped at 2 because:

1. I nearly died from pre-eclampsia, that plus a week in the hospital plus 2 weeks in the NICU was extremely traumatizing.

2. Costs (housing, food, etc) have nearly doubled where I live over the last 4 years and we can't afford it.

3. Zero childcare. Impossible to get into daycares and nannies are 3-4k per month.

4. I cannot do the sleep deprivation thing again. I had depression for 2 years from the sleep deprivation (second kid is a TERRIBLE sleeper). I tried to run my car off the road when it was at its worst.

5. I don't really enjoy raising multiple kids. One was perfect - we still had tons of time for our hobbies, we could travel, etc. Two kids has basically destroyed all our leisure time and traveling is a nightmare. My first is resentful of the time DD2 took from her and struggles with depression as a result.

Overall, having multiples sucks and if I could go back, I'd stop at one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
As an aside, I have WASPy family members who believe only animals are meant to have over two kids and look down on people with large families.

I understand. It's hard to be a parent to several children with severe cognitive disabilities, and it's hard for someone with severe cognitive disabilities to parent several children.

[Anonymous]

The amount of fighting between the two I have in mind-numbing. Love them immensely but can’t imagine this increasing exponentially with 3. Amount of parental time needed to shepherd 2 kids to their sports/activities/social events has us maxed out (and we want to be involved in their activities rather than farming this out to a nanny).

[Anonymous]

Really bad HG, didn’t want to put my body through pregnancy more than twice.
No family support, all of our family live overseas.
Finance, we don’t come from money so we have to financially take care of all our needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH was one of 4 kids and thought it was too many. Was clear before marriage that two was his max. Two was my minimum, so that made it a pretty simple decision.

Curious what your DH's birth order was. I am one of four as well and it's interesting to see how different our takes on that being a good or bad number of kids are:

Eldest had 2 kids
Second had 4 kids
Third had 1 kid
Fourth had 1 kid

I always think of this when people talk about the positives and negatives of having 3+ kids. I think people forget that siblings tend to have very different experiences within a large family and that sometimes the benefits of big families get concentrated in one or two kids. Which also means the downsides of being in a big family can get concentrated in one or two kids. I think willingness to have more than 2 kids requires you to believe that it will be good for all your kids and in my experience this is unlikely -- the more kids you have the more likely it becomes that at least one of your kids will struggle due to being lost in the shuffle.

DH is third. His siblings kids:

Eldest had 5
Second had 2
Third had 2
Youngest has none, and won't.

The oldest and youngest complain the most about their childhood/family dynamic, and have the most and least kids. The middle two are just pretty mellow and understanding. I'm not sure how much of that is birth order vs personality, but I agree that birth order really does affect life experiences. I was the oldest in my family so I didn't believe that growing up, but now as a parent I really do.

[Anonymous]

2 was for zero population growth

In 2002 I no idea how sh*tty things would be in 2024. I feel so badly for bringing my kids into this.

[Anonymous]

I only wanted one and happy with an only so we could:

1. Fully pay for all education - undergrad, grad, etc…
2. Help post education with down payment house
3. Travel a lot
4. Have time for hobbies and friends outside the family
5. Max out our retirement and more


It’s been great and absolutely no regrets. Just went out to dinner and show with friend tonight.

[Anonymous]

We were getting old and 3 kids just looks really hard.

[Anonymous]

My husband and I chose to have two kids, so we do (after a lot of trying and IVF) and are very grateful. Actually, our second had been a twin whom we sadly lost during pregnancy.

What would make me have more? Had I become pregnant somehow without trying (and birth control failing), I would have had the baby. Or in the horrible but highly unlikely situation of family members or close friends dying (we're the designated guardians for 6 kids). Or if I had felt some persistent drive to have additional children for whatever reason (but neither my husband nor I did).

OP, would you share how may children you have, and why not more and why not fewer in your case?

[Anonymous]

My ex-husband left me when the second child was a baby. Having 2 “baby daddies” was a NO for me. I want to be clear it is only a no for me. What other people do with their families- step/blended/yours mine ours is their business. I just knew immediately I didn’t like the idea of having children with more than one man.

This was 15+ years ago my children are heading to high school graduation age. He didn’t have anymore children either.

[Anonymous]

It’s pretty simple. I couldn’t be the mom I want to be to my kids and the wife I want to be to my husband with more than two kids. That’s not to say others can’t do it, I just couldn’t. The end.

[Anonymous]

Because I have a career I enjoy and feel complete with our family of 4. I appreciate that others may want big families. I am not one of those people and most of the women I know with 3 kids or more are stay at home moms or if they work out of the home they are quite stressed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:2 was for zero population growth

In 2002 I no idea how sh*tty things would be in 2024. I feel so badly for bringing my kids into this.

What? Turn off the news. We’ve never lived in a safer or more affluent time. Really.

[Anonymous]

Energy and cost.

We were 34 when married, 36 with 1st and 39 with 2nd. I was going to set the limit at age 40 for a kid and we got our boy and girl so done. A personal decision to be sure as I just did not want to go through the infant stages of not sleeping and dealing with childcare with a 3rd kid post age 40.

Money has A LOT to do with it of course. If I were made out of money and knew I could get help for as long as I wanted I think I'd consider it. If I had family support, maybe as well.

In my reality, there was no way we would have a 3rd knowing what we knew with 2. Hell, if the first had been a girl and had I more family (aka cousins for my kid) I likely would have stopped at 1 kid as DH wanted to do. The amount of money it takes now is soul crushing. To live in UMC neighborhood and to be able to find preK and childcare is outrageous. I'm not sure how anyone has more than 1 kid who doesn't have bank. I say that as a very successful working mom - and with 2 kids now tween/teen aged - it's just as much time and costs with activities, carpools, school worries/mental health, etc.

The other thing is - if your kid as any learning disabilities it doesn't come out till they are older. So until age 10, both my kids were "easy." But nowadays, with one having ADHD and dyslexia and the other anxiety, I say thank god we don't have 3.

If you don't have a village, having kids is super hard. Looking back, if we had 3, we'd be dead!!! LOL

[Anonymous]

Because a kid costs >$250,000 to raise.