Reply to How/why do people have a second (or more?!?!) child?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What a prescient discussion. I overhead two women talking in a coffee shop yesterday. They had multiple children and one was debating going for a 4th child. And the other woman was urging the other woman to have the fourth, but in the most toxic way possible:

Mom of 4: "You just have to go for it, don't think about it, like my pregnancies were so AWFUL that I prayed for twins because I just could not go through with it again and thank god I did have twins--they run in Ralph's family--and it was so hard but I look at my kids and I'm like yeah I finally have the thanksgiving table i want in 20 years"

Mom of 3: "Your oldest is 7, right?"

Mom of 4: "Yeah, we're almost out of the hard years. And it hasn't been easy. My middle child has sensory issues, she would NOT wear the dress I picked out for the family Christmas card, said it was scratchy. we're getting her evaluated."

Mom of 3: "But I just don't know, it's like, I get a panic attack just thinking about another baby. My parents cannot handle taking care of three at a time for more than like half a day, and my husband works all day out of the house."

Mom of 4: "Oh yeah, my parents are the same way. I told my dad absolutely no fox news on while he's watching my kids. I don't want them picking up bad habits from them."

Mom of 3: "Sometimes I think I might like to go back to work"

Mom of 4: "I work part time while my kids are sleeping, you can, too. You need a break from being the mom, always having to entertain the kids, I feel like I'm bozo the clown some days. Look into working the night shift while your husband watches the kids."

Mom of 3: "I'm 39...I just don't know about starting all over again with a newborn..."

Mom of 4: "Yeah, but it's kind of now or never. Just know that so many things can go wrong and you have to be fully emotionally and spiritually ready to have a special needs baby and there is nothing you can do to prevent it, you just have to know that that is your burden and your gift."

Mom of 3: "My mom had 6 kids and she was one of 12 so I don't know why I'm hesitating..."

Mom of 4: Now that I have four, when I look back to when I had just one I was like, "was I even a mom?" 
[/quote]

I have definitely also seen this type of logic applied to having more children. I once asked someone how she decided to have more children after her first. She said: “I wasn’t ready at all. I don’t know if you’re ever ready once you know what you have to go through to have a baby. So I just got the IUD out and kind of closed my eyes and did it.”

I mean….ok? I guess that’s one way to go about it. But what if you applied that logic to literally anything else in life? Getting married, for example: meh, I don’t really want to and don’t look forward to this but I guess I’ll just do it! If a friend came to me and told me that was their logic for getting married I’d be like, well, why get married? Maybe it’s not for you. But for whatever reason people see this as a totally acceptable way to decide to have more children.

One reason, I think, is that the social norms and expectations for having more than one child are sneakily strong, especially for people who come from a family of more than 2 children. For some it can feel like a requirement or an imperative to have a family of a certain size. They simply do not question it and actually seem to feel a duty to have a certain number. Another reason is that large families are sort of trendy these days, and some women are susceptible to those currents. I also think some people are impulsive, or at a minimum, not the type of people who sit and interrogate their decisions or have the willingness to change their minds. In a way I’m jealous of those people. What must it be like to not think every little thing through and just act?

It takes a lot of hard work to understand your own decision making in life, and on this issue when the origins and inputs for this particular choice are so convoluted, it’s even harder. Should I have another child?= structure of family of origin + spouse’s family of origin + hormones + personalities of all + long held beliefs that have never been challenged + what your friends are doing + instagram + baby 1’s temperament + your day job and ambitions+ how much support/money you have…the list goes on. There are so many various inputs, I can kind of empathize with why people just make a decision and deal with the consequences afterward.

But, OP, I think the best way to go about this decision is this: you have a child because you want to (or are willing to) go through the WHOLE experience of raising that child. That’s it. And although people go about this decision in other (less logical) ways, I think this is the question you ask yourself to get to the root of what you really want. [/quote]

I had anxiety about getting married and before trying to conceive each of my three children. Before buying my home. I have anxiety about every major life decision. Not sure your example is a good one. Plenty of people prone to overthinking or even just adequately considering things are like this. I’d be more concerned if someone didn’t have anxiety before making a life changing decision like a marriage or child.[/quote]

Sure, but having anxiety is not the same thing as not wanting to do something and then doing it anyway. I’m assuming when you asked yourself “do I want to go through this whole experience do this even though I’m worried about it?” Your answer was yes. For the person who said “I wasn’t ready but I just closed my eyes and did it,” is not the same as “I am worried about this but I also feel in my gut that this is what I want.” Perhaps they weren’t expressing themselves clearly and the latter is really what they meant to say. But I’ve encountered the former line of logic more than once—and it even appears on this thread. Each time I encounter it I wonder what’s underneath there.

Anxiety about a wedding is one thing. Anxiety about who you are getting married to is another. One I would push through, the other I would not ignore. Same thing with the baby question. Some worries may be worth pushing through, some may need to be given space to figure out a path forward. [/quote]

Agree with this. And I think specifically related to the pressure people exert on people -- there is way more pressure on people to just ignore worries and fears and "go for" another kid (or the first kid) than there is to do the same with marriage. If I'd told a friend before I got married that I just didn't feel ready or still had doubts if this was the right choice for me, I feel pretty confident most of my friends would have said, "Then don't! Put it off. This is a big decision and there is no reason to jump into if you don't feel ready."

But I had many friends and especially family members push me to have kids before I was ready, and to have more kids when I expressed reluctance about it. For some reason I never felt pressure from married friends to also be married, but I often felt pressure from friends with kids to have kids, and then to have the same number of kids as they have. I'm guess people just want the connection of that shared experience but it's not a good reason to push someone else to have children. I have several friends with three kids and that would be a very bad choice for me. Not to mention that they have a lot more family support and were younger when they started having kids. So while I'm happy for them that they got the family they wanted, I have no desire to emulate it and I resented the pressure to have more kids when I knew it wasn't right for me.[/quote]

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