Reply to Parents of 3- do you wish you’d stopped at 2 or 1

Forum Index » General Parenting Discussion

Reply to "Parents of 3- do you wish you’d stopped at 2 or 1"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]As a parent of two, I consider a third because I think having more kids diffuses competition and self centeredness among overly coddles two children families.

My husband is one of two and his sister, although nice, is one of the most vain and self centered (and spoiled) people I’ve met. I 100% believe this outcome is a result of my in laws providing too much intense attention and coddling.

In general people I know from bigger families are close with their siblings and learned early how to exist amongst other people.

[/quote]

+1! I'm one of 2, my DH is one of 2. Both of us have "problematic" siblings, probably one of the things that drew us together. My brother also has two kids. DH's sister will not have children. I wish someone with kids broke the mold and had more than two, just to shake up the two-kid dynamic. We tried after our 2nd and it didn't happen. I find the dynamic of two kids produces such a binary - you compare every experience with your 2nd child to only your experience with your first. Siblings compare everything to each other only. Lots of concentrated attention, as PP mentions. Obviously we have biased opinions, but maybe a helpful anecdote.[/quote]

Even if this is true, I’m not creating another entire human just to (maybe) mitigate this. [/quote]

Agreed. And couldn't you mitigate it just as well by making some other parenting choices? The PP said "you compare every experience with your second child to only your experience with your first." Well... don't? Especially if you can see how this manifests competition and comparison in the family. Learn to treat your kids as individuals. And if it seems like they are getting too much "concentrated attention" with only two kids, you as a parent must learn to be more hands off.

The idea that having a third or fourth or fifth child is going to fix what you consider to be an inevitably unhealthy dynamic raises real questions for me. No one should feel that beholden to an unhealthy dynamic. As with most parenting challenges, you have to look at it from a few angles, maybe try some different approaches, and find something that will help and keep working at it. You don't just throw up your hands and say "well this is just how it is with two kids." It's so defeatist.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics