Reply to I haven't figured out how people raise children in DC

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Even though we chose to have two children, some people only want one. Whoever keeps dragging up that argument about having more just needs to deal with it.

If you are so caught up in other people's family dynamics, life is obviously very, very hard for you. I suspect you are overwhelmed with how ever many you have and are taking out on others. Either way you really need to get a life.[/quote]

Uh . . . sure. Except this is a forum about parenting and the choices and trade offs people make. The purpose is to discuss family dynamics with other people. If you find that too intrusive, then don't participate.  This excessive defensiveness about choosing to have one or more children is unwarranted. I find it interesting that none of those carping on about how their choice to have a single child was best for them, their lives, their preferences, etc. have not spoken to whether they considered whether it is also best for the child. I suspect that's what most of the heavy pushback is about.

Look, the time is past when women were expected to stay home and crank out kids. Unless you're expected to produce an heir to the throne, no one realy gives a toss about how many kids you have.  So stop carrying on as if the very idea of questioning why someone would have only one child is an attack. 
[/quote]

For me, it is not defensiveness. It is annoyance with the forehead-smacking obstinacy of the sibling argument. It is not always better for children to have siblings. It is just not. Not all of us love our siblings and feel they contributed something meaningful to our lives. The kind of relationship your adult children are going to have is unpredictable. So having another child that a parent cannot financially and/or emotionally afford so the first can have a playmate or a friend when he is older is ridiculous.

And for every argument you like to make about the joys of multiple parenting, I could argue the other side: emotional, financial, and time resources are stretched thinner for each additional child. Siblings do not get the same kind of attention they would as singletons and they suffer from first, youngest, and middle child syndromes--after all, birth order has been shown to have sometimes negative psychological impacts. I COULD say all that, but I wouldn't, because I recognize that there is no right answer to how many children each family should have.

You, on the other hand, seem to feel that parents are choosing their own lives and happiness over the lives of their child by not providing an on demand play mate for their only children. You seem to believe that parents haven't considered what is best for their children because they did not make the same decision as you did or would.

My only has a great network of friends and family--cousins, close friends of over 20 years and their children, and access to a superb city and ALL of my financial and emotional resources.

So how is that NOT best for my children? Believe it or not, your child can have a very happy life outside of some far flung suburb with a cul de sac and multiple siblings.

Why do you insist on this ridiculous meme?[/quote]

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