Reply to Ever regret having the third child

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[quote=Anonymous]I am from a large family (third of four kids) and I wish my parents had stopped at two. I think they would have been happier, but I especially think their kids would have been happier. More kids means fewer resources per kid. And because of age differences, it's actually impossible to allocate the resources equally. Impossible. You can never give your younger children the same amount of parental attention as the old children because there are simply more people around. People will say "oh, but they get attention from the older kids." Okay, in some families maybe that's good attention. In mine, it was not good attention because the older children were resentful towards the younger children. That's not love and care.

Also, having four kids took a serious toll on my parents' mental health while also zapping them of the financial and time resources they needed to address both these mental health issues and others that would have arisen no matter what (their own messy childhoods, middle age stuff, etc.). There was simply not enough resources to go around, to anyone. And we were relatively well off. But four kids is so many mouths to feed, so many educations to tend to, so many inner emotional lives to monitor and feed.

I think this only works if you have additional adults around. A very involved (or preferably multiple very involved) grandparents. A full time nanny. And even then, you are going to have to manage these complicated schedules. Plus, those extra adults have their own needs. What happens when your parents need end of life care. What happens when your wonderful nanny wants to move home to be near her own grandchildren. You need resources upon resources. Modern life is hard and complicated.

Don't have more kids just because you "love little kids" or "always dreamed of a big family." It's frankly selfish. Think what life will really be like for your children. Ask yourself if your fantasy of what life with a big family will be like is worth potentially having kids who resent their childhood and their siblings forever because they just did not get the love and support they needed as children. Really think about it.[/quote]

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