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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think anyone who is reading this thread who is an adult third child should weigh in here to help the OP.

I am the third and last of all girls. No, my parents should not have just "gone for it" and hoped for the best.  My arrival ushered in a lifetime of significant, chronic stress-related health problems for my now deceased (at 72) father.  He worked all the time, he had at least one affair and my mother was unable to develop a career. I know I am the elephant in the room in that family.  I know deep in my bones that had I never been born, my parents would have been free from financial stress and stress-created health problems. My older sisters would have had the attention and resources they needed.  It sucks for everyone but it sucks even more to be the one family member who was brought into existence and therefore ruined it for everyone.

In any case, if you end up having a third, please attend to your mental health and any unanticipated resentment that may arise---young people internalize that sort of thing and they may spend a lifetime hypervigilantly searching for cues from others that they are a burden.  I am mostly okay in mid-life, but I think the takeaway is that kids feel their parents' stress and draw conclusions about their worth.

To be clear, I'm still glad I was born![/quote]

Third child here.  I was the “easiest” of the the three of us, but god help my parents if I had not been.  Their lives would have been miserable. I think the thing it engendered in me was always feeling like I had to be flexible and helpful and responsible, seeing the strain my siblings put on my parents.  I felt the need to never add to that.  That’s not always resulted in the best things for me in adolescence and young adulthood.  [/quote]

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