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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm extremely anxious and type A and I knew that if I only had one kid it would put way too much pressure on my "one perfect child."  We have three which enables me to more evenly distribute my neuroses among them rather than piling it all on one kid.   [/quote]

Look, I'm a big believer that having kids can change you. Becoming a mom made me a more responsible person in a lot of ways. It also made me softer in someways, and stronger in other ways. Marriage also changed me. Relationships can help you work through your issues and that's good. I hope that your relationships with her kids helps you.

BUT if someone came to me and was like "I don't have kids yet but I'm super anxious and type A. So I was thinking I'll have 3 kids and that way none of my kids will get the brunt of my mental health issues and I can spread it around a bit. Good idea, yes?" Here is how I'd respond:

Put a pin in having kids at all. Take a year or two and see a therapist. Do some CBT to better understand your anxiety and control issues and come up with some tools for addressing them. Get to know yourself and see if you can make some progress. Then have one kid. Pay attention to how pregnancy and motherhood triggers your anxiety and control issues, keep up with therapy, get help if you need it. And take it from there. But no, I do not think you can solve your mental health issue by having 3 kids. I think you risk really screwing up your relationship with three children and not really getting any better yourself because you will be so busy raising three kids you won't have a lot of space in your life to address what is going on with you. I think you could spare both you and your future kids a lot of grief in the future if you instead focus on your mental health NOW, look for common sense solutions to these issues, and then keep it up as you grow your family with an eye always to what you can handle, what your anxiety triggers are, and how you makes space for healthy, productive solutions to mental health challenges.[/quote]

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