Reply to 1 kid vs. 2 kids - how did you decide?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We never gave much thought to having a 2nd child until I saw a friend of mine who is an only child. When both his parents died, he had a really tough time. Seeing what he went through I could not bear the thought of my child going through that.

Had an IVF for the 2nd child and 4 months of hospitalization requiring complete bed rest during pregnancy. Even ate while in a prone position for all those months. Several scares and absolute nightmare during that time.

Still one of the best decisions I made.[/quote]

I’m sure your friend did have a hard time. But....I want to push back on your interpretation that his only child status is definitely what made it hard for him. I don’t know the specifics, but most people have a hard time when their parents die. Perhaps it is particularly intense for only children, as many only children report having very strong relationships with their parents. But whether they have siblings or not, it is a massive loss for many people. I have a sibling. I have lost one parent. My sibling was NOT a major part of my support network for that loss...even though I have a good relationship with sibling and they were going through the same thing I was. We dealt with it differently. I was much closer to the parent who died, for one. So I relied much more heavily on my friends than on my sibling in the years immediately afterwards. As those with dead parents know, the loss is painful for a very long time, and at a certain point you are kind of on your own. Sibling did not and does not offer much comfort. Neutral.

The whole hypothetical “they’ll be there for each other when we die” is just...basically a fantasy. For all you know one of your kids could end up being an addict or marrying an abusive spouse or moving abroad or....(fill in the blank) and the next thing you know having had the second kid puts MORE pressure on your first as an adult. You don’t even know who your kids are yet! What makes you so confident that having another kid makes their adult problems—loss of parents, etc—easier? How do you know you aren’t making things harder for them?

Look, as others have said upthread, I really take issue with the “i had another one because i wanted my kid to have a sibling for x, y, or z reason” basically because you can’t predict the future. Many, many people have difficult, toxic, even abusive relationships with their siblings. Many people have positive relationships with their siblings. If you use this line of reasoning for having another kid, you’re saying: “there’s a 50%  that my kids benefit from each other and a 50% chance that they end up making one or each other’s lives worse! I’ll take those odds!”

Have another kid because YOU/ your partner want one!! The sibling thing is full of holes.

[/quote]

My friends loss is what got me thinking about having a sibling. It is not just the loss of parents. Once we became aware and considered the pros and cons of a sibling, it opened up a lot of things that we did not even consider. Looking back at our own families, extended families and friends we have lots of examples of both only and multiple children families.

Having an only child is harmful to the only child in certain contexts - if the parents are of a type that are super focused on children, it leads to excessive and overbearing attention on the only child. It is suffocating for the child. On the other hand if the parents are not going to be as focused on the children having two only makes it worse. Again, it depends.

It also changes the elder child and in many ways you can consciously control this if you pay attention. The family dynamics change as well when another person is introduced.

Going back to evolution, what has humankind most adapted to for thousands of years? Sibling or no sibling? It is with siblings by a long shot. That is always a good starting point.

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