Anonymous wrote:My only has been in the bathtub for an hour. I cleaned the kitchen and am sitting on the couch with a glass of wine and DCUM. That’s pretty much the speed of parenting a school aged only. Plenty of time to give your kid as much attention as they want, plenty of time for self care. She has BFFs and cousins. I love being able to be the best version of myself all the time.

Anonymous wrote:Currently have one toddler right now who is so fun, but also a handful and very stressful for us - lack of sleep, daycare was closed due to COVID, etc.

We are getting older, so we need to decide this year whether to go for Baby #2. We do not have the luxury of time.

Right now, we are both ambivalent. And so, so tired. Exhausted. By 8pm, we collapse on the couch. Physically we are a lot less healthy since the birth of our child - a lot less sleep, eating unhealthy, lack of time to exercise, weight gain, etc.

We can afford a 2nd kid, but finances will be stretched thinner. We both work long hours in corporate jobs that require checking emails into the night.

Tell me more about:
-How you came to the conclusion to have a 2nd child
-How you came to the conclusion to just stick with 1 child
-In hindsight, are there moments when you wish you made a different decision? If so, what are those?
-Looking back, what advice would you give to yourself? What do you wish you knew at that time?

In truth, I think we feel some pressure to have a 2nd kid because "it's the right thing to do." We have other friends and family members with kids who have literally said to us "[NAME] shouldn't be an only child - that would be so sad!" There is a sense of guilt that we may be depriving our current kid a more fulfilling life with a sibling. Of course, we know deep-down this isn't true or rational: only-kids can can have extremely rich and fulfilling life experiences without a sibling.

But I hate to think that we were pressured into #2. I am content with our kid now and the fact that our child is getting easier to manage and more self-sufficient. In so many ways our baby was easy compared to other families we know, but it was also a lot more difficult in ways that pre-parent me could not have imagined.

This is a really tough decision. Thoughts?

Anonymous wrote:I'd do anything for my brother- if he needed a place to stay, money, whatever, I'd do it. Would I take a bullet for him? No.

When our parents died, our respective friends were more of our support than each other. We grieve differently. Our relationships with each parent was different.

To have a sibling bc of this or bc of that is selfish and fantasy speak. If it works out that way, great, but you should never, ever bring another human to this world because of what you THINK will happen. I had a second kid because my husband and I love the experience of parenthood and find it rewarding.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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.

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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.

Anonymous wrote: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.