Second child coming - what am I in for?

It's absolutely the case. That's why Malthuse, who predicted catastrophe due to population growth, was wrong. As standard of living increases, birth rate decreases. Even places like Bangladesh have seen a drop in birth rate over the last couple decades, as women have entered the workplace. Even happens when women are just stitching garments in a sweat shop. Many industrial nations like South Korea have birth rates so low right now that they are trying to figure out how to get people to have more kids.

In the United States, kids went from being an economic necessity because they worked and brought in money for the family or worked on the farm, to being an economic liability. Happened about early-to-mid 20th century.

 

My cousin who has five kids is a successful attorney and his wife has a really good job. Even with that, they can't afford to go on normal vacations as a family and they're freaking out about paying for college and stuff like that.

 

That's brutal. I don't think the topic of lineage has ever come up between me and my Dad. And if it did, I was the one who brought it up, more as a footnote than anything else.

Adding to Rusty & Dick's thoughts: My parents had two kids. Their kids each had a child apiece. Wouldn't be surprised 30 years down the road if my daughter and my nephew only have one child between them. (But hopefully not together. That'd be weird)

 

His dad is such an asshole it's scary. When they found out their first child was going to be a girl, he told my friend's wife, "Well, you can try again next time..." and when the second kid was a girl he told my friend, "Not all of us are man enough to have sons..."

My friend is a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force and has flown several tours in the war, but yeah, he's not enough of a man because he has two adorable daughters and doesn't feel the need to keep trying for a boy.

 

Can't answer the question, was only in that state for 18 minutes. Went from the double team to the zone instantly with twins when my oldest was almost 3. Tough first few months, but great for the most part since.

 

The lineage thing freaks me out.
There are only two males in the Rhody family - me and my cousin - left to keep the name going. I want a son because I've always wanted one, but keeping the family going is also part of it.
I feel bad for my father in law. He has three sons, two daughters and SEVEN granddaughters. The oldest son is done with kids - he has three girls - the next son is married to a woman who doesn't want kids ( but we're all begging) and the youngest of the sons has a girl, isn't married and would be the last hope.
We'll likely try for a third. The pregnancy is tricky with my wife's diabetes, but as long as her doctor says it's OK, we'll go again in 18 months or so for the third.

 

I say don't wait. If you can pop out triplets in a year, you can field a pretty impressive AAU team come 2027.

 

This is almost my exact situation. I waited later in life to have kids. After marrying a woman with a beautiful daughter we started to try to have kids a few years later. After miscarriages and other issues we ended up at the fertility clinic.

At the initial appointment at the fertility clinic we knew we had been pregnant again for a few days but even though everyone there was overjoyed for us we were somewhat non plussed because we had already lost 2. The pregnancy turned into our daughter who is now 6.

My wife endured 2 more miscarriages and we decided that because of age and heartache that we would stop trying as of a certain date and were more or less resigned to no more kids. On the last possible month of our self imposed cut-off we found out that my wife was pregnant again.

We ended up with a boy so there is a 4 year gap but while we would have liked them closer, we can't imagine it any other way. I really did not think they would play so well together, be great if it keeps up as they get older.

I have an uncommon last name so my Dad was a dickbag about a boy to carry on the name, something I could not give a rat's ass about. I am more happy for my wife in that after having 2 girls she gets to do all the fun little boy stuff.

I am also really happy that she will have (hopefully) a good man to come over and shovel the walk and take her out when I die (not being morbid, just following the stats!)

 

When we had two kids, we went places like Hawaii and Mexico.

Now we have four kids and we go camping or for a weekend in Tahoe.

 

Yeah, I'm guessing we would not be having annual trips to Disney World if we had four.