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'Why one child is enough for me - and might be for you, too'

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Dick Whitman, Jun 12, 2013.

  1. Lugnuts

    Lugnuts Well-Known Member

    Having 2 kids close in age.
    Having 2 kids far apart in age.
    Have 3 kids, 2 close, one outlier.
    Having 4 kids one after the other.
    Having 1 kid.
    Having 9 kids.
    Having kids while you are young.
    Having kids when you are older.
    Having a blended family.

    There are pluses and minuses to every. single. scenario.
     
  2. doctorquant

    doctorquant Well-Known Member

    Having read the story now, one thing kind of sticks out to me:

    I'm always surprised by the number of people who find these to be at odds, perhaps even mutually exclusive. I know that my wife and I entered our marriage fully intending to have multiple children. Now we also knew that nothing in this vale of tears is given, and that if child-bearing didn't work out we'd still be committed to our union. But we anticipated that our "mutual happiness and fulfillment" included, perhaps even depended upon, our "bearing and raising children."
     
  3. da man

    da man Well-Known Member

    One's plenty for me. You can have the other two. Especially if I get to pick which one stays.
     
  4. outofplace

    outofplace Well-Known Member

    It's funny how the stigma is so clear even on this thread. I don't know that Mizzou meant it as a criticism, but he basically said something has to be wrong for parents to stop at only one child, which is a load of crap.

    My wife and I have one child and we're done. Little OOP turns 10 next month. There is no trouble in the marriage. We're not in financial trouble. There were minor issues with the pregnancy, but nothing that would stop us from having another. And Little OOP was a very easy baby to take care of. Quiet. Mostly happy. Rarely sick. Slept through the night very early.

    We just decided it was right for our family.

    Luggy nailed it. There is good and bad to every situation and anybody who has an issue with us stopping at one can take a long walk off a short pier.
     
  5. outofplace

    outofplace Well-Known Member

    I wonder about any parents who have a child or children so there is someone to look after them when they are old. Sure, it would be great if our daughter helps us out as we get older, but it's our job to take care of her, not the other way around.
     
  6. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    That's a burgeoning social issue actually -- population falling below the "replacement rate." Really big deal in Europe and getting to be so here. Affects both the micro (individual families) and macro (economy with fewer and fewer employees paying into SS/Medicare and more and more elderly taking out.
     
  7. Iron_chet

    Iron_chet Well-Known Member

    I married in my late thirties to a woman who already had an 8 year old. She is 16 with a 5 and a half year old sister and a 20 month old brother.

    We tried to have the 2 little kids closer together but kept having issues so the last one being born was a suprise and a blessing because our time deadline for more kids was basically closed.

    The two little ones play together and the boy adores his older sister (and vice versa). The biggest suprise to me in all of this is how much the teenager interacts and genuinely enjoys her younger siblings. I would have never expected her to be so in to being a big sister.

    In my ideal scenario before I was married when I thought about kids I would have liked them all close in age but now I can't imagine it any other way, built in baby sitting does not hurt either but we don't take it for granted.

    The one thing that is a pain in the ass is that a lot of hotels won't let us have a fifth person in the room without an upgrade and the fact that we still have a mini van (which I really don't mind). Unfortunately we are about to trade our awesome fast as shit Infiniti SUV for something with a 3rd row of seats (#first world problems)

    If I was not the age I am now and my wife was willing I would definitely like another kid. FWIW I was an only child and thought it sucked!
     
  8. doctorquant

    doctorquant Well-Known Member

    I didn't read anything anybody's written here as involving someone having "an issue"* with deliberately stopping at one. More empirical observation than anything. But there's plenty of people who stop at one -- or, perhaps better put, choose to not "go" beyond one -- for no reason other than it seems right.

    And I think anyone here making such the suggestion that you have kids so someone will take care of you in your old age was kidding. I agree with OOP, though; you have children (or a child) because you want to give, not because you want to receive.

    *I haven't run up on the "dual" to this "having an issue" bit, but I know of people who have. Friends of one of my brothers-in-law had multiple sons (I recall three, but it may have been four). He was a financial muckety-muck in Seattle and she stepped back from her banking career to take care of the boys while they were young. Per them, they encountered a good bit of resentment among their peer group in Seattle, on occasion being derisively referred to as "breeders."
     
  9. doctorquant

    doctorquant Well-Known Member

    We've run into this a lot, too. It's as if our rolling in a 5-person posse violates some law or something
     
  10. deskslave

    deskslave Active Member

    I have read -- and completely agree with -- the notion that a separation of more than about five years means that the sibling relationship is different in many ways from what it is if the timeline is more "traditional." I have one of those blended families, and lived under the same roof as sisters who are 2 1/2 and 10 1/2 years younger than I am. There is no question at all that my relationship with the two who are 10 1/2 years younger is far, far different than the one with the elder sister.

    Wouldn't trade any of those relationships for anything, but it is definitely different. You can make any family set-up work; there just aren't as many instruction manuals for the nontraditional ones.

    (And yeah, when they came along -- virtually simultaneous to another stepbrother and stepsister -- family outings turned into massive projects. Difficult to do much of anything on the spur of the moment.)
     
  11. Alma

    Alma Well-Known Member

    Oh, I think today's parents could stand to be a little less about the kids. Because when they're all about the kids, they are, generally speaking, all about themselves being the best parents possible. Which, in my experience, leads to kids who damn well know they're the center of the universe, and know how to use the leverage at a rather young age.
     
  12. Here me roar

    Here me roar Guest

    I got one. On purpose. It's enough. Kid is fine, very sensitive to others and actually empathetic. Spoiled? Yup. Mine, I'll spoil it if I want.
     
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