Anonymous writes:
"I have a question that I’ve never really heard discussed anywhere. Why does anyone want to have a second child? Full disclosure—I’ve never been one of those women who desperately want to have kids. Until I married my husband, I would have been fine not having any, and even then I would have been fine adopting. My husband was adopted so he really wanted to have a biological child, and we decided to go for it. I told him then that we’d have one and see how it went. I had a fairly easy pregnancy as pregnancies go, but hated pretty much 95% of those 10 months. I had a home birth, which I’m quite glad about, though it was a long labor. Our son, who is now 24 weeks old, is perfectly healthy, the happiest little boy I’ve ever seen, and really rather easy. I was thrown for a loop over how much time and energy and self-sacrifice was and is required, but not to the point of PPD, and I’ve been seeing a therapist for awhile because I was a bit worried about that. I returned to work at 3 ½ months and am now working full time. I love my son more than anything in the world, but my husband is already talking about Child #2, and I absolutely cannot imagine going through this again, much less going through it again while having Child #1. I was ready for him to get a vasectomy the day after I gave birth. I didn’t like being pregnant, I never want to be this sleep-deprived again, I’ve always needed me-time and am having a hard enough time getting that now. I realized the other day that I might feel a bit differently if I didn’t have to work fulltime, but there’s no option about that. I’m also amazed at the number of people who automatically assume we’re going to have at least one more child. Part of me thinks that I’m being smart at realizing my limitations. But part of me, of course, feels guilty and selfish. So I guess I’m just wondering, is there anyone else out there that feels this way?"
Good question.
I wanted to have a second child because my relationship with my own brother is so important to me that I really wanted that for my son. I knew intellectually I always wanted at least two kids for that sibling relationship, but when my first one was 6 months old I would not have been able to contemplate having another one at all.
Tis is a gut feeling thing, and sometimes it changes (often I think people feel ready for another child when the first one can run away from them) but some people really only ever want one. I think some people get won over by the argument that two kids entertain each other (after a certain point) so parents end up with less work overall by having two. (This argument may or may not be true.) Some people just feel social pressure to have two (or three) so they do it not because they really want to but because they know they can make it through, so why not? Some people do it because they think "no one ever regrets having another child," which I think is patently false. (I think you don't regret the person, but I've definitely known some people who realized that they'd had one child more than they could really deal with well.)
What are some other reasons people want to have another child? Are they different from the reasons people want to have one child? What about the reasons for having three, four, five, or more kids? Do you think most people think long and hard about it, or just do it before they talk themselves out of it?
