Well, currently, I’m only 19, and no SO, so I get to say whatever I want in regards to having children - none of it’s concrete until I actually have someone to really discuss it with, haha. I have quite a few friends who come from families of 6 or more kids, and all of them seem really happy to have as many siblings as they do. One of my close friends from high school is the second oldest of 7 girls, and she said she’d love it if her mum and dad did end up having an 8th, but with her older sister being 19 at the time, it wasn’t likely.
I think the experience I’ve had with friends from big families, my upbringing, and working with children (in my rural area, most of the families are younger parents with 5+ kids), I’ve set my mind on at least 5-6. But again, it all depends on my future partner, financial situation, how old I am when I start having children, medical issues (my parents wanted 8 children, but could medically only have 2), etc. Everyone in my family is fairly convinced that I’m crazy though, because none of them have more than 4 children.
We’ll just have to wait and see what the future holds for me, I guess!
My Dh and I just welcomed our first baby, a girl, in [name_u]November[/name_u]. Ideally we would like to have two kids, but if we end up only with one we will be fine. I am the oldest of two, I have a brother who is almost three years younger than me. The two of us have always been close. My DH is the oldest of four boys. They range in age from 17-26. He liked growing up with that many brothers but he said he only wants two children.
I honestly am not sure! I think my husband and I want at least 3, but I hear that 4 kids is way easier than 3… so we’ll see. Right now I’m happy with my one baby for a few years, haha.
When I was growing up, I never understood how people could stand being married if they didn’t have kids. It just seemed so boring. Then I got married and I was surprised by how much just the two of us felt like a family.
We ended up spending many years as a two person family, and it was never boring.
We both assumed we would have as many kids as possible, because we both loved (and hated) growing up with our siblings and we both had wonderful (and extremely stressful) adult relationships with them. We never considered having an only child.
Then we found we couldn’t have any children. We have been tremendously blessed by being able to adopt our son. And we are continually dumbfounded by how much we love our little family and how complete this trio feels. He has many same age friends and cousins, so his childhood doesn’t feel lonely or overly adult-centered.
He is only three right now, so who knows what we will do in the future, though. I have always thought that while any age gap can work perfectly, the ideal is four years. I am basing this on a combination of personal experience, child psych 101, WHO recommendations, and dimly remembered college anthropology courses. So you know, expert opinion over here. We are coming up on four years, anyhow, so this seems like decision making time.
Given the complexity of adoption, we will likely only try for one more (if any.) If we could just get careless and end up with more kids, we probably still wouldn’t limit it. Though honestly, it is really hard to say without having that experience.
My husband and I have never had a preference regarding girls vs boys. We would be thrilled any way that could possibly go. The more I raise my son and spend time with other little kids, the more I am.convinced that the fact that biological sex has nothing to do with personality, preferences, or abilities.
That’s how my dad and his siblings were; they loved growing up together with that many people but none of them ended up having more than four kids themselves. I think three was the maximum that most of them had planned for.
For me it was really fun to have so many cousins. I feel kind of bad for my kids in that respect, because my only brother doesn’t have kids yet, and mine will probably never know what it’s like to be one of soooo many cousins. But my cousins are having kids left and right now.
My grandma has 14 great-grandkids: (actually, 15 if you count the one on the way, but she doesn’t know about it yet)
[name_u]James[/name_u] (mine)
[name_f]Lorelei[/name_f]
[name_m]Will[/name_m] (mine)
[name_f]Elizabeth[/name_f]
[name_m]Allan[/name_m]
[name_f]Elise[/name_f] (mine)
[name_m]Caleb[/name_m]
[name_u]Charlie[/name_u]
[name_f]Lauren[/name_f]
[name_f]Emily[/name_f]
[name_f]Calista[/name_f]
[name_f]Lilah[/name_f]
[name_m]Zach[/name_m] (mine)
[name_u]Carson[/name_u]
(unnamed #5, mine)
I am currently expecting number 3. Originally we wanted 4 to 5 children. We have two daughters and haven’t found out if number 3 is a boy or girl yet. My husband says if it’s a boy he would be ready to stop at three. Thinking this could be my last pregnancy makes me sad! Boy or girl, I would still like 4, but maybe I’ll change my mind after her/she arrives?! Our 2 girls get along beautifully, so I’m really hoping that #3 will be well received by them. But, I actually think the older siblings being girls is sort of nice because they are both maternal and love helping mommy, so I think they will be good little helpers (sometimes!) when baby comes along. I am also secretly hoping it’s a girl, because I love my girls and that’s what I “know”, and we have a girl name that I love and no boy name!
Thank you, haha, I think realistically, I’d have 6, but I wouldn’t be against 8 Thank you for that as well, [name_f]Elsie[/name_f] [name_f]Kathleen[/name_f] has been a favourite of mine for a while
Congratulations to you too! We’re pretty sure her name is going to be [name_f]Margaret[/name_f] [name_f]Rose[/name_f] and we’ll call her [name_f]Maggie[/name_f]. I do worry that [name_f]Maggie[/name_f] might sound too similar to [name_f]Mary[/name_f] but if that causes a problem we can always use one of the other many nicknames for [name_f]Margaret[/name_f] such as [name_f]Daisy[/name_f]. My husband really likes [name_f]Maggie[/name_f] though so for now at least that’s the nickname we’re planning on using.
I’m the oldest of 3 and there definitely are alliances. My two sisters fight like cats and dogs. I don’t fight with either of them nearly as much as they fight.
My min is 4 (I know, high minimum) and my max is 8. In a perfect world I would have 8 kids but that’s very unlikely. I would like to have more girls than boys because I’ve grown up with two sisters, two girl cousins, and I’ve danced with girls so I have no idea what I’d do with a bunch of sons. I’ve always wanted a big family because I love babies and kids.
Gorgeous! [name_u]Love[/name_u] it. I’m jealous, I wish I could get [name_m]Joe[/name_m] to agree to [name_f]Margaret[/name_f] or [name_f]Maggie[/name_f] (or especially [name_f]Daisy[/name_f]). What a great set of names your kids have.
Thanks, fingers crossed that all goes well for us both.
Thanks! My husband had previously nixed the name since he knew a girl at school named [name_f]Margaret[/name_f] and he didn’t like her. But right after I got pregnant I started really pushing for [name_f]Rose[/name_f], which he didn’t like or dislike and told him that if he wanted something better he would have to convince me. He shocked me when he suggested [name_f]Margaret[/name_f].
Good luck! I’m sure you’ll come up with a wonderful name for your little one too!
My husband and I want 4 - 6 children. At the moment we’ve got 3 boys. I don’t care about the gender. A lot of people say to me “you must hope for a girl”, but I don’t. It’s all the same to me, I welcome every child God gives me with an equal amount of love and happiness.
Whatever number of children is best for you depends on so many different things. But I don’t want to stop at 3, because there’s always one, usually the middle child, that gets left out a bit. I’d like my children to be close in age, by this I mean about 2 years apart.
We might stop at this one depends how the rest of my pregnancy goes, but so far so good! I’m crazy high risk and I have a 70% chance of dying if I go into natural labour. I’m being c-sectioned at 34-36 weeks to try and prevent that and I’m getting my cervix stitched too at 22 weeks to get me through to 34 weeks.
But, I’m not sure if I want to play with those odds again!
I feel like this question comes up quite a lot, but hey I’ll answer again because it’s fun.
I very definitely want two children only. In an ideal world, a girl and a boy, but if it ends up being two girls so be it! (I’m pregnant with the first right now and we know it’s a girl). My reasons:
I think having a sibling is important and extremely valuable, in the adult years even more so than in childhood (and especially when your own parents grow old and die). Close cousins could be good as well, but not ever quite as good as a sibling. If I can, I really want my children to grow up and live their whole lives with a brother/sister.
I have a finite amount of time and resources and I want my children to get the maximum from me. The more children I have, the less I have to give each one. I know a lot of people don’t see it this way, but to me it’s unavoidable! It’s not just about money, although yes I want to be able to afford to travel with my kids and to get them bikes and books and pay for any extra-curricular sports/activities they are interested in pursuing, without feeling too much financial pressure. But I also consider one-on-one time between parent and child extremely valuable. The more kids I have, the harder it would be for me and their father to regularly provide that for all of them.
Pregnancy and childbirth is a massive strain on a woman’s body, and a real risk to my health. I know it’s not a big risk in developed nations like Iceland, but the risk is definitely there. Plus pregnancy is not a fun time, and I know childbirth isn’t going to be a day at the zoo. Sure it has its upsides (it is majorly cool to feel the baby kick inside me, and see her on the ultrasound screen, and I guess it’s pretty nice to not have periods for 9 months), but a lot of it really sucks and to be honest it’s a means to an end for me. If my boyfriend could have been the one actually carrying the baby, I’d have jumped at that opportunity. It’s worth it to get my baby, but I don’t want to be one of those woman who spends years of her life pregnant - I just don’t have that in me.
Plus I had one miscarriage before this pregnancy and one was bad enough (and as miscarriages go, mine was very ‘easy’) - I also want to minimise the risk of having to go through that emotional and physical trauma again.
If something happens and it turns out that this baby will be our only child, I would be very disappointed, but it would ultimately be OK. To me it’s a kind of pay off, and if I didn’t believe so fervently in point number 1, I would be happy to not even try for a second. I suppose it’s conceivable that I’ll change my mind in the future, but I don’t think so. I think bf would be happy to have more than two (although he’s fine with the idea of two), but since he doesn’t have a uterus he’ll be lucky.
Very well said, especially points 1 and 2. I strongly believe that a sibling relationship is important. I have one brother, but I am one of 10 cousins and we’re all close, but there’s a huge difference in my relationships with my cousins and my relationship with my brother.
The more children I have, the less I have to give each one. I actually agree. I want a big family, but I also want to be an involved parent to them. It’s not so much about the financial aspect of it for me, because judging from our position now we’ll be living as frugally with one or four. As for time and attention, I think 4 is as many as I can devote time to, that’s why it’s my ideal number.
I would love at least four, but I’m not a mum yet so don’t know what birth and bringing up a baby is like. I think two little boys first (quite close in age) would be great and then a girl or two. I would like each of my kids to have at least one brother and one sister so four would have to be my minimum but i would possibly have more 6-7ish?
I’d say 2-5 and then we’d be done most likely somewhere in the middle 3-4. I grew up in a huge Catholic family and my parents had 6 kids themselves. I remember wanting 8 or even 10! But I work in childcare right now so I’m more apt to say 3-4 is a better number. Especially since I don’t want to SAHM and want to have my career too.
“Ideal” is going to be completely dependent on the parents and family. For me, career considerations play a role (maternity leave in the US is practically nonexistent), as do my preferences for order and cleanliness, which kids have quite the talent for destroying Knowing my personality, I’m just not cut out to raise a large number of children.
We’ll probably have two. I’d like one of each, but if we have two boys or two girls first we won’t try again just for the sake of trying for the other gender.
I don’t have kids yet, but am very much a forward thinker about these things. As others have said, it depends what’s important to you, I have a massive travel bug and want to able to share that with my children. Four is what I dream of, my two cousins, my brother and I really grew up as a set of four, even before my aunt passed away. We were just almost always together and I value that kind of life for my children as well. I am six months old than my cousin Zachary, his sister Isabella is three years younger than him and than my brother is two years younger. Unfortunately for my parents, they lost a child between my brother and I, so my brother is six years younger than me and we’re still as close as ever.
But logistically, I may have to have two close together so we can travel, and then either have two later or adopt two. Three is really the extent of stretch you get as a travelling family, when it comes to accomodation (as in pull-out beds,) but I’d like to think that I could have two that reach teenager-dom together and two that are littler and about the same age. That way, once the older two reach university, we can really give the younger two the opportunities that their siblings had travelling and what-not. It also depends on what sacrifices you’re willing to make. Until you’ve really been there, I think it’s a hard thing to judge, so nothing is finite yet. It depends on so many factors: money, health (emotionally, mentally and physically,) travel etc.
In terms of being able to give us attention and individual love, my parents have done a wonderful job, while helping raise my auntie’s kids (my uncle is alive and they live with him and us part time) so I feel confident that it’s definitely possible. I never felt like she loved them more or I was deprived in any way. My parents also paid for family holidays for the six of us on a cruise and I will be forever grateful for that. We’ve spent birthdays and holidays together our entire lives and when they aren’t here it feels empty. We’ve also had other cousins live with us throughout my childhood and I just couldn’t imagine not having four, so I really hope when the time comes that can be possible.
I am also going to be working with children, unless I divert at some point and so I think I’ll gain some pre-first child insight. Maybe the work will turn me off, who knows, but I doubt it!
Boy or girl, I would still like 4, but maybe I’ll change my mind after her/she arrives?! Our 2 girls get along beautifully, so I’m really hoping that 
Knowing my personality, I’m just not cut out to raise a large number of children.