Why do so many have more than one child?

[Draug]

Originally Posted by habernac

anyone who tells you 2 kids are twice the work are liars. It's closer to 3 or 4 times. I still wouldn't give it up for the world. But it's not easy some days.

So True .... but the third one is hardly more work than having the first two. She just blends into the chaos.

I think the second one is so much more work because with only 1 child, the wife naturally assumes much of the baby responsibility. With the second, Dad always has the responsibility of the oldest.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Locke

Forget kids, I miss 'Frank the Tank!'

And all this 'gotta have several kids so they can entertain each other and learn social skills' is garbage.

Seriously, most of the people that I know that came from huge families are weird, they lack the ability to interact with people who arent their family. They dont go out and make friends because they dont need friends when they've got 6 siblings.

From my experience, of which I don't have much, large families tend to be like that because the parents have so many kids to look after that they either pick favorites, or pick none at all.

And absolutely I've noticed that having 6 siblings will tend to make you stay 'in family' more. The kids that I know from large families don't play well with others and tend to be egotistical in certain ways. But of course, that could be best their parents keep telling them how special they are. Which might explain why they have so many kids, because continuing their own gene pool is important cause their kids are so special compared to other kids.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Draug

So True .... but the third one is hardly more work than having the first two. She just blends into the chaos.

My rationale was that two is definitely twice the work. But #3 is only 33% more kid, so it's practically a throw-in

[Russic]

Talking to a coworker who has 4 kids under 5 he mentioned that it almost helps with their development because there are so many problems that they can't fix everything or be everywhere. This forces the kids to work out their issues together, which many believe to be an incredibly effective strategy.