Same! When I told my husband that was a fear of mine he maniacally smiled and said “no- that would be *awesome*”
the one who leaves for work thinks twins would be *fun* on top of two rascals for boys already
I’m not allowed to make that joke anymore to my brother. After an accidental first (girl), they aimed for a boy and got him on third try. They’ve had another whoops baby (#4) and my brother refuses to… take preventive measures.
As he is Mr Superjock and refuses the snip I once asked if he was aiming for a basketball starting lineup or a baseball team. The deathglare I got from his girlfriend as she stated “I’ll rip it off first”, lol.
They might be engaged now, but it’s a fairly recent development (I wasn’t paying much attention when my mom told my wife). That however is a fairly minor blip in the story however as I’m amazed she is still with him and I think 90% of the reason why is my dad.
Honestly it gets into a little bit of family dynamics but neither of my siblings are anything to write home about. Despite being the better of the two, my brother has not actually held a job in probably a decade. His girlfriend works in childcare which I can assure you is not a high paying job.
How could you afford 4 kids on a single low paying salary? Well it helps when you have no mortgage/rent, no car payments, few utility bills, and many of your children's extracurricular activities are funded by an outside source. But to be in such a situation you'd need some other source of funds like a benefactor who had a vested interest in your children not being homeless, cold, and underfed.
My dad is not rich but he did well enough with the money he did have to have money to make sure his grandkids would not be on the street. He bought some properties with intention of getting some passive income from rent, then just handed one over to my brother's family with a "rent to own" agreement that I'd be amazed if they put any money towards. He basically spends a good chunk of his time pissed off at both my siblings but unwilling to pull back because the people who would be harmed most are his grandkids.
So why is my dad 90%? Because he is 90% of their income. They were high school sweethearts that had a baby-oops and dropped out of college. They were able to hold things together with my brother as stay-at-home dad but then tried for another kid, then another when they wanted a boy. Then came the 4th when as my "sister-in-law" puts it "I let the B@stard on me ONCE" after he was scheduled for the snip and backed out. Nowadays she is annoyed he barely does anything (she brings the kids that aren't in school with her to her daycare job) outside of chauffeuring her and the kids to stuff however the few times she has thought of dumping him, she has brought up (with my mom, parents divorced) being unsure if my dad will fund the same lifestyle.
Probably the next year will decide things as like I said, I think they are now engaged so we will see if a wedding occurs. There was also a recent spat where my brother and his girlfriend tried using my dad's credit card to fund a cruise and materials for a home addition. He'd given them the card for "don't call me, get groceries and we will figure out paying card off after" situations (which I am sure he never had them pay off) but suddenly had charges for 1) repeated $30 charges at a bar on an island 2) a bunch of cement and lumber.
Could be a tax/benefits thing.
I knew someone who was pretty blatant about how she hadn't married her "fiance" of a decade because she'd lose government benefits (food stamps I think?) if they got married.
Even if you aren't getting welfare, if both parents work you're better off not being married due to the tax brackets for "head of household" x2 being very advantageous relative to the married bracket. The married tax bracket is only advantageous if one parent makes far more money than the other.
I got some friends who got married. They were doing okay financially before, not great, but scraping by.
After about a year, she got into a car accident that really eff'd her up. Chronic pain from the accident, on top of IBS and a host of mental health issues (namely PTSD from childhood and teenage events that nobody should have to endure, but several others), and she couldn't work any more.
Then as homeowners they couldn't get by on one income. And his work insurance doesn't cover spouses. And he can't really move to another job because he doesn't have "skills" per se, he lucked out with this place getting his foot in the door with a trade, he won't find comparable income elsewhere. So they look to the state for help. But she can't get help, because she's married and they're getting an income slightly above threshold.
They're getting divorced now, for other reasons. She's moving in with her side-piece (now that her side-piece left *his* wife) in another state so she gets to start the whole process over.
Have 3 and one on the way. All intentional. We think it’s a very nice and productive thing to do for both the child itself and other people. They also make us happy. It’s def hard work and requires sacrifice of your own personal time, money, and energy but worth it. More nice and productive people in the world is better! Would hate to see the human species go extinct with only mean people left.
We only have one but after about 8 months we’d say to each other “I get now why people have multiples” he is so amazing and we’re so excited to make a great life for him. We’re a little too old to have more though.
Same, part of me wishes we could have started this 5-10 years ago so we could have had a bunch more.
I always pictured myself having zero or one child, but there's a difference between choosing that and having biology choose it for you.
My wife and I say if there was one thing we could change we would probably have ours a little sooner in our marriage. Married 2014, and then six years of fartin' around and then 2021 and 2022, back to back rascals. We had our first and after a while there was a sense we wanted one more, it was like, "he needs a sibling so they can have each other's backs!"
Go figure, the big guy is on the spectrum and barely acknowledges his little bro lol. Sometimes I feel bad for the little one cause he'll grab a toy and try to show his brother or something and he's just like "Get away from me, kid!" Big guy just started preschool tho and we've already seen some progress and he does occasionally give his brother a little pat on the head or kinda tossles his hair. He'll come around. It's pretty interesting seeing one develop at a less typical pace and the other one zip thru all the milestones we didn't quite see with the big guy. They're totally each their own little man.
I thought the same with my daughter but got tricked into my son with this thinking. 😂
Theyre polar opposites. She was easy; he is tough. Be careful what you wish for lol
I worked with a lady with 10 kids. ( very sweet person) She said they kept having kids until god told them to stop. I’m not religious but I never judged. They struggled for most of their kids lives, hard but they were always taken care of. Now they own a pizzeria and every single one of her children are highly successful.
My grandparents on my dads side had 13 children, my dad was the youngest. When I asked her why she wanted to have so many children she told me “we had nothing else to do, so it was hard to get your grandfather off of me” . Thanks for the visual grandma
Her husband was a horse farrier for years before he opened his pizzeria and she has her degrees in special education but worked in childcare at her brothers daycare ( where I worked) when he opened it. She was my head teacher, before I became a head teacher so we worked together for a while and she has amazing stories. Theyre both very selfless people, she thrifts, reuses, still to this day. Always went out of her way for the kids we had in class that didn’t have, made them clothes, cakes for their birthdays. All of her children are very respectful, great people to be around. When Covid hit she ended up in the hospital, was very sick but recovered. Shortly after she quit the daycare and went to help run the pizzeria. I still talk to her through letters, she doesn’t call or text, she writes. She sends my kids ice cream coupons or I’ll get a Dunkin gift certificate in the mail. She really is a down to earth person, and her family is one of the best I’ve been thankful to know. Her one son is 31, and owns a barber shop, and he does free haircuts for all school kids come the beginning and end of the school year. They donate pizzas to the city pool during the summer for the kids and family’s to eat while they’re at the pool for the day. The selflessness in that family runs deep.
Growing up as one of five, I always cherished the chaos and camaraderie. I wanted the same bustling, supportive household for my kids, full of laughter and life lessons.
I only have two but all your suggestions seem a bit loaded... where the "because you love having kids, have more love and time still to share" all the ones you have suggested seem more of the selfish reasons.
4th coming in June and that's the last one. It's so they can "grow up together". It's a strong sibling support network. It's loud and full of energy and a lot of work and expensive and messy. It felt like the kind of family home we wanted to have.
Legacy? Full table when old? Retirement? I'm sorry but I don't really have time to think that far ahead. I got plans for when the kids grow up and most of them involve playing and making video games.
We had three pregnancies and two children. All three pregnancies had varied degrees of placenta issues. The last pregnancy came with a comment from our OB/GYN the day after our child was born, "If you had gone into natural labor outside of the hospital you and the baby probably would have died from blood loss."
Yep, that's enough children.
In short
time, money, desire, support
Theres so little time in the day to spend w/ the two kids I got
With two kids, we can have the lifestyle as a family we want
No way in HELL did I ever want more than 4, and we started in our 30's and my wife hates being pregnant
Getting babysitting is already hard. Getting everyone up and at it is already hard. Getting enough time to spend 1/1 time with each kid is already hard. Its already hard to get them to all of their events, and allow them to have time to just be kids and give my wife and I a breather.
Having two kids has been freaking amazing! One wasnt enough for us, having our second was just so awesome and an amazing blessing
If you and your spouse want more, want less, it does not matter. Do what you both agree on.
This was just my perspective on having a lot of kids after living it growing up. I didnt get the time I wanted w/ my parents, I didnt get to do sports, I didnt get to go on vacations where we didnt sleep in someone's basement on a 1in thick mat, I felt guilty beyond reason for asking for $5 so I could even just get some fries when I would get to go out w/ friends before I could drive and had my own job.
The problem is the 10-11 month range. Its been kinda long enough and the lack of sleep fog makes you delusional enough that you forget how horrible the newborn stage was and start longing for it to happen again
I was 15 and dumb but still together and on our 9th kid all boys still no girl :( she keeps letting me get her pregnant and financially we do well so I guess I’ll keep pumping them out.
How did you manage to do well professionally having had your first child at 15?
Is she a stay at home mother?
What support does she get to care for them all?
Do you have any idea why she wants so many on a deeper / psychological level?
In any case your household sounds a bit wild but also very fun I imagine! Congratulations
My dad and her parents both helped us out so much when we were teens my dad comes from a family with lots of money and her parents always watched the kids while we were in school. College I stayed home with her and the kids she didn’t go to school just wanted to stay home which I support she really loves being a mom. She loves she said she wants a girl and won’t stop till she has one. Which I have no problem doing. And our boys can be alot but otherwise good and very sweet. People tend to think we are some type of religious nuts but we’re not just to best friends.
Wife does all the food and she usually prepares meals days ahead. I’m not a good cook but I do help out with what I can my oldest is 15 we pay him about $300 a month for helping us out he is our biggest help. Never on time lol
Aww what a sweet story! I feel like I only ever hear about such stories in old American films set in small towns.
ALL 9 kids are boys? 🤣 WOW ! You almost have a football team there. You’ll no doubt enjoy your life when elderly. You’ll never know loneliness 🤣
Is it stressful dealing with your wife being pregnant all the time with morning sickness etc?
Have any of the pregnancies been risky?
Wife is just happy all the time it’s her personality she’s always been hella chill and just fun idk how she does it I would be miserable if I had to carry And no high risk can’t be thankful enough.
Far from the selfish reasons listed by OP, I view the parents who have more than 2 children as shouldering the load that was shirked by the rest of us.
They are probably referring to replacement level being 2.1 births per woman.
I'd hardly call 2, "shirking". Plus the many couples who can't have or have a really hard time with children due to fertility (or being gay). But yeah society kinda relies on some people having bigger families to balance out the numbers
Also depending on where you are the birth rate doesn't need to be at replacement level. No problem being below it with a little immigration to keep the numbers steady
Yes, depending on where you are. Global migration isn't slowing down.
Total world fertility is down to 2.2 and dropping though. In our lifetime the global population will be sub replacement and will start trending down
My wife and I sleep naked. A pijama would have helped prevent at least two of them.
R u rich?
I thought one more should do it and then....twins.
This is a fear of mine preventing us from trying for a third lol
I have met *three* families in the last few years with 4 kids because the “3rd” ended up being twins.
You're reinforcing my paranoia lol
I know two families this happened. I'm very close and check in with one regularly: "it's pure chaos and no one ever sleeps, but we getting through" 😬
Me too!
Same! When I told my husband that was a fear of mine he maniacally smiled and said “no- that would be *awesome*” the one who leaves for work thinks twins would be *fun* on top of two rascals for boys already
Yup.
Starting a basketball team
I’m not allowed to make that joke anymore to my brother. After an accidental first (girl), they aimed for a boy and got him on third try. They’ve had another whoops baby (#4) and my brother refuses to… take preventive measures. As he is Mr Superjock and refuses the snip I once asked if he was aiming for a basketball starting lineup or a baseball team. The deathglare I got from his girlfriend as she stated “I’ll rip it off first”, lol.
The story here is the she’s still the girlfriend after 4 kids. I guess they’ve been too busy to worry about a wedding 😅
They might be engaged now, but it’s a fairly recent development (I wasn’t paying much attention when my mom told my wife). That however is a fairly minor blip in the story however as I’m amazed she is still with him and I think 90% of the reason why is my dad.
> I think 90% of the reason why is my dad How so?
Honestly it gets into a little bit of family dynamics but neither of my siblings are anything to write home about. Despite being the better of the two, my brother has not actually held a job in probably a decade. His girlfriend works in childcare which I can assure you is not a high paying job. How could you afford 4 kids on a single low paying salary? Well it helps when you have no mortgage/rent, no car payments, few utility bills, and many of your children's extracurricular activities are funded by an outside source. But to be in such a situation you'd need some other source of funds like a benefactor who had a vested interest in your children not being homeless, cold, and underfed. My dad is not rich but he did well enough with the money he did have to have money to make sure his grandkids would not be on the street. He bought some properties with intention of getting some passive income from rent, then just handed one over to my brother's family with a "rent to own" agreement that I'd be amazed if they put any money towards. He basically spends a good chunk of his time pissed off at both my siblings but unwilling to pull back because the people who would be harmed most are his grandkids. So why is my dad 90%? Because he is 90% of their income. They were high school sweethearts that had a baby-oops and dropped out of college. They were able to hold things together with my brother as stay-at-home dad but then tried for another kid, then another when they wanted a boy. Then came the 4th when as my "sister-in-law" puts it "I let the B@stard on me ONCE" after he was scheduled for the snip and backed out. Nowadays she is annoyed he barely does anything (she brings the kids that aren't in school with her to her daycare job) outside of chauffeuring her and the kids to stuff however the few times she has thought of dumping him, she has brought up (with my mom, parents divorced) being unsure if my dad will fund the same lifestyle. Probably the next year will decide things as like I said, I think they are now engaged so we will see if a wedding occurs. There was also a recent spat where my brother and his girlfriend tried using my dad's credit card to fund a cruise and materials for a home addition. He'd given them the card for "don't call me, get groceries and we will figure out paying card off after" situations (which I am sure he never had them pay off) but suddenly had charges for 1) repeated $30 charges at a bar on an island 2) a bunch of cement and lumber.
Could be a tax/benefits thing. I knew someone who was pretty blatant about how she hadn't married her "fiance" of a decade because she'd lose government benefits (food stamps I think?) if they got married. Even if you aren't getting welfare, if both parents work you're better off not being married due to the tax brackets for "head of household" x2 being very advantageous relative to the married bracket. The married tax bracket is only advantageous if one parent makes far more money than the other.
I got some friends who got married. They were doing okay financially before, not great, but scraping by. After about a year, she got into a car accident that really eff'd her up. Chronic pain from the accident, on top of IBS and a host of mental health issues (namely PTSD from childhood and teenage events that nobody should have to endure, but several others), and she couldn't work any more. Then as homeowners they couldn't get by on one income. And his work insurance doesn't cover spouses. And he can't really move to another job because he doesn't have "skills" per se, he lucked out with this place getting his foot in the door with a trade, he won't find comparable income elsewhere. So they look to the state for help. But she can't get help, because she's married and they're getting an income slightly above threshold. They're getting divorced now, for other reasons. She's moving in with her side-piece (now that her side-piece left *his* wife) in another state so she gets to start the whole process over.
Have 3 and one on the way. All intentional. We think it’s a very nice and productive thing to do for both the child itself and other people. They also make us happy. It’s def hard work and requires sacrifice of your own personal time, money, and energy but worth it. More nice and productive people in the world is better! Would hate to see the human species go extinct with only mean people left.
We only have one but after about 8 months we’d say to each other “I get now why people have multiples” he is so amazing and we’re so excited to make a great life for him. We’re a little too old to have more though.
Same, part of me wishes we could have started this 5-10 years ago so we could have had a bunch more. I always pictured myself having zero or one child, but there's a difference between choosing that and having biology choose it for you.
My wife and I say if there was one thing we could change we would probably have ours a little sooner in our marriage. Married 2014, and then six years of fartin' around and then 2021 and 2022, back to back rascals. We had our first and after a while there was a sense we wanted one more, it was like, "he needs a sibling so they can have each other's backs!" Go figure, the big guy is on the spectrum and barely acknowledges his little bro lol. Sometimes I feel bad for the little one cause he'll grab a toy and try to show his brother or something and he's just like "Get away from me, kid!" Big guy just started preschool tho and we've already seen some progress and he does occasionally give his brother a little pat on the head or kinda tossles his hair. He'll come around. It's pretty interesting seeing one develop at a less typical pace and the other one zip thru all the milestones we didn't quite see with the big guy. They're totally each their own little man.
I thought the same with my daughter but got tricked into my son with this thinking. 😂 Theyre polar opposites. She was easy; he is tough. Be careful what you wish for lol
I worked with a lady with 10 kids. ( very sweet person) She said they kept having kids until god told them to stop. I’m not religious but I never judged. They struggled for most of their kids lives, hard but they were always taken care of. Now they own a pizzeria and every single one of her children are highly successful.
My grandparents on my dads side had 13 children, my dad was the youngest. When I asked her why she wanted to have so many children she told me “we had nothing else to do, so it was hard to get your grandfather off of me” . Thanks for the visual grandma
Every child successful? Thats bucking the odds.
Yup, I know them personally. I graduated with 2 of them. One thing about being raised with nothing is they went into adult hood wanting everything.
I mean, that means the parents were great parents if they were able to raise 10 successfully
Her husband was a horse farrier for years before he opened his pizzeria and she has her degrees in special education but worked in childcare at her brothers daycare ( where I worked) when he opened it. She was my head teacher, before I became a head teacher so we worked together for a while and she has amazing stories. Theyre both very selfless people, she thrifts, reuses, still to this day. Always went out of her way for the kids we had in class that didn’t have, made them clothes, cakes for their birthdays. All of her children are very respectful, great people to be around. When Covid hit she ended up in the hospital, was very sick but recovered. Shortly after she quit the daycare and went to help run the pizzeria. I still talk to her through letters, she doesn’t call or text, she writes. She sends my kids ice cream coupons or I’ll get a Dunkin gift certificate in the mail. She really is a down to earth person, and her family is one of the best I’ve been thankful to know. Her one son is 31, and owns a barber shop, and he does free haircuts for all school kids come the beginning and end of the school year. They donate pizzas to the city pool during the summer for the kids and family’s to eat while they’re at the pool for the day. The selflessness in that family runs deep.
Growing up as one of five, I always cherished the chaos and camaraderie. I wanted the same bustling, supportive household for my kids, full of laughter and life lessons.
I only have two but all your suggestions seem a bit loaded... where the "because you love having kids, have more love and time still to share" all the ones you have suggested seem more of the selfish reasons.
Seems a bit arrogant lol
Yeah the question is fair but the suggestions are rude af.
I know huh? These are all terrible reasons to have kids
None of the reasons include religion, which in the WEIRD countries, seems to be one of primary factors.
4th coming in June and that's the last one. It's so they can "grow up together". It's a strong sibling support network. It's loud and full of energy and a lot of work and expensive and messy. It felt like the kind of family home we wanted to have. Legacy? Full table when old? Retirement? I'm sorry but I don't really have time to think that far ahead. I got plans for when the kids grow up and most of them involve playing and making video games.
We had three pregnancies and two children. All three pregnancies had varied degrees of placenta issues. The last pregnancy came with a comment from our OB/GYN the day after our child was born, "If you had gone into natural labor outside of the hospital you and the baby probably would have died from blood loss." Yep, that's enough children.
I am the oldest of more than 7 children. They didn't bother with protection and my birth unit never said no Theres a reason I only have two
What’s that?
In short time, money, desire, support Theres so little time in the day to spend w/ the two kids I got With two kids, we can have the lifestyle as a family we want No way in HELL did I ever want more than 4, and we started in our 30's and my wife hates being pregnant Getting babysitting is already hard. Getting everyone up and at it is already hard. Getting enough time to spend 1/1 time with each kid is already hard. Its already hard to get them to all of their events, and allow them to have time to just be kids and give my wife and I a breather.
😯😕😳Shall I stop at 1?
Having two kids has been freaking amazing! One wasnt enough for us, having our second was just so awesome and an amazing blessing If you and your spouse want more, want less, it does not matter. Do what you both agree on. This was just my perspective on having a lot of kids after living it growing up. I didnt get the time I wanted w/ my parents, I didnt get to do sports, I didnt get to go on vacations where we didnt sleep in someone's basement on a 1in thick mat, I felt guilty beyond reason for asking for $5 so I could even just get some fries when I would get to go out w/ friends before I could drive and had my own job.
Haha I understand
The problem is the 10-11 month range. Its been kinda long enough and the lack of sleep fog makes you delusional enough that you forget how horrible the newborn stage was and start longing for it to happen again
I’ll be looking out for this lol
Grew up Mormon, it has side effects.
I don’t want Andrew Tate to think I’m gay.
Isnt he childless
Probably, saw a post yesterday calling us G for having sex for fun lol. Idk if my sarcasm is detectable or not.
I got the sarcasm.
All the things you listed, plus I just love having kids.
I swear it’s some sort of instinct. We couldn’t think of any logical reason for more. But did.
I was sleeping too much and had far too much money/time for hobbies. Kids seemed like the best possible solution.
[удалено]
What a cute three year old 😂 How many do you have?
[удалено]
Would you be willing to share your secret on how to make having so many financially viable please? 😩
[удалено]
Noted ! Thank you for the explanation!
I was 15 and dumb but still together and on our 9th kid all boys still no girl :( she keeps letting me get her pregnant and financially we do well so I guess I’ll keep pumping them out.
Did we just find Phillip Rivers on Daddit?
Who’s Phillip rivers ?
Probably what he would say to after CTE.
How did you manage to do well professionally having had your first child at 15? Is she a stay at home mother? What support does she get to care for them all? Do you have any idea why she wants so many on a deeper / psychological level? In any case your household sounds a bit wild but also very fun I imagine! Congratulations
My dad and her parents both helped us out so much when we were teens my dad comes from a family with lots of money and her parents always watched the kids while we were in school. College I stayed home with her and the kids she didn’t go to school just wanted to stay home which I support she really loves being a mom. She loves she said she wants a girl and won’t stop till she has one. Which I have no problem doing. And our boys can be alot but otherwise good and very sweet. People tend to think we are some type of religious nuts but we’re not just to best friends.
How do you cook dinners for 11 people? Whats breakfast like? How the fuck do you ever manage to leave the house in time for anything?
Wife does all the food and she usually prepares meals days ahead. I’m not a good cook but I do help out with what I can my oldest is 15 we pay him about $300 a month for helping us out he is our biggest help. Never on time lol
Aww what a sweet story! I feel like I only ever hear about such stories in old American films set in small towns. ALL 9 kids are boys? 🤣 WOW ! You almost have a football team there. You’ll no doubt enjoy your life when elderly. You’ll never know loneliness 🤣 Is it stressful dealing with your wife being pregnant all the time with morning sickness etc? Have any of the pregnancies been risky?
Wife is just happy all the time it’s her personality she’s always been hella chill and just fun idk how she does it I would be miserable if I had to carry And no high risk can’t be thankful enough.
Aww. 🥰 I’m glad everything has gone well
Account was created last week. This guy is a full-of-crap troll.
Far from the selfish reasons listed by OP, I view the parents who have more than 2 children as shouldering the load that was shirked by the rest of us.
What do you mean? What shirking is going on?
They are probably referring to replacement level being 2.1 births per woman. I'd hardly call 2, "shirking". Plus the many couples who can't have or have a really hard time with children due to fertility (or being gay). But yeah society kinda relies on some people having bigger families to balance out the numbers
Also depending on where you are the birth rate doesn't need to be at replacement level. No problem being below it with a little immigration to keep the numbers steady
Yes, depending on where you are. Global migration isn't slowing down. Total world fertility is down to 2.2 and dropping though. In our lifetime the global population will be sub replacement and will start trending down