Some people have asked me why we had three children, so I figured I’d answer it in my next few posts (actually, these are the reasons that I claim now: the real reason is that my wife controls the birth control and she wanted three ... but anyway...)
People seem to understand why people with two kids of the same gender would try for another. But we “already have one of each” with a girl and a boy, and thus had no reason to have a third.
There are a number of reasons for this, but a big one is the “economies of scale of parenting,” by which I mean the fact that, once you have one child, each additional one is marginally more attractive to you (for the economists in the crowd, it’s all about marginal cost: and the first child has the huge marginal cost; the rest are nothing compared to the first one). Another, less kind, way of putting it is the “My life is already ruined anyway” way of thinking.
Financially, the economies of scale are clear. You already have the crib, the diaper table, the pacifiers, the bottles, the breastpump the 3 strollers, the car seats, the ultrasaucer and the baby books. Not to mention enough onesies (mostly stained, but still) to choke a cow. If you have another kid, you don’t have to re-buy all that crap. If you can double or triple up on gender, you don’t have to redecorate or buy much in the way of new clothes AND you can double up on rooms. Other than food, a second or third child of the same gender is practically free.
From my perspective, as a father whose wife stays home with the kids, I always noted that I wanted to “get my money’s worth.” Since we were sacrificing an entire second income and my wife was going to stay home with the kid(s) no matter how many of them were running around, I figured that I might as well give her as much work as possible to do. I was mostly adding to her workload; not mine (at least when I was at work).
Outside of the monetary reasons, there are practical economies of scale as well. If you’re going to sit around singing ridiculous Raffi songs, there might as well be two small pairs of ears listening to you instead of one. Getting multiple uses out of the Robin Hood animated DVD (i.e., now 2 or 3 different children can watch it 8 times each).
Anyone being honest would admit that having a kid takes its toll, emotionally, financially and freetimily. I mean, really, if you have a kid, you’ve just ruined 18 years of your life. If you give that kid a sibling when he’s two, you haven’t doubled the ruination. You haven’t now ruined 36 years of your life, because the years overlap. You’ve only ruined an additional 2 years, for a total of 20 years, which isn’t that bad, come to think of it. A whole extra kid for just 2 extra ruined years seems like a bargain after the first one.
I don’t mean to say that there aren’t emotional and other benefits from having children. There definitely are, and I think it’s a good trade on balance. But the benefits are paid out over time; the change in lifestyle for you is abrupt and definitive. And crap. Your life goes from 40% fun to 20% fun. If the fun percentage went down equally for each subsequent child, at two kids you would be down to 0% fun and you’d be absolutely miserable. If this were the case, no one would be stupid enough to have a second child. The planet would be China, but with the one child policy being self-imposed instead of imposed by the government.
But in actuality, once you’re at 20% fun, you’re pretty much at the bottom anyway; it can’t get much worse. So you might as well have another. Then life is still 16% fun. Three only takes you down to 14%, so why not?
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