In hindsight, two would have been fine.

[No Tof]

I have been talking to my five children much more during this thing we call a faith crisis. It has been good to clear the table of taboo topics and make an effort to make sense of all the crap we have been subjected to and passed on to our children. It has been refreshing to see that they haven't been as scarred as I feared they might have.

One of the interesting topics we have discussed is the number of children that makes sense to have. I came from a family of 9 kids and my DW from 7. We always believed the teaching that there were precious spirits waiting to receive bodies, and if we don't provide them then those heathen would fill the world with more heathen.

I told my kids that if I were to do it all over, I would have had two children. That has led to some interesting discussions about who would have had much better parents with all the things we denied them. I have countered that I would be retired on a nice island somewhere if I hadn't had to pay for so many children's university. It has all been light fun but I am serious about the idea of thinking two is plenty if you decide to have children.

What are your thoughts on this?

[Emower]

This has been a struggle with me. I thought that I should have lots of kids, and I was worried about it because my profession is not a well paid one.
After my enlightenment I have decided 3 is plenty. I think that people shouldn't have more than they can adequately pay attention to. For me, 3 is the max.

[crossmyheart]

DH and I both come from families of 5 children. We have 2 children. Had I not been TBM, I would have stopped at 1. The 2nd pregnancy almost killed me. It took me years to recover fully. I felt so guilty (church) when we decided to stop at 2 because of my health. I hated attending RS when my children were little because of the peer pressure to have more- and to stay home with them.

I am the anomaly-all my siblings and Mormon friends have gone on to have anywhere from 4-9 children. For a while I think they pitied me for being so barren. But now that their kids are teen/college age, they have admitted in one way or another that they wish they had stopped at 2 or 3.

The best part? NO MINIVAN!!!!!

[Corsair]

Some years ago my wife was talking with a woman in our ward who had eight children. This woman was somewhat surprised that my wife and I were stopping at four. The average family size in the LDS church appears to be going down and I think this mildly distresses the families that were larger.

[wtfluff]

With my current, cynical, nihilistic point of view, my hindsight says that 0 probably would have been ideal for me...

[Red Ryder]

The best part? NO MINIVAN!!!!!

Yup!

Here's a little secret I've learned. 2 is sometimes 2 too many!

[GoodBoy]

I had 6. 3 or 4 would have been fine with me, but I'm not giving back any of my children. They are my heart.

[Jinx]

We were going to have four (my parents had two because they were converts, DH's parents had three), but we had fertility issues and miscarriages. I had two girls (with a lot of difficulty) and when my third turned out to be a boy we decided we were done. I had always wanted at least one of each gender and I was content. Still am. I have three of the best kids on the planet. I never felt guilty not having more. I always thought the big families were weird, and I would hate being that poor.

[crossmyheart]

I had a flashback to my childhood growing up the the valley. My ward in Sandy gave out a special Mother's Day present to #1 the oldest mother in the ward and # 2 the mother in the ward with the most children. Every year it was a battle between 3 women as to who had the most children. I remember the satisfaction one of them had every time she would win the award and get ahead of the others. It really was a serious competition. We moved away but I think she ended up with 11.

[Emower]

Some years ago my wife was talking with a woman in our ward who had eight children. This woman was somewhat surprised that my wife and I were stopping at four. The average family size in the LDS church appears to be going down and I think this mildly distresses the families that were larger.

Family dynamics have really changed in the last while. Working women are much more accepted, and that distresses many of the older generation that followed the prophets admonition to stay home. My mother told me that she resents Renlunds? wife who had a career, by default did not follow the prophet, and still became Mormon royalty.

Fewer kids are the becoming common. My uncle has 13. I think one of them could die in the basement, smothered by a mountain of laundry and no one would really know about it for a couple of days.

[Corsair]

Fewer kids are the becoming common. My uncle has 13. I think one of them could die in the basement, smothered by a mountain of laundry and no one would really know about it for a couple of days.

This is a morbidly funny thought, but there are real world implications. We have all heard the heartwrenching stories of children left in cars. I'm not claiming that this is a significant risk in large families. It simply requires that parents of such have an implicit responsibility when children outnumber the parents by more than 2:1.

[Korihor]

This is a fascinating topic to me. There is so much to it, socioeconomics, traditions, wants vs needs, politics, the list of influeners is endless.

It seems a common view in this thread so far is 0-2 kids is about right. Which is just fine.

The problem is society needs a birthrate of about 2.1 to sustain itself. That's not growth, just homoeostasis. Japan, China and many European countries are feeling the effects of insufficient birth rates. While many poorer countries are feeling the effects of breeding like rabbits.
In America, the higher the social class, the lower the birthrate. While the lower the social class, the higher the birth rate. America can currently offset the lack of birthrate in higher classes due to immigration and other American trends, but many other peer countries don't enjoy the situation we have in this matter.

The advent of women empowerment, medical birth control, economic prosperity, etc. in the last 80 +/- years has to lead more sex and fewer babies. If we all found ourselves living in Utah territory in 1870, regardless of the church influence, we would likely all seek more than 2 children. We would need more hands to run the farm and more pregnancies to offset higher risk of infant mortality. Coupled with human attraction and no modern birth control, we would simply accept that facts of life we going to have lots of offspring.

So family planning is a modern day ability and phenomenon. Society really wasn't in a position like this ever before. We're also facing the reality of the maximum people the earth can support.

All of that stuff above is just interesting to me. We have 2 kids and really aren't sure if we'll have another. I turn 36 in a couple weeks, the thought of resetting the clock with another child is rather frightful to me. I don't want to be 55 yrs old going to parent teacher conference. We haven't ruled out adoption, though. Maybe in a little while when we can add one more without pregnancy and diapers.

I have 3 other siblings and my wife has 4 other siblings. My brother just had their 3rd and he was freaking out. He didn't want a 3rd. Another bro has 2 girls and they say they are done. Other bro has 1, but they still newlywed and his wife is programmed to be a TBM baby factory. They are the wild card.

Wife's siblings are 0-1-2-2 for number of kids each.
Only one sibling is TBM. He wants more, she's not sure.

The best part? NO MINIVAN!!!!!

We just got a minivan, I love it! with little kids, that thing is sooooo convenient. Power sliding doors, dvd player, remote start - it's the cats meow for our current situation.

[Red Ryder]

We just got a minivan, I love it! with little kids, that thing is sooooo convenient. Power sliding doors, dvd player, remote start - it's the cats meow for our current situation.

And will probably smell like a litter box like all mini vans eventually do!

[Korihor]

We just got a minivan, I love it! with little kids, that thing is sooooo convenient. Power sliding doors, dvd player, remote start - it's the cats meow for our current situation.

And will probably smell like a litter box like all mini vans eventually do!

[Emower]

We just got a minivan, I love it! with little kids, that thing is sooooo convenient. Power sliding doors, dvd player, remote start - it's the cats meow for our current situation.

And will probably smell like a litter box like all mini vans eventually do!

Sorry for the digression but here goes.

My major professor during my graduate degree was really into antique woodworking. He found this really nice dining room table, cherry, clawfoot legs, huge, it had lots of history behind it. He loved this table. He had one daughter and he spent a loooong time and not a little money restoring this table to its original beauty. It looked really nice. He even had to carve several pieces for it to replace original pieces. Anyway, he took me to see it when he was done. He was planning on giving it to his daughter who was getting married. I said, "you know, when you go to visit and you see your grandkids ramming their forks into it, knocking the legs with their feet, jumping on it and generally abusing it, you are going to have a hard time with that."
The look of despair and disappointment on his face was priceless.

[Just This Guy]

We just got a minivan, I love it! with little kids, that thing is sooooo convenient. Power sliding doors, dvd player, remote start - it's the cats meow for our current situation.

I had a minivan before it died. I cringed at first, but grew to like it after a while. You can haul SOOOO much stuff in at thing... At one point, my sister gave my kids a bunk bed set. We picked it up in there. So we had 2 twin size mattresses, a full bunk bed kit, and 4 full size adult all sitting comfortably in that thing. I have taken sofa even 4'x8' sheets of plywood in that thing. I even figured that a few load in that that could move the vast majority of my house. I would only need to rent a truck for the biggest appliances and furniture. I kinda miss it at time now. If it wasn't a Dodge and all the reliability and design flaws they are well known for... I am at least considering another minivan in the future. Not set on it, but I will consider one if it is the right car and deal.

For me, DW and I thought that 2 was the idea. The modern world is basically built for 2 kids. 2 kids reliably fit in a car. More kids and you have to start looking into larger 3 row vehicles. You may be able to 3 three kids in the back of a sedan, be that isn't always a good idea to have them that close to each other... more than 3 kids and you have to plan on getting a new family car to accommodate.

We have 3 bedroom house. 4 bedroom real estate take a large jump in price.

With 3 kids or more, you have the problem of middle childs. I was #2 of 4 in my family, with my hounger siblings being twins. It is very easy for the middle children in a family to get lost in the midst of day to day life.

DW and I were planning on stopping at 2. We were even taking steps to keep it that way. (It may be 99.7% effective, but that .3% can really bite you in the ass.) So #3 was not in the plan of life here. We are doing alright, but at some point we will need a 3 row car again.

[No Tof]

We just got a minivan, I love it! with little kids, that thing is sooooo convenient. Power sliding doors, dvd player, remote start - it's the cats meow for our current situation.

DW and I were planning on stopping at 2. We were even taking steps to keep it that way. (It may be 99.7% effective, but that .3% can really bite you in the ass.) So #3 was not in the plan of life here. We are doing alright, but at some point we will need a 3 row car again.

I can totally relate to the .3% dilema.

However, like I said I wouldn't trade any of them for anything now.

I realize it's their decision but have let my own children know they won't disappoint me if they don't have the "normal" number. (Whatever that is.)

[shadow]

We just had our fifth. He's a super cute baby and I love all of my kids so much, but we live in Seattle, a city that as of the last census had more dogs than kids. I mean, technically, we don't live within city limits (have I told you we have five kids--we can't afford a big enough house right in the city.) We definitely get a lot of looks when we pile out of the car (read: giant ass suburban) wherever we go. I went to beach last night for dinner with all five while my wife had an appointment. A 35 year old dad venturing out to the beach with all five by himself gets even more funny looks than usual, even for a progressive city like Seattle.

Occasionally, I am able to theoretically think about what it would be like with fewer children. This usually happens when I look at college savings plans or try to book flights for a vacation for 6 (baby is still free!!). I keep these thoughts to myself, though. Maybe when my kids are older, we can talk about the number of children in the abstract. Elementary school age and younger is probably not the time for the younger kids to hear how much easier our life would have been without them. Not sure the chaser of how much less rewarding our life would have been without them would hit prominently.

[Nonny]

This is such a touchy subject for me. Of course, I love all my kids. They were difficult and fun through the years. I just wish I'd known I had a choice in the matter. In my college years we were under a constant barrage of messages like: "don't put off having children", " one of your biggest regrets if you put off having children"', replenish the earth, accept all the spirits HF wants to send you, and the big scare "birth control is evil." I really thought these sayings were true because the prophets said them. We lived in the heart of the beast and all the neighbors were in the same situation. Finally, after a major depressive episode when I found out I was pregnant again, we took care of the problem without consulting the bishop or his handbook, if you know what I mean.

[Anon70]

I've always felt the pressure to have many children was so careless. What about the people that couldn't or shouldn't!? I have a family member that probably shouldn't have. I have what could be considered a big family and I would have had more. And that's ok. As long as everyone does what's right for them and not because they're indoctrinated to. My parents always threw out the point that very few GAs and Q15 had large families.