Society certainly has a way of pushing its judgements upon us. It tells us how we should look, what we should aspire to, it even tells us what makes the ‘perfect’ family. And in many western cultures, two or three children is deemed the norm- ideally at least one of each gender. If you have ‘too many’ children, people start raising eyebrows and asking things like do they all have the same father, and how do you afford to look after them all. If you have an only child, people can brand you ‘selfish’, telling you your child needs a sibling and asking if you’ll try for a child of the opposite gender next time. It’s all incredibly invasive and downright ridiculous, what makes the ‘perfect’ number of children will all depend entirely on the family’s preferences and situation. If you’re a ‘one and done’ family who is perfectly happy with one child with no intentions of having another, then there’s of course nothing wrong with that. Here are some of the reasons why families like yours choose to keep their unit small.
Money
It’s not just a case of being able to afford a second child, it’s whether you can comfortably live with another. As well as the initial cost of baby items, you have to factor in childcare costs and taking time off work in pregnancy and the early years. Later down the line, Christmases and birthdays will cost twice as much, and perhaps you’d rather invest the funds that you have into your only child. Maybe you live comfortably at the moment and prefer having that additional bit of income leftover to enjoy with your small family unit, rather than trying to stretch it. On the flipside’, you might be struggling with money already and know realistically that another baby would make things really difficult financially.
Career
This is definitely more of an issue with women who tend to be the primary caregivers to children once they’re born. If you’ve spent years building a career then you might not want, (or even be able to) take off more time than you already have done by having your first child. If you’ve spent years studying, working hard, moving up the ladder and reaching your goals, you might simply choose not to take a year or more off to have another baby and that’s absolutely ok.
Health/ Mental Health
Finally, you might value your health and wellbeing over having another child. Maybe you have a health condition that makes pregnancy particularly risky, when you already have a child that relies on you, you might find it an unacceptable risk to leave them without a parent. You might have struggled having your first baby, perhaps going through grueling fertility treatment that you just don’t want to repeat. You might have suffered a traumatic birth or postpartum depression and not want to go through it again. Your partner going for a vasectomy somewhere like pollockclinics.com might make the most sense for you as a couple if you’re certain no more kids are on the cards.
The decision to have another child will completely depend on you and your partner, so don’t let society make you feel like you should be having more if it’s not right for you. Small families are beautiful too!
