Is there a perfect number of kids? How does life change when your family grows? Does family size have a sweet spot?
By Danni Koko
“Would you like another?”
It’s a common question women ask each other on a mom’s night out. And no, we’re not talking about adult beverages.
We’re talking about children.
Such a simple question, yet such a weighty topic. I can see why some couples spend so much time going back and forth on whether to grow their family, either through biology or adoption. Although lots of people will probably tell you children are a blessing, it’s no small responsibility to have another child entrusted to your care, another soul to nourish and raise to adulthood.
So I’ll put this question out there: is there an ideal family size? What is the best number of kids to have? Is there a sweet spot that perfectly balances a fulfilling family life with meeting the financial demands of providing for them? If you are open to one more, are you perfectly crazy?
I’ve considered these questions, and below, I’ll tell you the conclusion I’ve reached about the best number of kids. You can also read my posts Here’s What’s Changed in My First 10 Years of Parenting and Four Things I Learned About Adoption That May Surprise You.
Below, I’ll share the unique characteristics of each family size we’ve experienced in our household, with each number of children coming with its own distinct qualities and tradeoffs. I’ll also share some basic principles that have taken shape in our lives since having kids, which has led me to my conclusion as to the ideal family size…
ONE KID: Life is Completely Different-ish
This is the part where life changes forever. From the moment a child enters your life, it will never be just you ever, ever again.
Before kids, I was the opposite of an early riser. Then one morning Tiny Dancer was up early, and I needed to buy food, so I decided I may as well go to the grocery store before my husband left for work. It was so early that there were only two customers in the store: me, and a nun.
If you have one child, I encourage you not to think of your child as an “only child.” This is your everything child! The cool thing about having one kid is that any time you spend with your child is, by default, one-on-one time. You can really pour yourself into your child and appreciate your time together.
One major advantage to being a one-kid family is that you still have the flexibility to travel and socialize. I feel like this is nature’s way of easing you into parenting. My hat is off to you all you parents of multiples because I can only imagine what that must be like!
Having one allows you to maintain some aspects of your pre-kid lifestyle and travel in a somewhat streamlined fashion: one stroller, one car seat, one set of clothes and diapers. When they’re older, it’s one extra suitcase. Plus, showing up to a party or a dinner with one child is very different than showing up with a whole crew. Tiny Dancer was our constant companion to family events and friend gatherings, such as the time when she was three months old and my cousin invited us to his apartment for a Christmas party. It was in the city. It started late at night. It involved costumes. And we went, of course! Tiny Dancer slept in her reindeer costume the entire party, and we all had a good time.
After this point, we had gotten used to life as a family of three, and life was feeling a big quiet, so we ventured into two-kid territory…
TWO KIDS: Hello, Sibling Dynamics!
This is the part where you start to feel like a traveling circus. From now on, your attention gets divided. The hardest part of the two-child dynamic, at least for me, is that if you’re paying attention to one, the other is left on their own with nary a playmate in sight, at least when they’re little. Fortunately, your second often plays off the personality of your first, which means your kids will have unique personalities, likes and dislikes. To me, it’s nature’s way of making sure everyone in the house has a place and gets some attention.
Then, once your two kids are old enough to play together, their entire sibling universe consists of one person, one special sibling whom they will share with and spar with, and it’s an intense relationship. With friends, your kids will feel they have to be polite. Politically correct. With siblings, they will be honest. They will call each other out. It’s interesting to watch their relationships unfold, because there are dynamics that play out that involve the kids only, parents not included. In the way that becoming a parent for the first time changes your life as a Mom or Dad, getting a sibling is lifechanging for your oldest who will suddenly and permanently assume the role of Sister or Brother which previously did not exist for them. The sibling bond begins to form before your youngest can walk or talk, and yet kids seem to know that being siblings is an experience distinct from any other. It’s a lifelong relationship that begins before they can even speak to each other.
Most of the time we have an expectation in our heads that the logistics of life can still be somewhat under control with two, and there’s a reason it’s such a popular family size, but nevertheless, on certain days you’ll definitely wish those mom memes about falling into a vat of toxic waste would come true so you could grow some extra hands. I give encouragement to all my mom and dad friends who are currently in the phase of raising two little ones, where everyone needs you but no one’s big enough to help. For me personally, this was a challenging time, and not just because my husband was on night shift. I would look at people who had three or four kids and wonder, “How are they doing this?” And since I suppose I wanted to find out what crazy really looks like, we entered the realm of three…
THREE KIDS: It’s Kids vs. Parents
If the adult population in your household consists of you and your partner, this is the part where you become outnumbered. It’s like you turn into one of those cat trees, with small wide-eyed creatures hanging from your outstretched limbs. But take heart! At least they’re cute, so you’ll overlook the clinginess.
Some parents have commented this is the point where you transition from Kids vs. Each Other to Kids vs. Parents. As my husband says, you’ve moved from man-to-man to zone defense!
If you haven’t already felt like you’re driving a clown car, you will now, and speaking of vehicles, there’s no way you’re driving a sedan at this point.
For our family, three kids was the reality check where we lowered basically any standards we had held onto in the past. We accepted going to bed with a messy house, losing all free time, and having really, really low expectations for what we could accomplish in a day. At this point, I no longer watched any shows or read any books. It was cool, though. In some ways I started taking better care of myself because making priorities was essential to our survival, and we had to eliminate anything that was an unnecessary distraction from what was really important to us.
Plus, with three, sibling interactions become more dynamic, and different personalities and interests emerge that give life a lot of color. Where one is funny, there is another who’s inquisitive. Where one is helpful, there is another who pushes boundaries. Life isn’t always a piece of cake, but it can be a fun adventure.
FOUR KIDS: What? I can’t hear you. Check back with me in 18 years.
This is the part where the noise level is so loud, you’ll give up on having a normal conversation. I thought I was losing my hearing until I went out with just my husband and marveled, “I can hear everything you’re saying!” My brother-in-law once remarked that it sounds like we’re at a sporting event whenever he calls us, which makes sense since we’ve been playing zone defense for a while now.
As parents, we had wondered what it would be like to add another baby until we realized, “It’s okay. We’ve done this before.” I have discovered that having kids spread out in age gives a different perspective on the baby and toddler years because you can see more clearly that your kids will not always be little. I’d call it the Widening Scope of Parental Vision: it’s like I can step back more easily and see the big picture, like I can visualize my kids getting older and appreciate certain aspects of parenting on a macro level instead of a micro level.
For your kids, this is the part where the marginal adjustment to a new sibling becomes smaller – the part where your kids are so used to living in a full house and having to share that they don’t feel life is terribly different when a new baby enters the family.
In my experience, kids in a four-child family have less of an expectation that they will get all their attention from Mom and Dad and more of an expectation that they will get attention from each other. With four, someone who wants to play a game or go outside can usually find someone to join them.
Four felt like crossing over into big family territory, but it’s something we took in stride, and we accepted we had started to outgrow a typical American lifestyle. Food that came in “party size” could feed us for one meal. We had to make it to church on time if we wanted to find a pew with enough seating. I bought an industrial brand of washing machine, and it’s a good thing we already drove a minivan, because we needed a car with a third row. Restaurants started to have trouble seating our crew, but lucky us, some places take reservations for groups of six or more!
FIVE KIDS: Sibling Synergy
This is the part where you, the parents, give up normal human things, like sitting.
At this point, rather than living one day at a time, your focus shifts to living one hour at a time. Which is a fortunate situation since it will distract you from the possibility that you may have to work till you’re 90!
In a crew this size, there are myriad sibling dynamics at play, and there’s an interesting phenomenon that we’ve witnessed developing among our kids. They’ve started to become their own team. Their own tribe. When one sibling needs something, another sibling can probably step in and help. They have different interests and personalities. If there’s a project we’re working on, they’ll automatically take on different roles and split up the work. This past weekend, Tiny Dancer coined the verb “to assembly line.” Sometimes in the evening they will hang out together in the family room, just the kids, keeping each other company. And most of all, they look out for each other. I’ve only just started to wonder about the evolutionary purpose of siblings, but I do believe that in the old days a larger brood of siblings probably helped preserve the well-being of the whole clan. When our baby starts to cry, a sibling immediately runs over to check on her, whether that’s our middle schooler or our toddler. I can see that the siblings would step in to care for their younger brothers and sisters if something happened to the parents. I’ve yet to do any reading on this subject, so I’m curious what kind of research has been done on whether having more siblings is a benefit or a detriment, but if there’s any good reading on this, by all means, please send it my way!
So What’s the Deal, Does Life Get Harder or Easier?
We all know that life changes over the years, and I talk about how life has changed as my kids have gotten older in my post Here’s What’s Changed in My First 10 Years of Parenting. Lately, I’ve been thinking about a few key realities that have emerged as our family has grown in size.
The more kids in the family, the more you live in extremes.
More kids equals more people to have fun with – and more chaos. As our family has grown, our life has diverged into existing in one of two extremes at any point in time: really cute, or really wild. There is very little in between.
Having a range of ages comes with challenges and advantages.
Everyone probably has a different opinion on this, but for me, having kids of different ages is fun and gives me a more balanced mindset than when I had all littles. The challenge, of course, is finding activities that everyone can enjoy. We sometimes have to divide and conquer, perhaps only taking the big kids or the little kids on certain outings that frankly wouldn’t interest the others. The older kids have a lot of extracurriculars, which is challenging in terms of time management and driving everyone from Point A to Point B.
Overall, though, I enjoy the spread of ages and the different phases of childhood. Sometimes we get to do big kid stuff, and sometimes we do baby stuff. I feel like I can better appreciate the joys and challenges of each childhood phase because having kids of other ages puts things in perspective.
I feel like it’s also cool for our kids to have sibling of different ages to interact with and learn from. The younger kids look up to the older kids, and the older kids learn to accommodate the needs of someone smaller and younger than them. They have a comfort being with people of different ages, and it feels like an organic way to learn inter-age socialization.
You have to become a minimalist, or embrace the mess.
I know everyone has a story about their grandpappy whose family lived in a 2-bedroom house with 15 kids, and they’ll use that example to try to explain how you should be making your house work for your family, but let’s be honest. It’s not an apples to apples comparison. Grandpappy probably owned two socks, one pair of pants, and no toys.
In the modern day, kids come with a lot of stuff, and as a parent you have two options. Option 1: Become a minimalist. Option 2: Relinquish control of a neat and tidy house and accept that your house will get messy. Although I admire the ideals of minimalism, I’ve come to realize I will never be a good minimalist, so I had no choice but to go with Option 2.
Actually, after a certain number of kids I embraced Option 3: accept you need help. It’s okay to admit you’re not doing everything yourself. Outsourcing the house cleaning to my cleaning ladies has made a huge impact on our household, and they are really nice and really dependable. They come every two weeks, and they help my mental health so much because I know they will do a great job.
Laundry is a beast. So is bedtime.
I have no advice in either of these departments. If you’ve got these figured out, please leave your wisdom in the comments below!
One-on-one time has to be intentional.
As your family grows, it will become rare to organically have one-on-one time with each child. You will probably have to plan out some ways to spend time with each of them. It’s also important to give the older kids a space where they can go off by themselves to read or make art or listen to music. If you think it’s hard to have little kids around all the time, your older kids probably think so too.
Getting out the door is both harder and easier.
Mobilizing multiple kids can be a challenge, and I can’t tell you why, but for some reason, getting three kids to the bus stop feels infinitely harder than getting two kids to the bus stop. Nevertheless, more kids can also make you feel more accomplished when you’re trying to get everyone in the car. When you say, “It’s time to get in the car,” even if only one kid listens, that is still one member of my family who actually got in the car. It feels like progress has been made, even if I still need to get four more people in their seats.
You get some financial economies of scale, but not as many as you’d think.
If you’re thinking of growing your family and want to know the truth about where you get economies of scale, I’ll offer up some of what I’ve experienced in my post Families with Multiple Kids – Do You Get Economies of Scale? Here, I’ve listed some ways you get financial economies of scale and some ways you don’t.
I hope this is helpful from a practical standpoint, because I think it’s important to give an honest and balanced view on what it’s really like to grow your family. I do not wish to overly romanticize the realities of parenthood, nor have I ever met a parent who says “I wish I had had fewer kids so I could have more money.”
So what is the best family size?
After doing all this writing and giving it a lot of thought, this is what I’ve concluded:
The ideal family size is the number of children you have right now.
Different family sizes have distinct characteristics, and none are right or wrong – they’re just different. When I had one child, she was perfect. When I had two children, they were perfect. Three? Perfect, and so on and so forth.
That doesn’t mean that adding another child or children to your family won’t change things – it inevitably will, but sometimes it’s in different ways than we could have imagined.
Yes, in my humble opinion, it’s our calling as parents to make the most of the children we’ve been entrusted with at this very point in time. Life can get crazy and busy, and in the hectic days of trying to raise little tiny human beings to be responsible adults, I believe we’re allowed to enjoy our kids and make the most of what we’ve been blessed with, whether that’s one child or twelve.
I’d love to hear your thoughts and advice! What are some things you enjoy about your family size? Do you have any practical advice or words of wisdom that can help out your fellow parents? Please share your thoughts in the comments!