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I was shocked to see that having 3 kids is more stressful than having four or more. I think I have to disagree with that. In all honesty the stress you have with your children is probably more directly related to the age of your children. I spread my kids out. My two oldest are almost exactly 3 years apart in age, but I didn’t have my 3rd until my middle daughter was 5 1/2. Then my youngest came along 3 months after my sons 3rd birthday.
I distinctly remember when I was pregnant with my 2nd child I was petrified of how I would love another. You know, the normal 2nd child fears. Those quickly faded and I was left with that how do I juggle it all worry? The first time my husband went back to work and I had to get both girls ready by myself, I do believe I cried. We got into a groove though.
When I was pregnant with my 3rd my fears were just going back to all of the baby stuff again. We had been away from that stuff for so long. Also, when we found out he was a boy I was worried about how to care for a boy after having two girls. Then when he was born it wasn’t long before we were dealing with health problems. His first year is a bit of a blur to me, but I will say with a 9 year old and 6 year old and an infant the number wasn’t overwhelming, the whole dealing with a sick child was overwhelming and stressful.
Then during my pregnancy with my 4th I wasn’t even thinking about what it would be like after she got here, I was just thinking about getting her here after our loss just 2 years before. Once she was here though my stress went through the roof. I had 3 kids in 3 different schools at the time. Then there was this newborn baby. While I certainly had the confidence with her of actually parenting her; figuring out how to juggle the needs of the rest of my children was very stressful.
Here we are 2 years later and I’m still feeling overwhelmed. I think that’s just motherhood. I don’t know that one transition was worse than another though, they were just all different. And in all honesty if it weren’t for my son’s health problems when he was born I think that would have been the easiest transition. And that could just be because I did have the older children who wanted to help out with him.
While sure, my kids can kind of buddy up now it doesn’t exactly work out the greatest. Now I have two sets of kids who go at it like cats and dogs and they drag each other into their fights.
Would I have it any other way? Absolutely not. I love having 4 kids. Four was the number I said I always wanted. I most definitely did not however find 3 kids to be more challenging than two or even four. Then again, I didn’t need 3 hands to cross the street because my oldest was capable of crossing the street by herself. I wasn’t chasing kids in three different directions because my two oldest were mostly beyond that wandering off stage.
In talking to my friends who have four kids though, number four tends to be extremely strong willed which just adds to the stress. You know those parents you see in the stores with a screaming toddler? That would be me now. Even when my oldest were toddlers and I would see parents wrestling a little one into the carriage at the grocery store I would think why can’t they control that child? I have no problem. Now I think, that child must be a 4th child. Because of all of my kids my youngest most definitely wants to be just like all of the older ones and she will fight you tooth and nail in an attempt to get her way.
I don’t give in, usually. But let me tell you she is not at all afraid to use her voice to get her point across. And I see extremely similar traits in my friend’s kids with number 4. The one thing they all have in common is their pecking order in the family.
Perhaps I need to conduct my own survey. I wonder if this particular survey was just performed with a larger number of mothers who stopped at three children and that’s why the results are what they are. Because I would imagine a lot of parents who have more than 3 children might disagree with this assessment.
Bottom line though is motherhood is stressful no matter how many children you have. And it doesn’t get less so the older they get either. The cause of the stress just changes.
So tell me, how many children do you have? Do you agree or disagree with this survey? Do you think other factors such as birth order, medical problems, and the age range of your children have more to do with how stressful a job parenting is?