My mom said they had my brother essentially for me. He's an okay guy, and I played with him when we were little, but I don't think I would have been worse off if I'd been an only child. I think I would have appreciated the extra attention from my parents. I was a pretty solitary kid, anyway, usually preferring to read or draw than play with others. I personally don't intend to give Ilana a sibling. I'm not cut out to have more than one kid, at least not for the forseeable future. O&D are planning to have one of their own eventually, though, so that takes care of that.
I can see how having two might be easier than one, if they were spaced pretty far apart (like >3 years) or you adopted the second one as a toddler... but I can't imagine having a toddler and a newborn, especially as a single mom and with my CFS, anxiety, etc.
I can see how >1 could be easier when things are basically okay, because they can entertain each other, but it's my perception that when your parenting life is super-hard, it's because something -unpleasant- is going on with both your kids at once (like illness), which leads me to think it's part of the number of kids you have that's causing the difficulty, and not parenthood in general.
That being said, I definitely don't mean to criticize you for having more than one kid! I'm sure there are a lot of people more grateful for their siblings than I am. ;-) Just saying that >1 is sometimes a tough row to hoe.
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Date: 2003-08-16 05:28 pm (UTC)I can see how having two might be easier than one, if they were spaced pretty far apart (like >3 years) or you adopted the second one as a toddler... but I can't imagine having a toddler and a newborn, especially as a single mom and with my CFS, anxiety, etc.
I can see how >1 could be easier when things are basically okay, because they can entertain each other, but it's my perception that when your parenting life is super-hard, it's because something -unpleasant- is going on with both your kids at once (like illness), which leads me to think it's part of the number of kids you have that's causing the difficulty, and not parenthood in general.
That being said, I definitely don't mean to criticize you for having more than one kid! I'm sure there are a lot of people more grateful for their siblings than I am. ;-) Just saying that >1 is sometimes a tough row to hoe.