How many children should be in a family for everyone to be happy? Unfortunately, there is no single answer to this question. To solve this dilemma for yourself, take into account all life circumstances, which will be discussed below.
Flowers of life
Why do we need children? Perhaps, before a planned pregnancy, you should first ask yourself this question. Many women look back at relatives and others, blindly follow public opinion, or even specifically bring their lives in line with outdated stereotypes. They give birth to children simply because “it’s necessary”, without even thinking about how much physical and emotional forces they will have to invest in the child in the future, not to mention finances. Couples, for some reason not in a hurry to get their beloved child, become a real target for close relatives and colleagues: everyone considers it his duty to ask: "When?" and remind you that time is running out and late births are fraught with innumerable risks and dangers.
From extreme to extreme
On the other hand, families with many children are faced with attacks of a different kind. Hero mothers are often despised for a large number of "spin-nibbles" if the family does not live well and cannot afford timely repairs to their homes or the purchase of new children's toys. "Flowers of Life" as if transformed from delicious chubby babies to unpaid loans, second-hand clothes, worn shoes by someone else and cheap sweets instead of fancy chocolate eggs. People forget that a full-fledged family is a unity of different, but infinitely kindred souls, and not just a couple of wealthy or poor adults and a flock of their offspring.
Everyone chooses for himself
Recently, such a social phenomenon as childfree, a social movement proclaiming free thinking regarding the completeness of the family and the absence of children in it, has become widespread. Childfree often sincerely do not understand why children are needed, and they consciously refuse to continue procreation, not wanting to bind their hands and feet with the need for looking after and caring for a little baby. They believe that there are already too many people on the globe, and without their contribution to the replenishment of humanity, the world can easily do. Adherents of this approach highly value their own freedom, the opportunity to go anywhere and do whatever they want, spend time as they see fit. They do not need unnecessary obligations and meaningless, in their opinion, chores. Childfree live for themselves and for a loved one.
The direct opposite of childfree are mothers and fathers with many children . They do not even wonder about why children are needed, and do not dream about a child of a certain gender. They give birth to numerous weathers simply because they feel their destiny in this, because their hearts demand to give a lot of love, because in children they find solace, emotional protection from external experiences, deep hope that everything will always be alright. Such an opinion also has every right to exist.
Outside pressure
It seems that society will always be unhappy. If there are no children, then you need to have them. If the child is alone, he really needs a brother or sister. If there are two children, it would be good to give birth to a third and obtain the status of a large family in order to enjoy the corresponding social privileges. And if there are more than three children ... In the latter case, most people move from positive recommendations to negative ratings and criticism.
When the baby is alone
Meanwhile, no one wonders why the couple has only one child and why the couple is in no hurry to have many children. Often, women with a single peanut are among those who once went on the occasion of relatives or public opinion and gave birth to a son or daughter just because "it is necessary." Young mothers, initially not ready to communicate with a small child, found themselves in a serious stressful situation, fell under the influence of postpartum depression and took out exclusively negative and bad impressions from their first experience of motherhood. Of course, they do not want to have children anymore, because they are afraid of repeating the nightmare that they have already experienced. There is no time to sleep, there is no strength to clean the apartment, there is not enough patience to listen to children's cries and to treat the baby for incessant colic, there is no money for the milk mixture, since breast milk either did not come or burned out too early ... There is no desire to live. This is a typical picture of postpartum depression, guaranteed before the conception of every woman who is not mentally prepared to become a mother.
Neither brothers nor sisters
Of course, there are other reasons not to have more than one child. For some, procreation is not a priority in life: it is enough to communicate with a single, but infinitely beloved child. Someone simply cannot conceive or give birth safely and continues to struggle with the terrible diagnosis of infertility or an unbearable succession of missed pregnancies. Gynecological diseases in women and impaired sperm composition in men, financial problems and uncertainty about tomorrow, not the happiest experience of raising a first-born child - these are not all the reasons to seriously ask why children are needed and come to the conclusion that the only one is enough offspring. Is it worth condemning people who have come to this conclusion? Is it worth endlessly reminding them that you can still “go after the second”?
Adopted children
The social institution of adoption can perhaps be considered one of the most successful. The opportunity to officially take a stranger’s child under their wing and raise him as one’s own brought the long-awaited happiness to thousands and millions of childless couples. They prefer to pick up newborn “refuseniks” from orphanages so that the child does not even remember his mother and considers his adoptive parents to be bloody. However, older children have a chance to find happiness in a new family. Many of them ended up in shelters after depriving single mothers of parental rights. Having learned from their own experience how hard it is to live with drinkers and cruel parents, these small but far from naive children are not always immediately attached to kind and loving hearts. Nevertheless, having convinced themselves of a significant difference in attitude, they often fully return the love they have been given and treat their new parents much more tenderly than some youths with their real father and mother. Foster children, taken to a new family at a conscious age, will forever be grateful to those who saved them from the hardships of the shelter. Everyone can do this good deed - to adopt the child left unattended by the parents. But first, think: are you sure that you can give him everything that you would give your blood child?
A few words about the meaning of life
So why do we need children? "To be"? To satisfy your own maternal and paternal instincts inherent in nature? To grow worthy people out of them in the future? Are children, therefore, the meaning of life?
The amazing answer to the question “why” was given by Albert Einstein. In his opinion, any such question can be answered as follows: a person acts in one way or another only because he creates a feeling of satisfaction for himself and for others with an appropriate act, statement or action. And really, back to the first example. There is a social need to have a baby. Having given birth to a first-born, a woman satisfies, on the one hand, her own maternal instinct and follows the biologically dictated need for the preservation of the family, and on the other hand, satisfies the needs of society, requiring the presence of children in almost every family. Einstein's principle is easily applicable to any other situation. What for? To get a feeling of satisfaction! If you need children for personal happiness, do not look back at social stereotypes - start as many as you want and you can afford. If not needed - again, do not respond to the attacks and claims of others, stay childfree.
After all, this is only your choice.