GTKY 4.5

sejica

In honor of (U.S.A.) national sibling day Sunday, how many siblings do you and/or your partner have, and how does that impact how many children you (plan to) have?

sunshine2417

I have two older brothers. My husband is one of 8 kids (7 boys and 1 girl). He is a fraternal twin and number 6 in the line. 

I’ve always wanted more kids because I wanted at least 2 boys and 2 girls (I’ve always hated not having a sister… and regularly have felt lonely in my family) but I’ve also realized that 8 is a LOT of kids and there can be many downsides to that as well in a family dynamic. 

We will ultimately have 4-5 kiddos, I think? But I’m also open to fostering and adopting. I love kids and want to advocate for any and all of them! 

mflowers929

Hubby and I both have one brother. My mom wanted more but the doctor told her it was unwise for her to get pregnant again, and then later in life they were actually starting to look into adoption but shortly after that my dad got a job offer in the states and we moved from Canada (I don't know if you're not allowed to adopt as a non citizen or if it was too much money or logistics but it didn't happen). I've always felt a little cheated out of a second sibling and so that probably really affects my wanting of 3 children.
My brother is almost 3 years younger than me and hubbies is 8 years younger than him and that definitely affected the gap we wanted between our kids too. All of them are going to have a 26 month gap (as long as this pregnancy continues) because we wanted them close. I definitely had a closer relationship with my brother than he did with his brother.

PurplePumpernickel

I have a younger sister (7 year age gap) and my husband has a younger brother (3 year age gap). It definitely made me want to have more than one. I know not everyone is close with their siblings, but we both are, and I really wanted my son to be able to joke about his weird parents with someone who gets it.

I think those age gaps made me not want to jump back into trying right away. DH brought it up when my son wasn't even 2. At that point, both our siblings were getting married that summer, one at the beginning and one at the end, and I told him we'd get through that and I'd get my IUD taken out, just in case we could have a baby on our own after all. Six months later the world shut down and that delayed us from going back to my RE.

krknmama

I am the middle of 3. Older brother then two girls. My brother and I are 3.5 years apart, but my sister was a surprise so we’re 7.5 years apart.

My husband has two younger sisters, and there’s about 3 years from the first to the last. 

We’ve always talked about 3-4 kids. He wanted kids close in age and I didn’t have strong feelings about it, there are pros and cons to both. Although I wasn’t anticipating as close together as having 3 under 4, as we will have when this one is born! 

Edited to add: I was completely shocked to have TWO boys. My husband’s siblings, me and my siblings, my SIL kids, and both of our dad’s families are all 1 boy, 2 girls. 

chelsea5787

I have one half brother, who is 16 years older than me and my husband is the youngest of 3. His sister is 9 years older than him.  

I don’t think our siblings have played much of any part of how many kids we decided to have but our family has. Both my husband and I are very close to our extended families and are big on family time. I love having a lot of people together on holidays and any other time we all decide to get together. 

I have one daughter who is 10, a son who is 7 and we are expecting our 3rd. This will be our last biological child because 3 c-sections will be plenty but both of us are open to adopting if the opportunity presents itself. 

Gingermom15

I come from a large family, I am the middle of 8 children. My husband has 3 siblings. 

Due to that, I will not have more than 3 as I don’t feel it is fair to split my time and attention between a large number of children. Looking back, my parents had that many because they loved babies, but weren’t all that interested in actively parenting them as older children 🤷🏼‍♀️ 

ashnicell

I am the youngest of 4. I have two half siblings (a sister and brother) that are 7 and 6 years old than me. I also have a sister who is 4 years older than me. My half-siblings and I aren't close. We were all raised by our moms and shared a dad who passed when we were all kids between 4 and 11. My sister and I are very close though. My husband has a sister who is 1 year younger and they are not close at all. Can't stand each other actually. I think it did help us in deciding how big of a family we wanted. My husband would have been happy with just 1, but was open to 2. I would happily have 3 or 4, but wanted at least 2. This is our second and will likely be our last.

chuckle_sandwich

I have one brother who is two years older. My husband has one brother who is 4 years younger. The only way that affected how many kids we had was that we wanted to have 2 so they would have each other. We live very rurally so there aren’t a lot of kids nearby. Having a sibling when living in the country gives you a playmate. A third wasn’t planned, but it will definitely be a blessing and our other two will be ecstatic when we tell them on Easter.

fantasyflyte

I'm the oldest of 4, my husband is the youngest of 3. I've always wanted 3 kids, I feel like it's a good number for bigger but not huge family. We got started later than we originally planned though so if we do get to 3, they'll be fairly close in age.

bananapancakes

I have a sister that is 5 years older than me and we have never been close - we couldn’t be more different in almost every area of life. My husband has a sister 3 years younger and they aren’t close either but maintain fairly regular contact. Our siblings have had no impact on our decision regarding the size of our family. When we had our first child, we had initially thought we would want 2-3 kids in total; however, because of various reasons, we ultimately decided that we would be a “one and done” family. 12 years later, here we are, expecting our very unexpected second child! 

ponyoisfun

@sejica. Thanks for the great question.  I loved reading all of the responses.

I am one of 3 and DH is an only child for the most part (he has a half-brother 15 years younger). I definitely have always wanted more kids and DH has definitely wanted less.  We have spent time in couple's therapy to talk about this issue. Ultimately though since he likes being the SAHD he is fine with extending the period of time when he does so.  He is a musician/artist and is not interested in having a traditional job. 

A bigger impact on the number of kids we want to have is our mothers.  Each were one of 13 and one of 10!  As kids we both witnessed the challenges of having that many siblings including seeing a lot of loss in both of our parents' families.  For us "only" having 3 kids seems very reasonable because we are actively choosing to have this number and we are not afraid to seek help.