Mother in Duxbury murders her two kids (high school, closing)

[brightdoglover]

I think some people have a third child in trying for the gender opposite the first two. Also, I've seen that people who say they only want two often have unplanned pregnancies and do not opt for abortion.

[twingles]

Originally Posted by msRB311

That wouldn't surprise me at ALL on the 3 kids thing being a status symbol or something, thank you for mentioning it! I have noticed quite a few women popping out a 3rd kid at 40 or even over. One of my co workers announced her 3rd pregnancy at work and a very liberal male co worker goes, on purpose? lol. And guess what, this woman was upset when she found out she was having a boy, she was hoping for a girl!

Another family friend had been having marital issues, lots of money though and next thing you knew she was pregnant with a 3rd at 39. No idea if baby #3 helped the marriage but they are still together. I know of many examples like this.

I was done at 2. I didn't start having kids until I was almost 36 and two was enough for me. I see pictures of babies and think of what it would be like to have one more and I just don't feel the need or want to have one (i'm also 44 now which plays a big part). When I lived in the city i noticed smaller families, people having 1 or 2 kids...or none. But now that I'm out in the burbs I notice many families with 3 kids, sometimes 4. And these people love posting all over social media of what they and their kids are doing all over the place. Part of the image thing i guess.

We used to live in a pretty wealthy "Wall St" suburb of NYC and kids were absolutely a status symbol. Three was the absolute minimum amount of kids for most people. I remember clearly a conversation I had with a woman who was a major social climber, she'd just had her third and didn't want anymore and said her friends were pressuring her. She did, indeed, end up having a fourth. It's insane. I knew several families with 5 or 6 kids.

[msRB311]

Originally Posted by twingles

We used to live in a pretty wealthy "Wall St" suburb of NYC and kids were absolutely a status symbol. Three was the absolute minimum amount of kids for most people. I remember clearly a conversation I had with a woman who was a major social climber, she'd just had her third and didn't want anymore and said her friends were pressuring her. She did, indeed, end up having a fourth. It's insane. I knew several families with 5 or 6 kids.

Sad that people use kids as a status symbol. I can think of so many other things I'd rather use as a status symbol. If you live in a wealthy wall st suburb isn't that status symbol enough? Kids would kind of cramp that style IMO.

[brightdoglover]

Originally Posted by msRB311

Sad that people use kids as a status symbol. I can think of so many other things I'd rather use as a status symbol. If you live in a wealthy wall st suburb isn't that status symbol enough? Kids would kind of cramp that style IMO.

Enough money for multiple nannies and housekeepers and even a cook maybe.

If I had that kind of money, the last thing I'd want would be kids.

[chicagoliz]

Originally Posted by msRB311

On my son's sports team there are two families with 6 kids, one with 5. I'm like the odd ball with 2 kids.

Anyways, I guess that has nothing to do with this really other than I just wonder why they had 3 kids with all they had going on, but they did.

I'm a little surprised to see this, but it's not shocking there would be small enclaves with some different norms. I may be in a bit of a bubble, but I don't have the sense this is widespread.

Originally Posted by brightdoglover

I think some people have a third child in trying for the gender opposite the first two. Also, I've seen that people who say they only want two often have unplanned pregnancies and do not opt for abortion.

I definitely see this. Most people I've known have wanted 2-3 kids, or kind of want 2, but 3 is the limit. So having a third kid isn't a deal-breaker for a lot of people. But that is often the point where they take some kind of action (i.e some form of permanent birth control, because if they've had three after kind of thinking they were going to have two, they absolutely do not want a fourth.)

Originally Posted by twingles

We used to live in a pretty wealthy "Wall St" suburb of NYC and kids were absolutely a status symbol. Three was the absolute minimum amount of kids for most people. I remember clearly a conversation I had with a woman who was a major social climber, she'd just had her third and didn't want anymore and said her friends were pressuring her. She did, indeed, end up having a fourth. It's insane. I knew several families with 5 or 6 kids.

This actually kind of shocks me. We know people who are in those "Wall Street" type suburbs, and they have 1-2 kids, a couple have 3. Again, I suppose there are small enclaves with different norms, but it strikes me as odd.

Originally Posted by brightdoglover

Enough money for multiple nannies and housekeepers and even a cook maybe.

If I had that kind of money, the last thing I'd want would be kids.

Amen. I'd want to enjoy my money, and I'd also want to enjoy my kids, not pawn them all off on others. I guess there is the bizarre Hilaria Baldwin, who has 7 or however many, but she is strange for multiple reasons, not just the weird baby obsession. Sometimes when you see people who have more than 5 or 6 kids, they're more child collectors than parents.

Among people we know relatively well, only 2 families have four kids. One had fertility issues, and was doing IVF and created a bunch of embryos. They tried a few implantations that weren't successful, and adopted a child. Then they tried with a few more and were still unsuccessful, so they adopted another child. They wanted 2 kids, but they were Catholic and were having some angst about what to do with the remaining embryos, as they didn't want them destroyed, so they figured the easy way to solve the problem was to do one more round of IVF with the remaining embryos and it wouldn't work, as all the other times hadn't and that would be that. Instead, they had twins. So they had a "surprise" pregnancy via IVF.

The other family's wife grew up very, very Catholic, and even though she was fine with birth control, was very against abortion. They ended up with 4 kids.

[CaseyB]

I would probably have had a 4th one but we ran out of bedrooms, LOL.

[chicagoliz]

Originally Posted by CaseyB

I would probably have had a 4th one but we ran out of bedrooms, LOL.

This very much ties in with having the money to care for kids and to give them a certain lifestyle. At this point many people want their kids to have their own room, and most houses have 4 bedrooms or less. So once you get beyond 3 kids, you're looking at a room sharing situation.

Some people prefer that their kids share a room, even if there are a sufficient number of rooms available, or don't mind if their kids share a room. But even then, some practical considerations come into play, such as the gender of the kids, and how close in age they are. A 10 and a 12 year old could share a room, but a 12 year old and a 1 year old wouldn't have the best time together.

I think the biggest reason most people only want 2 or 3 kids is that they want to be able to put sufficient resources into each kid, and have sufficient time to spend with them.

[CaseyB]

I had the time and the resources, just not the bedrooms and I would have been almost 40 giving birth.

[twingles]

Originally Posted by brightdoglover

Enough money for multiple nannies and housekeepers and even a cook maybe.

If I had that kind of money, the last thing I'd want would be kids.

Supposed to show you can afford it, but truthfully, I don't think people really appreciate how much kids cost till they are high school age-ish. When my kids were younger there was even an article about it somewhere.

Back to this woman, she had PPD after her first two kids. I don't get putting yourself through it again. I had a co worker who had PPD bad after her first. She and her husband adopted their next baby. She couldn't do it again.

We have three kids, but two of them are twins or it would be two and done. Pregnancy didn't agree with me.

[msRB311]

Originally Posted by twingles

Supposed to show you can afford it, but truthfully, I don't think people really appreciate how much kids cost till they are high school age-ish. When my kids were younger there was even an article about it somewhere.

Back to this woman, she had PPD after her first two kids. I don't get putting yourself through it again. I had a co worker who had PPD bad after her first. She and her husband adopted their next baby. She couldn't do it again.

We have three kids, but two of them are twins or it would be two and done. Pregnancy didn't agree with me.

My pregnancies were not easy either and I was anxious during them, always worried something would go wrong.

Hard to understand why someone who had PPD after #2 would do that again. I even wonder why people who have hyperemesis gravidarum during pregnancy go through it again. Many people have it with every pregnancy, I guess you never know but I wouldn't want to be throwing up for 9 months and also wouldn't want to put the family I already have through that either.

People make interesting choices with pregnancy I guess...i know someone else who had a heart issue and got a surrogate to have baby #2. It just seemed like great lengths to go through to have someone else you don't know carry the baby but she did it. Maybe it's more common these days.