Two kids vs three

June 18, 2020 1:25 PM

How is raising two children different than raising three? What are the benefits and disadvantages of either number?

I don’t want guesses. I would like to hear personal experiences from those who grew up as one of two or three and from parents or grandparents. Data also welcome. Thanks!

posted by Bella Donna to Human Relations (21 answers total)

Two kids are cheaper than three.
posted by aniola at 1:30 PM on June 18, 2020 [4 favorites]

A friend of mine with three summed it up with "Things got really hard when we went from 1 on 1 to zone defense." In other words, one child per adult made a lot of things easier.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 1:35 PM on June 18, 2020 [10 favorites]

I grew up a third child -- with 10 years between me and my youngest brother. I'm sure mileage will vary, but I personally had very little emotional attachment to my older siblings, who were already adults off doing their own things by the time I was old enough to retain a consistent narrative of memory. Now that my parents are gone, I have zero contact with them -- and don't miss them, because I never really knew them.

Personally I would hesitate to have kids that far apart in age. I mean - I'm glad my parents didn't feel that way, obviously, or I wouldn't be here! But I do feel a bit cheated sometimes of the sibling relationships I might have had if we were born closer together in time.
posted by invincible summer at 1:35 PM on June 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

I have two kids. Friend of mine has three and says, "don't do that. Once they're three, you're outnumbered."

And it's true that you're able to keep an eye out for two kids like you can't with three. One of three is guaranteed to be doing something unfortunate out of your sight at any given moment.
My children like snuggling and get snuggle envy. We're always having to hug two at the same time. Having 3 snugglebugs would be...more stressful.
What I'm really feeling is that I barely have enough time already to listen to two children, check their homework and get a measure of how they truly are right now. Three would mean significantly less time of enjoying each one individually.
posted by Omnomnom at 1:47 PM on June 18, 2020 [6 favorites]

A friend of mine who is married with 3 kids says "the world isn't designed for families of 5". After their 3rd kid was born they had to upgrade their car because they couldn't fit all 3 kids in the back seat of their sedan, so they got a minivan and apparently it's not fun to drive or park. Eating in a restaurant is difficult because they have to wait for a 6-top to be available and restaurants don't usually have very many of those. Traveling sucks for similar reasons; it's just much harder to find 5 seats together on a bus or train or plane. And getting an Uber is much harder with 5 people. At a hotel, someone is going to require a rollaway or you'll have to get 2 rooms with 1 parent per room if the kids are young. In any form of transportation where seats are side-by-side, one kid will always have to sit alone or with a stranger.

Although I'm technically one of 4 kids in my family my oldest sister was already grown and out of the house by the time I was in kindergarten, so I mostly grew up in a family of 5, and it sucked. We didn't travel or dine out much for the reasons mentioned above. Then there's the middle kid (that's me) getting mostly ignored. Trying to split things evenly 3 ways is tough. My siblings and I constantly fought and it was always 2 against 1. Resources were divided and if each kid had some kind of activity (piano lessons, basketball practice, art class, etc) that were at the same time, one kid had to miss out.

Now I'm an adult with my own kid and I find the 1:1 parent:kid ratio much easier and pleasant for everyone.
posted by mezzanayne at 2:02 PM on June 18, 2020 [12 favorites]

I liked growing up as one of three (evenly spaced out). It’s a fun dynamic because you have your own relationship with each sibling, but also kind of a group dynamic as a threesome. Your time alone as siblings isn’t just an intense one-on-one. From the kids’ perspective, outnumbering the parents is great ;-) And there’s a lot of negotiating in family discussions, it sort of teaches you diplomacy—a lot of times we would end up as 2 vs 1 on some issue, but it was always shifting. Something about the jump from 4 to 5 also upped the rowdiness/liveliness of our time as a family—it becomes more of a party than an even foursome. (I see how that could be a positive or a negative). I do think three kids requires parents to relinquish a sense of control in a way that two kids doesn’t—there just isn’t time to monitor every little thing—but honestly I think that can be a good thing for both parents and kids.
posted by sallybrown at 2:05 PM on June 18, 2020 [19 favorites]

I have 3 kids fairly evenly spaced (currently 11, 9, 6). Everyone always trots out the zone defense line. It is funny but I was outnumbered anyways at 2 when my wife wasn't around. So that part of it didn't feel that much different to me.

The biggest thing to me is that more kids just means more individuals and who knows how well they interact. Do you get along with your oldest? Does your middle kid get along with your youngest? With 3 kids, who is getting left out? Each person is their own things and not everyone gets along with everyone else. You're adding more to the mix each time.

Who is getting left out is the hardest for us right now. The oldest and middle are both boys and play well together but exclude the youngest frequently. Not because she is a girl, but because she is younger and demands more attention from them that the oldest isn't selfless enough to give. The middle and the youngest play well together too. The oldest is too temperamental to put up with the youngest.

As a parent, you get used to what normal is. At first I was pretty overwhelmed by going out by myself with 3 kids, but not for any good reason. A lot of times I end up with the youngest girl and we have a lot of fun while the two older brother go do their own things. I don't mind this because she is awesome. But my wife and I get less time together because it is not every day that all 3 of the kids play together unless it's like "go play Minecraft".

Each child had 3-4 years of diapers and constant care, that once it was over I personally didn't miss it. Each child costs more money. But to me all that is just the banal reality of the situation. I drive a minivan - it's ok and does the job. I drive kids around to various things all the time - it's ok it makes them happy and give them things to do and people to interact with. As an only child myself, I am very happy that my children have each other. I missed that growing up.
posted by cmm at 2:24 PM on June 18, 2020 [4 favorites]

Mom of three adult kids here all about 2.5 yrs apart. Three is definitely harder - the logistical stuff - world is set up for families of 4, the odd kid out, the being out-numbered. My three don't always get along and when they were young that meant someone was left out. And cost, and impact on the planet. That said I can't imagine not have my three - all utterly different people. You never know which kid will need what and who will be higher maintenance but that's true with any number.
posted by leslies at 2:35 PM on June 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

I am one of two and have a niece and nephew from my brother. As auntie, it is easy to take the two of them for the weekend (they are 4 and 6), but if the third had a personality like the second, it wouldn't be a big deal...if s/he was more like the first, it would be a challenge. Their parents have previously taken them to see the other grandparents on the opposite coast and one has flown them back - I suspect that's more challenging (and expensive) but doable with three.

A lot of this depends on the kids and the parenting style. I am very close to my brother still, but my mom had two siblings and they were similarly close as adults. My sister in law has a brother she isn't close to and sees rarely, so it's not a numbers dynamic driving that. How much support/patience/resources do you have?

I also think the ages can make a difference - I know two families with two older siblings, and then a much later addition (~10 years apart). One has a very involved older brother but the sister isn't as interested in the younger sibling, though close to her older brother. In the other family, the older kids are busy going off to college/finishing high school, and the little one is still in elementary, so effectively he's going to be alone for about half of his schooling. Families come in all shapes and sizes, and this is a very personal decision with no right or wrong answer. Unless you have multiples in your family, the good news is that you can see how managing two goes before making a decision!
posted by OneSmartMonkey at 2:53 PM on June 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

Previous related question, although it's more focused on how families made a three-kid family work (and how it didn't work).
posted by Gray Duck at 4:08 PM on June 18, 2020

I am one of three boys each two years apart and I have three kids of my own each one year apart. I still get along well with my two brothers. We are all in our 50s. Each of us had one of our children go to the same college at essentially the same time so the cousins get along and we continue to have shared experiences as brothers.I grew up with 3 kids in my family so did not know any differently, but it worked for our family. We sometimes teased our youngest brother as being "the mistake", but the truth was my parents actually wanted a fourth or a girl. Did not happen.

I have 3. They are 29.5 months apart top to bottom. They tease the middle one that they are the mistake because usually kids are two years apart. They are so close in age that all three were in diapers at the same time. As a parent, yeah, our hands were full with 3, but I loved it. Family dynamics was that we were all in this together so let's have some fun. Sunday mornings when my (ex) wife was teaching Sunday school, I would take all three to the pancake house. At the time, two were still in infant carrier seats. You adapt.

I would, even in hindsight, not want to have two kids. Actually, I wanted a fourth, but, rightfully, my wife wanted her body back after being pregnant and breast feeding for 3+ years straight. My three were so close in age that they were both, at once, very competitive and very close. The two boys, very different from each other, were always watching each other's back. All three have such different personalities which to me, is part of the fun.Now they are all in their 20s and they are making their own way in the world in very very different ways, but they all are still good friends with each other. I am still paying their phone bills *ahem kids** and I can see they call or text each other way more than they call or text me. That is a good thing.

Truly, I think the difference between two or three is mostly the parents. Obviously if you have a special needs child or a child with health issues, that is going to make things hard, but the attitude of the parents is the critical thing to what makes two or three work. My ex and I did not agree on a lot at the end, but we always did agree on parenting issues. To this day, while I would not give her the time of day, I think she was a terrific mother to our children.

Our attitude was to teach them right from wrong, to let them fail on their own (no helicoptering), to treat them as individuals, and to make sure everyone was having fun. We let the kids bike in the woods, walk to town on their own, and learn about life. We knew that they would be on their own soon enough and the time to learn lessons was when they were teens, at home, and could have a safety net to fall back on.

While it was happening, our kids used to complain that we would not do their hw for them, we did not hire tutors or have help writing college essays, etc all the things that their friends in this wealthy suburb were having, but now that they are out of college, they have said that that was one of the things they appreciate the most.

If you think you are going to be overwhelmed as a parent or are now, having three is exponentially harder than two. If you are up for it mentally and financially, go for it. It is not the number of kids, it is the parents attitude that matters the most.

My best friend growing up was one of nine (in ten years!). Some used to say I was the 10th kid bc I was at their house so often. It was bedlam in their house. But, the parents were loving and laughing and it worked. I have seen two kids or only child houses that were tension filled that I would never have wanted to be raised in.
posted by AugustWest at 4:16 PM on June 18, 2020 [8 favorites]

I have a dear friend with whom I’ve swapped a lot of stories about our childhoods. We’ve noticed a ton of striking similarities in our upbringings, with the major difference being that I grew up with one sister and she with two.
The main issue I see between our two childhoods is that when she was on the outs with one sister, she had the other to turn to. My sister and I only had each other. I think it forced us to be a little more forgiving and tolerant of each other. However, we both went through more miserable periods of having nobody at all.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:59 PM on June 18, 2020

I wanted to add as a data point - both of my parents worked full-time when we three kids were very little, my mom then transitioned to part-time work for a decade or so, and then stayed at home full time during our teenage years. We had a series of live-in nannies until my mom stopped her part time job. Through all of this, my dad was lucky to have a very secure job with dependable, reasonable hours. He was content to walk out at 5 every day although it meant there was never a promotion on the horizon. There were many many late pick-ups, takeout for dinner, getting squeezed into four-person tables at restaurants (lol), overhearing many stressful parental fights about money. There were multiple minivans, back when they were much more horrid than minivans are now. We didn’t fly often and didn’t go on any overseas trips or anything like that until college—for travel, we mostly drove a few hours to the same beach at the same time every summer.

So I definitely get the critiques about how maybe the world doesn’t fit well for a family of five. But weighing that against not having one of my siblings is like...one grain of sand against a whole person.
posted by sallybrown at 5:06 PM on June 18, 2020 [2 favorites]

A mixed only child with 2 half siblings, and someone who ended a long relationship that didn’t result in children, and now I’m contemplating whether to have any at all. Some of my rationale may help you. Without a social safety net in the US, raising 3 kids is financial burden and if that’s not a concern then you’re simply in the territory of day to day management of raising them.

Someone here mentioned they never travelled abroad until they were adults, if resources are an issue would you rather give 2kids more, or have a third? Once someone has a child or sibling In life you’d never trade them for anything, but this is a decision before they’re even conceived. You won’t regret the third once it’s here, but how will it change the life of what came before it. You will be signing up to longer parenthood, and being free of those responsibilities later in life. What could the extra resources afford you and your partner?

I’ve also seen that family just means more to some people and being able to travel and do other things means more to others. What is more valuable to you? Some people feel their family isn’t complete after two, are you there yet? Having and raising the first 2 might offer you the most decisive answer. No one who is one of three is going to say they wish they had a sibling less, except for conflict issues, and that won’t help you, because every family dynamic is different.

As you age 3 kids offer a more robust system than 2 kids, but I would think about all the resources that went into raising that family, that you could count on in old age, is also taking away from resources and time in your earlier and healthier days to enjoy life. Again if money is not an issue, it would change things somewhat but there is still the part about parenting 3 kids.
posted by whatdoyouthink? at 9:16 PM on June 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

I'm the oldest of three and am newly a mother of three. I was initially in favor of stopping at two for mostly the logistical reasons mentioned above. I had a whole life of having to wait for a five-top, fighting three-across in the backseat, etc. My parents never did buy that minivan. But I was eventually convinced to have a third. Part of my thinking when I agreed to it was actually that I feel like my husband and I are both sort of helicopter parents by nature and I wanted our kids to get that feeling I always had as a child that the parents were just a little overwhelmed and not always able to put my exact needs first at this very instant? I think it was good for me to try to solve my own problems occasionally before I went to the adults in the house. I heard that from other people I know who grew up in families of 3+ too - that it made them self-sufficient. I knew my mom wasn't jumping up and down to check my homework or make sure I did my piano practice. That was my job.

I will say that even at this early stage my family dynamic is looking very different from the dynamic of the family I grew up in, because we were three girls and my kids are two girls with a boy in the middle. I have no idea how this will shake out long term but I do think it's going to be different. There's just a lot more complexity introduced by birth order, relative age gaps, and of course individual personalities when you're dealing with three kids instead of two. There are more relationships to manage, and they ebb and flow as the kids go through phases.

They are very expensive, and during coronavirus having a baby in the house has been a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it would be so much easier to only have two kids right now. On the other hand, I can't tell you how wonderful it is to have someone in the house who thinks the current situation is both totally normal and totally great. The baby has been a light on some very dark days this year, and I think we are all so thankful to have her around. She is keeping the rest of us grounded and focused on the long term. It's great to think that if we're all very lucky, maybe this will all be resolved before she starts forming memories, and her brother and sister will tell her stories of the year school just stopped and she won't even believe it. Sorry, kind of a digression.

I thought a *ton* about this decision and would be happy to memail if you want to bounce ideas off someone who's been there recently as a parent and experienced it as a kid.
posted by potrzebie at 10:36 PM on June 18, 2020 [3 favorites]

I grew up as one of four. There are three of us, then a big gap and then another one.

Compared to people I know who have only one other sibling, there's a richness and complexity to our relationships. Each pair gets on well, but the least alike pair happens to be the eldest two. As adults, I think more siblings is a positive. More people that you might get on well with, and no worse if you get on with none of them. The only thing that is potentially a challenge with lots of siblings is that decisions about elder care or inheritance or similar get more complex the more people who are involved.

When we were a threesome as kids, it was often the case that two would be together and one separate. That mostly worked ok because the one separate one wasn't always the same one (usually either the youngest or eldest though). There was less money than there would have been if there were just two of us, and I think the 3rd and then 4th siblings soaked up most of my parents' pay rises and increased prosperity. But, we had enough money to live in a nice area, with good state schools, and weren't substantively poorer than other kids in the area, just on the 'less disposable income' side. The wider age range even with 3 did mean that it took us longer as a family to stop doing little kid activities and it was difficult to find things that appealed to everyone. We are a family of slightly picky eaters and more children means less overlap in what they like to eat. I suspect my parents found it difficult to get a babysitter, certainly we weren't left often and it was more likely to be with an adult than a teenager.
posted by plonkee at 4:51 AM on June 19, 2020 [2 favorites]

I don't fit your criteria, but I asked the question about having three kids linked above and read approximately 1 billion things about 2 v. 3 kids and casually interviewed about 1000 families over their decisions so I feel qualified to answer.

And the only thing the anecdotes told me is that it's down to your personality and situation (are you an extrovert? do you like a bustling household? are you quite rich or if not (or even if so) do have strong family support or live in an affordable place? are your careers flexible?).

But the kids you don't know. So I know people who have LOVED having three kids and people who don't, but really, it just was because their own situation wasn't great (lack of money, weak marriage, little family support, latent mental health issues) before having three, or the three they had didn't get along, or had special needs that, for example, basically required one parent to quit work and devastated their financial/energy reserves.

I decided to stick with two, but it was a 1000 percent head over heart decision knowing that we don't have the emotional or financial bandwidth and do not have any family or real community support nearby. But I feel so sad about it and always will.
posted by heavenknows at 3:09 PM on June 19, 2020

I have a friend who has seven(!!!) kids, so far. A few years back (when she had five), she told me that she thought the hardest transition was from one kid to two. She actually thought it was harder than going from none to one. She was always a SAHM, so when the first kid was born, tending to that one kid was her job, full stop. Going from one to two and dealing with their competing needs was a real struggle for her. She felt that what she learned in that process - how to balance the needs of multiple very young children, how to figure out what was urgent and what she could let slide, etc. - was very applicable to going from two to three children, too. Basically, she was just continuing to improve her multiple-kids skills, but already starting with a somewhat developed skillset. That doesn't seem to be how most parents in this thread feel, but that's one person's experience!

Personally I am the middle of three, all about two years apart. I do think there were a lot of things that were cool about being one of three and I agree with a lot of what's been said here. We had a lot of fun together, and we have lots of inside jokes and memories together. I'll be honest, though: us eldest two have always been closer with each other than with the youngest. We did occasionally tease our mom and joke that she should have stopped at two. I do love my younger brother! He just has a very different personality from us other two, and we never really 'got' him the way we 'get' each other. I don't think there's any lesson there besides the fact that all kids are individuals and you just never know how it's going to turn out.
posted by mandanza at 11:00 PM on June 19, 2020 [1 favorite]

My husband is the youngest of three, two years between each of them, and that means there are more resources when caring for elderly parents. That also depends on where all the siblings choose to live, what their family dynamics are, their financial resources, etc. But an alternative is that one of two adult children picks up the majority of the care giving, due to unforeseen issues with the other that make it impossible for that sibling to pitch in.
But that is way in the future.
The way my mom (parent of two, twelve years apart) explained it to me -- you have two hands and two children and you need to cross the street. If you can figure out what to do with the third child, you can have as many as you like.

The main examples I've seen have been that with more than two, the older siblings take more of a parenting role. They get first dibs on material things, but have more responsibility and get more criticism. To a degree the needs of babies/toddlers are more pressing.
On the other hand, by the time the last child is ready to leave the nest the parents are more chill, barring financial problems (college debts, caring for older family members, impending retirement issues, etc.) Or there may be upheaval due to marital discord, which may have been put on the back burner until the youngest is nearing adulthood.
Two siblings are stuck with each other, through all of the family drama. They learn to cooperate, because there are no other options.
With three, you may have such differing personalities and life experiences that one of them is tapped as odd man out, and that early conditioning may never be fully resolved. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it may be awkward once the kids have moved away.
posted by TrishaU at 2:29 AM on June 20, 2020

Going from two to three is tough at the very start, if your children are closer in age. But it quickly works out and is great fun. This was true for me growing up and we found the same with our children (we have more than three now.) The zone defense thing is just a joke. Also, you can safely fit three children in a sedan even if there are multiple carseats involved. We also don’t find we are traveling less than we would have with two or one, but perhaps that is because we are not the types to push ourselves to the edge of our capacity there. Margin is nice.
posted by michaelh at 1:21 PM on June 20, 2020

The book is "The Three-Body Problem" - and my experience as a mother of 6 - was that four was easier to cope with than three.

Three is two against one - but if I am the one and nag or complain or scheme, then I can disrupt the two and then it is my two against the one.

With four - three against one - you're outnumbered, so end of argument. Or two against two and it is stasis, and no argument.

I am an only child. I have always worked full-time. There is 13 years between the oldest and the youngest so spaced out roughly 2 or so years between each child. I have told them that they are not going to get anything from me while I am alive as I am on my own and need to have enough to pay for someone to look after me, as I am determined to be completely independent. Also, could they please wait until my youngest is 20 before I become a grandmother, as I am not going anywhere near a nappy prior to that time.

My advice to my children, "Try and find a friend amongst your siblings. If you can establish a friendship with one or more of your siblings, that friendship will be the longest that you will ever have, as it is not inter-generational, and will be a touchstone for the rest of your life."

Rather than being hyper-focused on one or two children, I decided that a more chaotic environment would allow each child to develop individually, and that if there could be a good relationship between them, they could provide support to each other.
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 6:18 AM on June 23, 2020