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I just told my wife (2 kids and counting) about this article and her reaction was (roughly translated): "weird how many women have multiple". There is not much to add here; The only people having actual experience on the matter, i e. mothers, will happily choose to go through this allegedly grueling experience again. While people with zero experience, such as the childless author, will make these wild, outlandish claims. It should have been instructive for you that your mother, who knows exactly how bad pregnancy/childbirth is or isn't, was exasperated.
Indeed. My wife has a few childless friends, some are happy about it, some are not (one was explicitly flipped from the former to the latter by hanging out with my son). This "dangerous" part isn't really it. Its far more about the "doing stuff" bit. The ones who are happy about it are "scared" of not being able to jet off to Europe on a whim. The stats also say that most of these people live to regret their short term thinking in their 20s and 30s. Children are an investment. For most people the early pain ends up being paid back surprisingly quickly. Now, a small subsection of parents dislike their kids. I'd argue many of them dislike the kid because they dislike themselves and made a kid in their image.
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This seems like a good avenue of research if we take the notion of revealed preferences seriously. Among the population of mothers with 1 child and with the opportunity for a 2nd, how many of them go on to get a 2nd? Defining what that "opportunity for a 2nd" in an objective way would be basically impossible, since where to draw the line in terms of financial and other logistical constraints is highly subjective. But it'd still be interesting to see what the results would be depending on different places the line is drawn. If it turns out that some significant proportion of such mothers go on to have (or at least attempt) a 2nd child, then that would provide at least some support for the notion that, as a non-mother without first-hand experience, the author of the essay has an inaccurately severe view of the pain and suffering that childbirth involves for the mother.
There would be other explanations as well, of course, such as childbirth causing amnesia in the mother, or that the benefits of being a mother of 2 is so much greater than being a mother of 1 that the calculation is very different than from going from 0 to 1. Or that the women who give birth to 1 child are already filtered for women with lots of courage to go through with giving birth. But I think the explanation that someone who hasn't experienced giving birth is catastrophizing it in a way that isn't reflective of the actual experience of the women who have experienced it is a pretty simple one that ought to be given a lot of weight.
I'd add that's a very relevant question, because wherever pro-natalist policies exist, I think this is their main real goal.
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The cost of childbirth is basically the same (source — my wife with whom I’ve had multiple kids).
The real difference is that there is a diminishing marginal cost to each kid. Your lifestyle changes going from 0-1. Not a big change going from 1-2. Even smaller change going 2-3, etc). Also you can spread financial costs amongst a larger family more easily.
So if child birthing costs are similar and post child birth costs are lower compared to first, provided you get the same benefit out of the next you’d be inclined to have another kid.
I don’t think my wife thinks this way (and no do the other moms of multiples that I know) so I think OP doesn’t know what she is talking about.
I'd argue the opposite is true. Do you happen to remember that child car seat study that was referenced here a couple of times? Also, your accommodation expenses double when you go on vacation with 3 kids instead of 2.
The car seat is real (we just switched to a three row SUV).
Yes vacations get a bit more expensive but there are a lot of other savings.
Car seats are annoying. We're going to have to get one without arm rests, doing the seatbelt buckles are just too frustrating.
It also is crazy how long kids need to be in car seats these days. I understand the NHTSA data. But it does add annoyance.
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It depends a lot on your lifestyle. Plenty of early parents still cling to some vestiges of the childless lifestyle.
Among our acquaintances, it's not unusual to not even own a car anyway, or the other way around to already have a seven-seater. Likewise vacation is extremely variable; Some still regularly go on "full" vacations that require booking a flight seat per person, hotel rooms of appropriate size, etc. while others mostly just go camping a few miles from the city. Unsurprisingly, the former often have a single kid and think they "can't" afford more, whereas the latter can easily have 5 kids without much trouble even as they earn less.
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