I can recall a conversation with a dad at the school carnival a few years ago. We were chatting about kids. He and his wife have 5. We have 3. As we talked about the realities of 5, I mentioned, “I’ve always heard that four is the easiest because you’ve already given up your sanity and any illusion of control.” And he replied, “Yes. People often ask us, ‘what is the easiest number of kids? And we thought, when we had two, wow, if we can do two and it’s this simple, we can do three. And then three was brutal. So we figured, let’s try an even number. And then 4 and 5 sort of just happened.”
“So? What is the easiest number?” I asked.
“Two. We should have stopped at two. I mean, we’re thrilled with our 5. But two was definitely the sweet spot of easy for us.”
And I laughed. And he laughed.
Because we both know the reality of having kids is that being in charge of other humans isn’t necessarily ever easy. And easy is all so relative, right? But for he and his wife, they found their sweet spot in two and decided to take on more. Some people find a sweet spot and stick with it. And others, like Adam and myself, we just went into parenting heads down, towards our “goal” of three or four children.
Even though 1 felt like quite a lot of work. And I do believe our one was a fair amount of work. Not an “easy” baby. Not content with much.
Even though the second was much of same song, different verse. A little bit louder. And luckily, not a whole lot worse.
And then we proceeded to the third.
We were outnumbered. From man-to-man to zone. We went from having a pair to a trio. We would, in theory, always have an odd man out.
And often, we do. It feels like rarely are the three in sync. We’ve always had two sharing a room and one on their own. We’ve had the Oldest and the Littlest. And what I’ve lovingly coined, the Middlest. We have some amount of one being the left out of the card game for two. It feels like if one or two are really being dynamite, there is always one to counteract that. We have two parents to figure out how to get three kids to and fro. Three kids makes for a bigger home, car, and clothing expenditure. Three kids will make for more expensive college costs. And by the time you hand a shirt down twice, it looks a bit like it’s been dumpster diving.
I watched my two Oldests playing Frolf outside this morning and I was internally giddy. The two Olders are often at odds. Often the Oldest is annoyed by the Middlest. There tends to be a lot of the Oldest not thinking the Middlest is as cool as he is. Yet he is sweet as potatoes to the Littlest. We also tend to see a lot of the Middlest doing whatever possible to gain the attention of the Oldest. Often times to no avail. The Middlest and the Littlest play famously together. But rarely are all three in step with one another.
Much like I’ve long heard, I do believe, from my own experience, three can be tricky. But, I sort of assume that any amount of kids can be tricky, right?
With one, you have your own set of realities to contend with. With two, especially if they are the same gender, you may deal with sibling rivalry more often. With four, I might start forgetting their names {okay. That’s a stretch. But you feel me, right?}.
I just don’t think there is any right number of kiddos. I think if you never want kiddos, you probably shouldn’t have them. Turns out, being in charge of a human takes a fair amount of time and attention. If you have one or two or three or 7, there are trade offs and pros and cons to each amount.
But really, for us, I’ve determined that much like I would never wish to trade my boys for girls. I would never wish to have only had two. Because our boys are what we know. Because three is what we know. We are excessively blessed in that we really hoped for three or four and we are able to experience that life. And when two are ganging up on one or when I see people with two who seem to have their life so much more under control, I just remind myself that this is our family. This is our story. This trio is our sweet spot.
Two might have been “easier”… it might not have been. One child might have been cheaper. And our house may have been in better shape at the end of each day. My house, on any given day, looks a bit like a riot just ensued that included weapons of card games, Yeti in my Spaghetti, and dirty socks. My laundry pile seems to resemble more of a mountain. Two children might have been more picturesque. Maybe the boys would have been best friends forever. A duo who loved everything about one another and bickered only out of their extreme passion for each other. Four, maybe four would mean that they would each always have a partner. And maybe five would make for the kids starting to raise themselves.
I love three because I feel like each of the three have their own distinct personalities. I feel like they each bring something special to the table. And I feel like it brings a bit of color to our world. Three might sound like more work than two. It might not.
Three is just right for us. And while two might have been easier, as many have told me no matter what two or six might have been like…
It wouldn’t have been our life.
