Number of children

In my circle of friends, 2-3 is very common, but I do know a handful of families with 4-6. The only ones I know with more than that are in our homeschooling group.

In my husband's family, it is an unspoken rule that if you have a pigeon pair, you stop and if you get two of the same gender, you can try once more, but everyone stops at 3 no matter what.

We have 2 now and want at least 4. I am willing to go on having kids until my body is unable to anymore, but since we like to have three years between them, that limits us to 6 or 7 unless we have multiples.

I grew up in the South of the US(Tennessee/Georgia), and now live in the Netherlands, my husband is from here.

The biggest difference is that where I grew up, people tended to start younger, have more children, and were more likely to have steps and halfs. No joke, people usually expressed shock that I was over 22, never married, and childless. I'm 30 and will be 31 as of when we start conceiving (this is our first), most women my age where I grew up are on their 3rd or 4th child and often their 2nd marriage. I grew up in a family of 3, my brother had 4 kids, my sister had none.

In Holland, the vast majority of people stick to 1 or 2 kids, and many first-time mothers are 35 or over. There's a lot less open space here, so people tend to prefer small families. My husband is the youngest of 2, his brother has 1 son and they're planning on stopping there. Also, the majority of people are much less religious than in the US, which contributes to smaller family size, although many from Middle Eastern and Antillian backgrounds do tend to lean towards large families.

My husband and I have decided that 3 is the absolute largest number of kids that is practical, but we're both leaning towards 2, as we'd like to space them out 4 or so years, so having a 3rd would very likely mean we'll both be in our 40s. We're swaying pink for our first, as if we have 2 kids then we're likely to miss a shot at having a daughter, something that's very important to us for various reasons. Although if we can have 1 of each, that's what we'd like. Basically, we'll have 2, see how we feel, maybe have the 3rd.

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Originally Posted by Zivic-Bubac

In my country (Eastern Europe) most of the families ( I think more then 90%) have 2 kids.
It's like when you get married, you got to have 2 children by default. Pigeon pair is desirable of course :rolleyes: If you have 2 boys, that's OK too, 2 girls means you pretty much failed as a mother/family.

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I have to ask...where are you from? Anyway, where I am almost everybody has 2 or is aiming for 2...hardly any families have more (and I have to say that personally, I only know 3 families with 3 kids or more). And the large majority have pigeon pairs, although I know 4 families with 2 girls who are perfectly happy with that. I know one woman who had 4 boys...and I think we all know how she ended up with 4 boys...she was trying for a girl from #2. She's done now.

With 5 boys I'm used to being stared at like a circus freak now. I don't feel anything from it anymore. They can't hurt me now. LA LA LA LA LA.... :wink:

Where I am 2 is the norm, 3 is a "big" family. I'm a bit of an oddball. I have five children and I had my daughter first, then four sons, and the range of ages is 20-17 months with a 10 yr gap between the first 4 and last one. So if people ask me if I'm having another to "get my girl" I can honestly say NO I'm doing it again to have another baby so my youngest can have a buddy! Sure I'm planning to try to sway girl but if I get another boy I'll be just as thrilled.