Studies say that most couples, before becoming parents, explain that they would like to have more than one child. However, the birth rate in Spain is quite low, as we currently have 1.36 children per woman, the European average being 1.57 children per woman.
This means that from what couples would like to have at the beginning to what they end up having there is a fairly large distance that responds to many reasons. They are not all that they are, but we will enumerate and explain what are the factors that usually generate doubts and that they can get a couple to end up staying with only one child, without going for that second child (or more) they pretended at the beginning.
Being a father, being a mother, is not an easy task
The change that happens when one day you become a father is quite hard, quite strong. Many parents have a really bad time at the beginning (we also had very hard times) due to many circumstances: the time for you disappears completely, the life you had vanishes, they give you ten at night and you realize that the house is more messy than ever, the child cries because he is hungry, or because he does not have it, or because his belly hurts, or you don't know why he cries, but he keeps complaining and there is no way he can stay a moment in the crib , asleep, to be able to do those everyday things that you did a few days ago and now seem like a luxury, or an impossible task.
And in the magazines they didn't say any of this, nor did the family let you know. You believe that babies eat, sleep and poop, and it turns out that there is a fourth verb that says "and they need you at all times". Yes, that at some point he consents to go to other arms, but you did not think that this was so. You love him, you love him madly, but it takes time to realize and assume that you have to give a lot of yourself and your time to the cause.
When the child grows a little, when he is more autonomous, he begins to speak, the tantrums are ceasing, it seems that he is eating well and sleeping better, when a mother and a father observe that they are already recovering a small portion of their lives, the First doubts about having another baby or not. Some couples are clear that yes, they are already in the mess and go ahead. Others, on the other hand, may feel that they are not prepared or do not feel comfortable with a new pregnancy and starting it all over again and prefer to dedicate their time to their child and themselves, to continue, more or less, with the life they led before (or with a different lifestyle, which everything can be, but knowing that control over everything is easier than if you have more children)
Thousands of couples, thousands of realities
Only one couple knows what is being cooked at home, more now that we exceed six million unemployed and that those of us who work are waiting for a thread, at the expense of the government crossing the last cable and making more cuts , raise the VAT or annoy us wherever they occur.
Today it is difficult to live on a single salary and yet many parents are making many efforts to make it possible. On some occasions by choice and many, many, because there is no choice. Uncertainty, not knowing what will happen tomorrow, not knowing that debts can be paid and all the fears that may appear due to the current situation can cause (is causing) many couples to be planted with only one child.
As also there is no help For families until you have three children, parents feel little support from our leaders, who are allowing one fifth of our children to be in poverty.
Grandparents, caregivers, although older
In addition to all this, and since many homes work mother and father, Someone has to take care of the children. Nursery schools solve the problem on some occasions, but not always. Places are limited and still being subsidized, you have to pay. If we talk about a private one, then you still have to pay more. This means that many couples have grandparents to take care of children, but many grandparents have already advanced ages, precisely because many couples have older children, from 30-35 years.
That they take care of a child, yet, but when two or three years have passed and you see that they are tired it is hard to think that they will soon have to take care of a second child, a second baby. This thinking that you are the only one in the family with children, because if you have brothers or sisters with children and they have to take care of several children or tell you.
Where three fit, four fit
"Where two fit, three fit", "where three fit, four fit", and so we can continue until I don't know when. However, it is not always a matter of fitting. Formerly children inherited our brothers' clothes, we played with what little we had and if we didn't have it we invented it, we spent hours on the street with other children, but now customs have changed a lot. Children no longer spend time on the street, but at home or with directed activities, which must be paid.
If they are at home they need stimuli to that do not climb the walls, through toys, our time, stories, books, etc., on weekends many parents look for activities to do, go to museums, concerts, to the movies, go out on weekends from time to time , so that children have experiences beyond the four walls of their room and all this, even if you do it from figs to brevas, costs money.
There are times when the arrival of a second child can make all this difficult. I know that this point may sound hard (comforts vs. another child), but it is a combination of factors, it is a sum of this and perhaps the previous ones or others that I did not get to comment, and this has its own weight too, because there are those who prefer try to give the best (in time and resources) to a single child to have to distribute that time and those resources between the two, at the risk of not being able to do many of the things they would like to do.
Not wanting, or not being able
Another possible reason is not want, as valid as the others. I, for example, do not want to have a fourth child. I stood with all three for many reasons and, although I know that I would love the room as much or more than the other three, I don't want to. To have a child, both parents have to want to have it, and this does not always happen. Sometimes he ends up negotiating, speaking, and the decision to move forward is reached, and sometimes one of them is enlisted for whatever reasons.
In addition to not wanting, there is the can not. Many couples have their first child, as I said, after thirty years, and as the years go by, the chances of pregnancy decrease. There are many couples who end up with only one child because the second does not arrive, despite the attempts.
And if in the end I stay with only one child?
Go, go do what you have to do. Surely you have sat a moment of nothing to see what was cooked on the internet and you have other things to do more important that require your attention. Tomorrow we talk about this, okay?
Photos | Andy Malmin, Carly Lesser & Art Drauglis on Flickr On Babies and more | The ideal number of children today is two, how many children must be had today? How many children would you have if you had more money?
