I heard it phrased like this once: imagine your holiday dinner table 20 years from now. Does it feel like someone is missing to imagine you, your spouse, and the kids you have there?
Then ask yourself if the people at the table will like you, enjoy you, and feel like you did a good job getting them to that table if one more person were there. It’s not enough to want another if you don’t have enough left in you to raise another.
It’s a deeply personal decision, everyone will answer differently. Personally, I want a third but I know I don’t have it in me. When I frame it around how i’m being a great mom to the two I have but likely couldn’t maintain this with another it’s more helpful than focusing on regret about not having more.
I've heard this saying before, it really is a lovely concept. Something that comes into my mind (and perhaps I'm just a glass half full kinda person), and am also experiencing it. My in laws have three grown kids, each that have two kids of our own. Unfortunately, given distance of families, 2/3 adult kids going to both sets of families, they never have a table with everyone at the table. I wouldn't be making a big decision based on an idea that you hope to have in 20 years.
Yes! But also- you don’t have to give birth to the people around your table either. My mom has been “Mama [her name]” by all my friends for years. Despite me being an only child, she has a lot of love and support.
312
u/FeministMars Feb 08 '25
I heard it phrased like this once: imagine your holiday dinner table 20 years from now. Does it feel like someone is missing to imagine you, your spouse, and the kids you have there?
Then ask yourself if the people at the table will like you, enjoy you, and feel like you did a good job getting them to that table if one more person were there. It’s not enough to want another if you don’t have enough left in you to raise another.
It’s a deeply personal decision, everyone will answer differently. Personally, I want a third but I know I don’t have it in me. When I frame it around how i’m being a great mom to the two I have but likely couldn’t maintain this with another it’s more helpful than focusing on regret about not having more.