An Actual Serious Question

This might come across as frivolous, but here's the burning question that is currently occupying my mind: How many kids should a couple have, for optimal happiness?

The whole time I was growing up, I worried a lot about the environment and the population crisis and vowed that I'd never have more than one or maybe two children, to avoid adding any more burdens to the earth.

Then the night my daughter was born, I was so over-the-moon full of joy I remember thinking, "That was great! I did it! I want to do it again - I'd love to have about four kids!" And so far parenting has been the best time of my life. I love being with my husband and my daughter, taking care of our family. I feel like I'm so much better at that stuff than I am doing my jobby job, earning my way in the world. In my daydreams I quit my job and stay home with the kids (lots of them) in a big rambling house in the country, and we all make our own butter and cheese, and the kids tend a vegetable garden, and we're all happy as clams.

But realistically. I'm too old to have a bunch more kids. And the environmental problems are still there, including climate change which threatens life as we know it, and is a menace no generation has ever had to face before. And even if it was guaranteed that the world we love is going to go on forever, and will be safe for our children to grow up in, I'm not sure my husband and I could afford to have more than one more child - not and provide the quality of life that I want for them.

So a lot of this speculation is just that, just hypothetical dreaming. If we *did* want to have two more children, the time to get cracking on that would be right about now, since I'm already 32 and I wouldn't want to take the risk of pregnancy past age 35. One of my friends who had her baby about the same time that I did is now eight months pregnant with her second child. I'm amazed. I haven't even gotten my period back yet. I'm physically incapable of becoming pregnant again, and here she's almost done carrying #2!

Anyway, back to the question of the hour. I can see that having one kid, even if it's a lot of work and fundamentally changes your life together, still leaves time for snuggling and the occasional date night and all the little joys. And one kid is portable - I can get around town on my own, carrying her and the stroller and her bag of stuff, and it's doable. But if I had two, I don't know how I'd manage to go anywhere. I just don't have enough arms. I can also see, based on the couples we know who have two young kids, that two soak up all available time - not that there is a whole lot remaining after the first one. These couples are in crisis all the time, slamming through the days, constantly struggling to keep food in the fridge, keep the house from descending into chaos, and collapsing into bed exhausted every single night. No more date nights, for sure. One tired mother told me, "One was fun. But two is just - I mean, we love him, but - we don't have a life any more. We're just hanging on and hoping it will get easier in a few years." Which means that three kids is a level of madness I can't even bear to contemplate.

But! but but but. Having a baby, the first time, was so great. And I loved watching her grow and learn. I couldn't even tell you what my favorite stage was. Wouldn't it be wonderful to get the chance to do all that again? and again?

So, back to the question again, which is: Have there ever been any scientific studies to determine the optimal number of children a couple should have in order to achieve or maintain happiness? The research would have to be relevant to young urban/suburban Americans living in environments similar to mine, of course. And the outcomes would have to be various, including both marital happiness for the parents and long-term happiness and positive feelings about their family for the kids. I wouldn't want to have a family where the kids leave home asap and never want to return even for holidays.

My hope is that if you sample enough families a pattern emerges, like - two kids bring about the perfect balance between adult and kid pursuits within the family, whereas three kids make the marriage strained. Or, three kids are optimal for allowing different personalities to flourish within the family and to create a well-rounded whole. Or, four kids is just right for creating that warm tribal sense of belonging. I just don't know.

I would be really interested to learn more about this. Maybe I'll check out the department of family and child psychology at the local university and see if they have any leads.