Mommy Diaries: One or Two?

Is having one child better? Or should you have a second one? Gayatri Unsworth tells us why she finally decided to have a second child.

The only-child versus multiple children debate is always an interesting one and for parents actually having to decide between the two, it’s a very complex consideration.

On the one hand, you have the single child camp extolling all the virtues of not having more than one offspring. Among the reasons listed for being ‘one and done’ are that the child involved has 100% of both parents’ time, attention and resources and that research indicates that ‘only children’ are often more mature, well-behaved, happier and achieve higher grades at school. Whilst such justifications for stopping at one may well be true, the parents on the other side of the divide, who choose to have more than one child, are also able to provide equally compelling reasons.

If you had asked me 4 years ago whether I thought I would have considered giving my only child, Jasmin, a sibling, I would have given you a firm, resounding no. Actually truth be told, I would have laughed hysterically before giving you a firm, resounding, extremely loud NO.

Back then, there was no way I could envision myself as mum to more than one child. It’s not that I didn’t love the idea of having many kids or that I would have had difficulty conceiving again. If anything I had always imagined that I would someday have a home filled with the pitter-patter of many little feet, but then once a real baby appeared in my life and I threw my heart and soul entirely into caring for her, I realised how much hard work and effort parenting required.

My husband and I did everything together with Jasmin. I quit work to be a full-time mum. We filled her day with so much personal interaction and activities, all her waking moments were spent with either myself or my husband when he was home from work. She trotted all over the globe with us and we could afford to give her the best of everything.

As such, I simply couldn’t foresee a way in which it would have been possible for me to accommodate another little being in my life. I felt that we were already complete as a little team of 3 and not once did I feel like Jasmin needed the presence of a sibling in her life. She had us as ever-ready playmates and when the time came for her to broaden her social skills, she went to playschool for a few hours every morning and learnt how to interact with other children.

We were very much aware of the ‘spoilt only-child’ trap and so made it a point to always define clear boundaries and very rarely did we allow Jasmin to get away with unacceptable behaviours or actions despite her being our only baby. Plus the ratio of 2 caregivers to 1 child meant that when the whole business of parenting got a little too exhausting, which it inevitably did from time to time, we could take turns having breaks and split the load so to speak. It was, in my opinion, the perfect family set-up. And so, to bring another baby into our lives just felt like it would take away so much from her and I didn’t think that to do so was fair. My husband and I were both wholly committed to the idea of being a one-child family and we were perfectly fine with the idea of Jasmin growing up without siblings.

But life, as they say, has a funny way of giving us perspective and that is precisely what happened to me. Just after Jasmin’s 2nd birthday, my father suffered a serious stroke. As I sat there in the hospital emergency room, I felt like the only person in the whole wide world who genuinely understood exactly how I was feeling at that point was my sister. I relied on her so much for emotional support and vice-versa and as I navigated the difficult few weeks that followed, helping my dad as he recovered, I began to see the advantages of having more than just one offspring.

The more I thought about it, the more I realised that sticking to the one-child arrangement was more for my own benefit than Jasmin’s. It was my own heart which I had doubts about. Could I love another child as deeply and as a fiercely as I loved my first-born? Would I be disadvantaging her by not being able to give her 100% of my time once a new baby arrived into the picture? Could I somehow double the amount of energy I was currently dedicating to one child so as to be super-mum for two little ones? Good friends who had multiple children assured me that my concerns were unnecessary and that mums always found a way to cope and provide. And so, after spending a few months carefully deliberating the pros and cons, my husband and I took the plunge and made the very big decision to have another baby.

My daughters are now almost 6 and 2.5 years old respectively. I have not had a single moment of regret in terms of my decision to go from ‘one and done’ to ‘two and through’. Don’t get me wrong, I did have a few moments of doubts especially in those early days when my eldest had the occasional complaint of no longer feeling special and certainly many moments of guilt when one child’s requirements had to be waitlisted whilst the other’s demands were met, but regret, absolutely never, not for a single second.

As soon as my second daughter, Chelsea, came out into the world and they placed her in my arms, I loved her with every fibre of my being in the exact same unbridled, immense way I loved her big sister. It was quite simply as if my heart met her and just instantly doubled in capacity. Yes the first few weeks and months even, were challenging and often emotionally draining, trying to re-learn how to parent and re-adjust everyone’s expectations, but I can say without a doubt that for my family at least, the only thing better than one child is two.

The emergence of the second child totally changes the dynamics of a family unit. For me at least, having a second child made me a more relaxed parent. With Jasmin, I parented more by the book than I did by intuition. I didn’t always trust that I knew best and so I was quite rigid in terms of ticking all the right boxes and giving precedence to the knowledge of parenting experts than my own mummy gut-feelings. Chelsea has allowed me to adopt a more relaxed, think-on-my feet sort of parenting philosophy, simply because very often I haven’t got the luxury of time to sit and pore over what the experts would recommend doing in a particular situation.

The most beautiful and priceless thing about having a second child however, has been watching the bond between my two daughters develop and blossom into such an amazing relationship. They are each other’s best friends and most loyal supporters. The first thing they do when they wake up in the morning is to look for each other. If I reprimand one, the other will immediately show up to defend her sister’s actions. Yes, they disagree from time to time and they have their little tiffs, but it’s literally over in seconds and before you know it they are running off little hands intertwined, giggling away about the latest scheme they were cooking up.

I watch my girls as they learn so many valuable lessons from each other about communication, conflict resolution, empathy, kindness and just life in general. When one is hurt, the other shows so much genuine care and compassion that I’m very often blown away by the level of mindfulness such young beings can possess. They often surprise me with the consideration they extend to each other and the comfort they give one another when one of them is hurt or upset. They love nothing more than snuggling up in bed together and chatting away in their own special invented language, aptly named ‘Jibberish’ by my eldest. Chelsea idolises her big sister to the extent of copying everything Jasmin wears, says and does. My first-born in turn looks after her little sister like she is her own baby and extends to her a level of patience and understanding, which even I, the real mother, am sometimes incapable of.

So yes, it’s double the work, double the tiredness and definitely double the cost but those things pale in comparison to double the joyous laughter ringing through your household, double the cuddles and kisses you get and double the little beings running into your arms. And I know someday, hopefully a long time from now, that when my husband and I are no longer, we will be leaving Jasmin and Chelsea with the best inheritance of all – each other.