Here is the second installment of my new blog series, Parenting Advice You Didn’t Ask For.  Today’s topic: Going For Baby Number Three.  I hope that Parents, particularly those of the Trio-Considering Variety, will find this Analysis to be useful in their Family Planning Discussions.

First, it is important to dispel some myths floating around out there about having a third baby.  Here are some that are particularly misleading:

1.         Myth Number One:  The Baby Will Raise Itself.  I personally heard this one from none other than our Pediatrician.  The idea is that, well…I don’t know what the idea is.  Just because the baby comes third doesn’t make it less Baby, does it?  But it seemed so authoritative, well-researched and medical advice-like, coming as it did from a Doctor.  Well, it’s very misleading.  Third babies don’t magically change their own diapers, or know it’s their teeth that are bothering them and measure out an appropriate dosage of Infant Tylenol. They don’t wake up at night and start to cry and then suddenly think “oh, I’m Third, I should just pull myself together and give Mom and Dad a break.”  Don’t be fooled by this one, regardless of its source.   

2.         Myth Number Two:  The Older Ones Will Raise Number Three.  While a lot might depend on the age of your other kids, unless they are ridiculously mature, I wouldn’t count on this one.  I knew it wouldn’t be true for us.  I still get my 5 year old dressed in the morning in a manner not substantially different from how I dressed him as an infant.  Which, really, is preposterous, isn’t it?  It’s OK for you to think that.  I do.  It’s totally my fault, but if I left him to his own devices, we would never have any hope of getting out of house, making me the self-perpetuator in this self-perpetuating cycle.  As for my 3 year old, he still thinks of our third as, essentially, a large (and not always wanted) toy that we still might return to the store (more on middle children in another posting).  Needless to say, they are not raising our Number Three.  

3.         Myth Number Three:  Having A Girl Will Make It Easier.  I championed this one.  After our daughter E was born, I boasted about my handling of the Gender Issue.  Having a girl after two boys would be the Parenting equivalent of a Walk In The Park.  I even made fun of other Parents whose third baby was a boy.  What could they have possibly been thinking? 

Somebody hit the game-show style “Wrong” sound.  Ok, good.  Because I was wrong.  How?  I’ll give you some examples:

·         E got her first bad progress report from her day-care provider at a mere 9 months old.  Evidently, her style of play was a bit too aggressive, involving, among other things, unwanted, tackle-like hugs.  Her teachers encouraged us to gently correct this at home.  Really?  Already?  At 9 months?  

·         She relishes in things I thought she would scoff at.  Like fighting.  One time, when she was just over a year old, she got into a fight with her brothers over a blanket.  One thing led to another and she ended up on the bottom of a big pile-up.  I pulled off each boy and there she was, flat on her back, still holding on tightly to that blanket.  With her teeth.  

·         I always thought the term “Terrible Twos” was a misnomer.  Our boys were actually pleasant two-year olds; the trouble started at Three.  It’s not a misnomer.  E is exhibiting all the traits associated with the Terrible-ness – tantrums, refusal to be satisfied, straight-up attitude, dirty looks, etc. – at the age of not even 18 months.  Not the kind of accelerated development I was anticipating. 

4.         Myth Number Four:  You Can Take Advantage Of Parental Economies Of Scale.  This was another one I found persuasive.  The thought is that, subject perhaps to a certain limit, as the number of children in a family increases, the amount of effort required to raise each additional child marginally decreases.  The idea sounds so neat and simple.  You could even be all analytical and demonstrate it using a graph with an X and a Y axis.  In Economics, we call this concept Economies of Scale.  I think. 

In Parenting, however, we call this Wrong.  The amount of required effort in child-raising is, at a minimum, directly correlated, on a kid-for-kid basis, with the number of children you have.  This often understates things, at least from a psychological perspective; far from feeling like you’ve got something like 2.7 children, it frequently feels like you’ve got more, like maybe 5 or 6.  That’s, of course, consistent with the experience of having your first and second children – this is labor intensive stuff.  Don’t be fooled into thinking Number Three will be different.  It won’t. 

OK.  So now we’ve cleared up some of the major myths (you’re welcome, by the way).  If you’re still committed to this Three Kid thing – and, really, I admire that a lot, and would now urge your friends and family to consider some form of professional intervention – here are some Helpful Hints and Pointers that you should keep in mind:  

1.       You’re going to need the Minivan.  It’s really absolutely necessary.  Think you’re too cool for that?  Drop it.  Being a Parent of Three isn’t about being cool.  It’s about getting them in the damn car. 

2.       Hopefully, with your two children, you’ve curtailed your going-out-to-dinner habits.  I’m afraid you’ll have to cut that back even more.  I know, it always sounds like a good idea to get out of the house, if only for the change of scenery.  My wife and I used to fall for this all the time, even if we knew it wouldn’t end well.  Now, whenever one of us suggests it, we’ve agreed that the other should firmly and rudely shoot the idea down.  Not just with something like “no, honey, that’s probably not a good idea,” but with something more emphatic and insulting, like “that is the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard and do you actually have that graduate degree or did you just buy a bootleg copy off eBay?”  We don’t get offended, since we’ve agreed that’s how the situation should be handled.  Maybe you don’t have to be quite as dramatic.  Just find something that will kill these ideas before they ever get off the ground.

3.       A guy that I work with said this to me the other day: “Wow, with all those kids, it must be hard to give each of them enough attention.”  Brilliant observation, Aristotle!  I didn’t think of that when I realized I sent E to school without any shoes and hadn’t brushed J or G’s teeth in the morning for the past week.  And those are just two examples; I can go on.  That kind of stuff happens. You know what else happens?  Getting a little touchy about what are probably well-intended and/or innocuous comments from peers.  Sorry, guy who I sarcastically called Aristotle and who I was unfairly short with.  It was a rough morning.  

4.       Somebody’s usually crying or about to cry shortly (and that excludes the crying you are doing inside).  If they are not crying, they are complaining or protesting or fighting over something bizarre.  Experienced Parents are able to treat this like the sound of a humming refrigerator – they can tune it all out.  It’s really an Art.  I’m not there yet, but I’ve been working on it.  You will need to as well. 

5.      In a nutshell, kids make things messy, and more kids make them messier.  And I am not just talking about the house and the car (at this moment, I can’t see the passenger seat or the coffee cup holders in my car, as they are both covered in art projects and overdue library books and food wrappers and I am afraid to think of what else). Life, careers, friendship maintenance – all that stuff is challenged, no matter how many kids you have.  We might console ourselves in the thought that, somewhere in the distant future, when they’re all grown up, we’ll look back and reflect on how satisfying the whole experience was, and say things like “wow, that was all so worth it”, or “I wouldn’t change a thing”, or something like that.   Maybe that will happen.  I hope it does.  But those kinds of thoughts are a little too broad and abstract to be helpful, at least for me.  Parenting is fundamentally a day-to-day affair, and day-to-day, it’s pretty messy.  You’ve got be cool with the mess, even love it, for it to make any sense.  There is fun, and beauty, in that mess.  It’s often hidden, but it’s in there.  You just have to find a way to look.