"One and Done"

If you can choose to believe it

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It’s almost inevitable for a conversation about my daughter with someone new or at a family reunion to turn into an opportunity for that person to ask, “Do you want to have another one?”

This recently happened at a dinner with business friends, in which my husband and I both said “No.”

“That was a quick reply!”

We laughed but I could feel the urge to grimace, and decided to choose patience over frustration. We both know that we are comfortable with having one child and being satisfied with that decision. Yet, this decision is curiously seen as a chance for people to ask why.

In short: We don’t want to have more children because we don’t want to do it again. We love Eliza and that is enough.

The long story is filled with trauma-fueled reasoning, which I’m going to back with statistics if you’re feeling isolated by your reasoning like me

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It turns out we aren’t alone with this mentality. According to the US Census Bureau:

The typical American picture of a family with 2.5 kids might not be as relevant as it once was: In 2020, there was an average of 1.93 children under 18 per family in the United States. This is a decrease from 2.33 children under 18 per family in 1960.

More and more families in new generations are having less children. Some of those reasons coincide with our personal decision. Let’s dive into it.

Outside of the surveyed persons age, the top reasons parents were not too/not at all likely to have more children was due to medical and financial reasons as well as them already having children. The state of the world was also a factor (not surprising considering the survey was conducted October 2021 when many parents were still forced to help children with zoom-school days).

In fact it was reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics last fall: