Stupid Reasons to Have a Second Child

At a mere five and a half months post partum it is, of course, pure rhetorical insanity to even be contemplating a second child at all… but as is the way of life for us Type As, the issue of potentially condemning Jack to only childdom (or not) does occasionally rear it’s head. Beyond mere biological urges (or residual birth hormones), I do actually have a list of reasons for having a second child, though these are mostly inane, as follows:

1. What if Jack dies in another, terrible September 11^th type incident and his father and I are left bereft – both of children and of someone to take care of us in old age (OK, this reason is terrible on so many levels….)
2. Jack wasn’t my Number One Favorite Boys Name, and I’d like to have another child to name him something proper and terribly English. Bring on Tobias and Alexander….
3. If I got pregnant again, I might have twins – it does run in the family – and then I would be able to get a full time nanny for a whole year and no one could say I was an awful mother as I would clearly need the extra help. Plus, now I could officially have a big-ish family and would never have to undergo a third pregnancy at all, bonus!
4. Having more than one child would justify my stay-at-home mother existence (at least to outsiders, who have no idea how much work my one, high needs child requires.) Yes, this reason smacks even more than all the others of pure Status Anxiety, but let’s face it, so many of us give in to what others think of us, so much of the time, why not just be brazen about it?!

These are all terrible, aren’t they?

But you know what is even worse – I don’t think my list of reasons to have even one child would look all that convincing…. Like the arguments pro vegetarianism; they’re completely compelling, and the arguments against basically all boil down to a two-year-old’s belligerence: ‘But I like it!’

Bad news….