Great Mom Debate: Is it Harder Having One Child or 9?

Whoo! I can barely imagine 2 or perhaps 3, let alone 9.... Ain't no way Jose.

i LOOve my daughter! Anyone that can raise more than one is SUPERWOMAN im a single mom and i barely get by but its all worth it

Its not really fair for the older kids to have to help raise younger siblings. That's the job of the parents. If you can't raise them all equally (without having older kids pitching in), then you shouldn't have more; that's my opinion. An older sister or brother shouldn't have to be a surrogate parents to younger siblings.

It was hard going from 0 to 1, and hard in a different way going from 1-2, because with 2 it wasn't just double the "stuff" to handle, there was also the exponential difficulty of handling the children's relationship with each other. My brain hurts just thinking about it. Fortunately they're cute. And yes, a 9-year-old with a Lego addiction totally can be a hoarder. I have one at my house.

"To become a mother, I had to learn how to care about someone more than I did about myself, and that was terrible. I had 6 kids and I am now on the opposite end, having to learn to care about myself more than them again. I think this is much harder than all the rest.

I raise my two little ones, and my two stepdaughters. I love them so much, but boy can four kids wreak a clean house. (of course six people can also clean a house real quick) The upside, You are never lonely, and there is always something to do, and cleaning with everyone can be fun and quick. The downside: A whole lot of laundry, it's expensive to feed all those mouths, and I can't buy just one kid a treat, unless I give all four of them a treat.

I have 2 boys about a year and a half apart, it was hard with one and a bit harder with 2 being so close at age, i am now 27 they are both 4 and 6 and they are awesome, they behaved a bit better when they were smaller, but life changes and real big adjustments caused some tantrums here and there, but ther have adjusted well and I would like to have atleast 2 more kids, before I am 35. My parents had my siblings and I at a young age, but they are able to play on summer teams with us and run around with their grandkids. i want to be like that but financially set first before adding to my awesome little family. It is true when you have an involved father, or even in my situation a loving BF who takes them in like his own, it will all wotrk out. Good luck to all Mommies and Daddies!

Much easier in many ways with more kids, we have 3 and my bff's have 4 and 5 respectively. The key to having a large family is everybody pitching in if all the kids help each other get dressed, do the chores and entertain each other it free's up time for mom.

it's fun if the doctor and dentist are cheap, children can cost you so much money,I have two and I wish I have another one but sadly we can't afford it!!

Different strokes for different folks. Some people are great with kids and some have a harder time. My SIL has three and they are trying for four, meanwhile me and my hubbie, who only have one, feel overwhelmed when we watch kids and have 2+ running around.

I've notice this my sister in law who pumped out an entire litter of children...she had all these kids now her oldest ones take care of the youngest ones. Feeding them, bathing them, dressing them, changing them, putting them to bed, walking them to school and helping them with homework. My SIL doesn't even get up off of her butt if the little ones need something...she just yells for the older kids to take care of them.
So, Of course it's easier when you don't have to do all the work yourself!

Helping around the house is one thing, but your kids shouldn't be made to take care of your kids.

I think an important factor is how involved (or not) dad is. My life is infinitely easier when my husband can remove one or two from the mix if he's running and errand...and that's true even though we have four and they happen to be four good kids.

I have seven children, and it is hard to be a mom no matter how many you have. I have often responded to the sarcastic "God bless you, I can't imagine having another kid" with "He has, and the second one helps put the first one in perspective".
I have seven...lots of work...and lots of reward. I love them all.
Is this really a contest?

I am blessed to have the one that I have. Life would have been very difficult with more.

I have two kids and knew I'd stop at 2 kids, so much so that I had my tubes tied the day after #2 was born. Thankfully they're high risk pregnancies, because it was hard enough to convince them to tie my tubes at 23! I had fun with one kid. I had fun with 2 kids. I would be krazy if I had more. Maybe because I dislike the majority of all kids everywhere, maybe because I hate squealing girls and the sound of thunder, i mean boys going upstairs. Mostly because I have a low tolerance for ill behaved children. I do think it's a wee irresponsible to have more kids than you can manage with the amount of time and money you have. 4 is spreading it pretty thin. 9 is forget about a decent prom dress for the last girls and live in nothing but hand me downs. I feel bad for 7, 8 & 9! That's gotta suck.

Have you head of birth control?

Why keep pumping out kids when there are so many others out there that need foster homes or someone to care for them?

I have 6 kids, 3 of em are special needs. But one was tough b/c hey it's the first kid. You don't know what to do no matter what books you had read, or what you had watched. And it hits home when you see this tiny baby and you don't know what to do! One was a nightmare at first. But then you toss in 5 more and wow. It's mega hard, but worth every minute of insanity. My spouse allows little intervals where I go to escape the chaos, so this helps. It's kinda a toss up on having one is harder or a horde is harder. It's just how you look at it.

I wouldn't know, I have twins. I don't plan on having any more because there would be a 5 year gap and the youngest would feel left out. I grew up with my brother and sister 5 and 6 years older than me and they were so much closer and I always got left out and picked on.

It depends on how dumb the woman is.

I only have one child, and it was and still is hard making that adjustment from 0 to 1 (she is 2 and a 1/2). But I absolutely KNOW that it is harder having more than 1 child. Which is why we haven't exactly rushed to have a second. I'm not fooling myself, I'm not in the baby haze where having this beautiful little newborn just seems so perfect and romantic. I know it's WORK!
That being said, while I can acknowledge that the parent of 2 or more children definitely has it harder than me, it is rare for the parent of multiple children to acknowledge that I maybe have a hard time too sometimes. That they were once in my position, having that only child and what an adjustment it is. So this article was a nice change for me