Second ThoughtsOn Having and Being a Second Child

‘Ask a person why they want to have a child, and the answer is likely to involve a nebulous tangle of deep longing, curiosity, and something to do with “nature.” Ask why they want another, and the response tends to be rather more straightforward. “You have your first child for yourself,” I was told when big and round and heavily pregnant, “but you have the second one for the first.”’

The decision to have more than one child is at least as consuming as the decision to have a child at all—and yet for all the good books that deliberate on the choice of becoming a parent, there is far less writing on the choice of becoming a parent of two, and all the questions that arise during the process. Is there any truth in the idea of character informed by birth order, or the loneliness of only children? What is the reality of sibling rivalry? What might a parent to one, or two, come to regret?

Second Thoughts is an extended reflection on second children – on whether to have one and what it means to be one – that weaves pieces of art and culture on the topic with scientific research and personal experiences.