This Is Your Fourth?

Comedian Jim Gaffigan on having kids

I just have to say that people don’t really get excited when you tell them you’re expecting a fourth. In fact, I can only think of fewer than five people who were genuinely excited for us. Most people react with a sense of implicit judgment, which has started to grate on me more and more. No, I am not a fundamentalist Christian who doesn’t believe in birth control (one person outright asked that). Yes, I am a highly-educated professional. No, I am not having ten kids over a twenty-year span. Yes, I actually would like the same amount of maternity leave even though this is my fourth. I find myself announcing with qualifiers, like “this will be our fourth, and last, ha ha” or “this will be our fourth, and it was a surprise…” Why should I have to make excuses?

I’m not sure what I’m trying to say, except to acknowledge that our culture definitely has assumptions about what is an acceptable number of children to have, and stereotypes about the weirdos who don’t follow that assumption. Two kids is good. Three kids is okay, even sweet. Four kids or more is weird and means you’re in one of the categories above: part of a weird religion or uneducated. Besides the fact that a lot of those stereotypes are wrong to begin with, we don’t really fall into any of those categories, which makes it a bit awkward.

There are very few highly-educated professional couples I know with four kids. Fewer still working moms of four. Maybe some of our cultural bent is because, in this recent age of helicopter parenting, we like to have control over our kids; we like to churn out perfect specimens who take eight lessons each and go to Ivy Leagues, and after two or three, it gets harder to hover. The level of chaos exceeds our ability to tightly control every factor of our kids’ lives.

On some level, this is something I’m working out myself. I do think that after a certain number, it’s possible that we can’t be spiritually responsible parents given it’s harder to devote sufficient attention and resources to each child. I do also see that the community benefit of having a larger family is great, and blossoms over time. I have met people from families of four who admit it was unhealthy and they would never do it, and others who loved it and wish they could have four as well. I do realize having four may change how I navigate work-life balance, and that there are other things we’ll have to adjust and be mindful about, but I am stubbornly believing that it is possible to do well, though really I’m uncertain of the details and trusting God in faith more than anything else.

Again, not sure where I’m going with this, except to say that this is what I do believe: that this fourth life is just as precious, just as deserving of genuine celebration and welcome, as the first, second, or third. That the Bible clearly describes children as a reward and praises life in a way that would surely change our self-centric attitudes. That the point of having kids is not to control every detail so we turn out people who make us look good, whatever we define that to be. That it is possible to be an educated professional who meant to have four kids, and I shouldn’t have to give any excuses about it.