One, two, or three, or four, or more – and how do we decide? That was the question on the lips of the young married workers at a recent church staff lunch, where these parents were discussing the difficulty of working out what size family they would like to have, and then the problem of them not agreeing with their spouse. I remember the dilemma well when my husband and I often tossed around that question after our second child.

The issue of family size is influenced by a wide variety of factors, not the least of them being the in-laws’ expectations. At a recent engagement party, in his congratulatory speech, the father of the groom-to-be announced that he was delighted that he could look forward to a family football team! The look on the bride-to-be’s face, and her mother’s, indicated that a large family was not something that the young woman was planning on.

Research shows that external influences on family size are socio-economic levels (lower income families tending to have larger families) and cultural norms and beliefs.

The effect of family size, and the consequent family constellation and birth effects are particularly apparent in the pre-school period. First born children tend to be more achievement oriented, independent and somewhat more anxiety prone than later born children. Youngest children, and second born children are often more optimistic, outgoing and self confident. These effects can be explained by the difference in having to share parents’ attention or not, and the expectations put on a child, either being expected to be ‘grown up’ (eldest children) or being allowed a degree of irresponsibility (youngest children). Middle children, particularly in large families, may feel unequal to the competition for attention, and either can give their parents the most trouble, or become easy going placators as a result of the opposing interpersonal forces they have been exposed to.

Taking all this into account when thinking about the matter with your spouse, here are some tips on talking this through:

1. Approach the decision prayerfully, even though you may not receive a clear answer from God.

2. Even though time may seem pressured by wanting a particular age gap between children, or the age of one or both parents, don’t rush the decision.

3. Ask yourself honestly the question about why you wish to have another child, or not.

4. Become aware of your own ‘intra-psychic drivers’ behind your heart felt desires. Most of us unconsciously attempt to either recreate, or avoid recreating, our family of origin pattern, depending on whether or not the home we grew up in was functional.

5. Try to imagine clearly what life will look like in 5 or 10 years time with the different family sizes being considered.

6. Listen respectfully to your partner’s reasons for wanting or not wanting another child. Don’t try to convince them of your own opinion until after you have fully heard what they have to say. Even then, stating one’s opinion, rather than trying to persuade them, is more respectful.

7. Something as business like as a list of everyone’s pros and cons to having another child can allow for both persons’ desires and fears to be given equal weight before the decision is made.

8. Sometimes ‘scaling’ the importance of someone’s objections or desires can indicate whether one person might consider the other person’s views more strongly than their own. Invite each person to ‘rate’ their pro or con on a scale of 1 to 10. For some, not all fitting onto a table for four at McDonald’s is a big inconvenience!

Finally, continue to be prayerful about the gift of children and how they fit into the couple’s missional role of “being a daily, living demonstration to a watching world of the relationship of Christ to his bride, the church”. Additionally consider the purpose in marriage of “living out the intimate connection of two broken image bearers who are in the process of being restored and who are committed to helping one another in the restoration process” (Mathews and Hubbard 2004 Marriage Made in Eden p.200).

After much discussion and prayer, we had 3!