I think the cost of children in parental time and money goes up more slowly than linearly with the number of children.
Also, when the kids get older, they can take care of themselves and help around the house. Yesterday DS14 helped my husband put a big shelf together for our garage. They cleaned the garage thoroughly after that. He's been helping like that for a good few years now. DD9 regularly cooks her own simple meals and she helps us cook more complex ones (DS14 as well). Again, she's been doing that for a while. I want to say that she made her first sunny-side-up egg two years ago.
In our experience, once the kids are old enough to do all of the following, life gets a lot easier:
- Eat by themselves and rinse their dishes
- Take a shower by themselves
- Get dressed by themselves
- Get out of bed in the morning, eat somethings simple, and amuse themselves
This stuff started to happen around age 2 in our house. By the time my youngest was 5, things were much easier than they had been before that. Now that she's 9, most of that frantic stress from the younger years is gone.
