Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy How did giftedness affect your family planning?

Ruf talks about the distinguishing factor of EG/PG children being intensity, and insofar as OEs are intelligence-linked, I'm of the mind that what I'm observing isn't solely temperament-driven.

And to add my own intensity to mix, it's explosive!

Yes to this too! DD is amazing and wonderful and we are completely in love with her. Knowing the result, I wouldn't go back and do anything differently... we just couldn't bring ourselves to do it again though.

I respect that.

DW and I openly tell DD9 that she's our favorite human being in the whole world. It's only natural that DW would rank DD ahead of me, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Looking back on when my kids were all little (my youngest was born when my oldest was 4), I think that DH and I were probably both in a frame of mind that didn't allow for thinking about the reality of things getting better when they got older. I don't think we really had time for that.

But honestly, it really does get better, and sooner than you think.

Also, YMMV, but I think that having a sib or two has been a wonderful thing for our kids.

Ditto. DD knows that we wanted her-- desperately-- and that she is absolutely the light of our lives. We just plain LIKE her, and who she is.

But our feelings about her are much as Ivy reports, too-- plus, we had the added worry with a second child that would, if biologically our own, likely have some of the very same challenges that had little to do with temperment or LOG, and everything to do with a bad hand of genetic material on some level. Life with DD during her first 3 years of life was downright harrowing-- it was the grinding fear that did it. We were just so continuously afraid for her safety.

It also felt like a second child would elevate DD's risks medically by dividing our attention or distracting the parent-in-charge, often at times and in ways that she could very ill afford (in crowds, around groups of kids, during chaotic events). The alternative was paying MORE attention (still) to DD and less to a sibling that "needed" us less. This is not hypothetical-- I really know a few families that lucked out and had a second child who was "unaffected" only to feel horrible guilt for being less available and attentive to that younger child. There's no glossing over that, because it's simply the way that things are. I really feared that we'd also be signing on for MORE limitations, too-- and we had gone to great pains to give DD what she could safely have in her life. So getting rid of a beloved pet, or making our house milk-free again would have really diminished her quality of life because her life was already so constrained, if that makes sense. When you live like that, it IS those little things that matter and give you tenuous glimpses of what it means to live normatively.

I couldn't FATHOM making my daughter's world smaller than it was... that felt incredibly selfish of us. It's hard to explain. By the time that we felt that it would have been okay, it was really too late for a biological sibling that would actually have BEEN a sibling, and it would have been risky and taken medical assistance to get us there. So we looked at adoption, too, but that also didn't feel fair to either child. By that time, we knew that DD was PG, and well, that's a tough act to follow (or live with) for any child-- biological sib or not. DH's experience being the HG sib of an EG sibling was quite telling there. We particularly didn't want the pattern of an adoptive NT sibling close in age and PG biologically-ours DD.

It's a really personal decision. No question that there are all kinds of inputs into it. In some ways I regret that we waited so long to have children. It didn't seem like we were so old (in our 30's), but it turned out that we'd waited too long. We did briefly try to have another. Didn't work out-- and what a nice euphemism for what that put us through.

As I said, the one thing that is a bummer about having an only is that all of her firsts are also our lasts. You only get one crack at parenting "4" or "13." Eventually, I learned to kind of take mental snapshots of DD at each age, so that I have a mental folder of little pressed flowers of what and who she was at those ages. I'll never live through them again as a parent, after all. That is sad, but then again, each child is different, so I might say that I "just loved 2!" and I DID with DD, but there's nothing to say that I could recapture it with a second child. So another child wasn't really the cure for my wistfulness that the time is too short, and all the more so with a PG-let, because they compress their own childhoods so dramatically. Most parents get to enjoy ages 0-18 before sending them off to college. Not true for so many of us on the forum.

We felt the same way with our second two children. Our older two were significantly older than the younger two, and by finding out gender and naming early on, it felt like they were already a part of our family. In fact, at times, the older ones talked about the younger ones in a way that confused people into thinking the younger ones had already been born! Both dds were in the room as their younger brothers were born, and oldest dd (9 at the time, but already planning a career in biology:)) was the first to touch both brothers, as they were emerging (she clearly found it more fascinating to watch then dh or I!). I understand both approaches, but for the siblings, finding out gender was a great way to bond.

I think a lot depends on how comfortable you feel changing your thinking from "my child requires my 24/7 attention" to my child "would like, demands, would benefit from, my full time attention," Our oldest would probably have loved to be an only child- she is PG and was VERY high intensity-fun and amazing and exhausting... and of course, she also didn't sleep well (luckily, 2 of our 4 did sleep well, including our best sleeper, #3, without which we might have stopped at that point!). All were co-sleepers and extensively nursed, but at some point, if you have more children, your child will adjust to the fact that they can't have you 24/7. I'll be honest, some of the kids DO get more attention due to their personality, which is probably unfair to the others, but hey, life is unfair. We try our best. Not to scare you off more kids forever, but my two intense ones definitely required a lot more ER/urgent care visits over the years (intense ones sometimes do crazy things, even with lots of supervision!!). But your children WILL adjust if you have more kids. And maybe this is stupid or naive to say, but I think my kids are good friends because we have made that a huge priority - being kind, developing joint interests, working and playing together, trying not to compare or cause resentment, etc... I think parents have a LOT to do with whether their kids become friends (and good citizens in general, although again, it took more work on all fronts for my most intense one). Did we give up things? Of course-and it definitely affected our finances and my career. I completely respect anyone who chooses not to give that up, but for me, honestly, my kids were more fun than any coworkers I can imagine, precisely because they were so smart and just great to be with.

We spend a lot of effort trying to help the kids learn to be kind and encouraging them to work together. We do a lot of things together as a family and encourage shared interests; my family comes with me on most business trips even though it would be far easier to go by myself (it gives the kids many opportunities to travel). Both kids are very empathetic in general. I can give you a long list of examples of considerate things they have done. For whatever reason, though, they just have trouble being friends. I don't think the fact that kids are not friends means their parents didn't teach them to be friends; some kids just have very different personalities and that can be challenging with two intense kids.

I'm sure parents can increase the chances that kids will be friends versus resenting each other and feeling unfairness, but they can't guarantee it.