A search for ease: on age gaps and why I think four kids are easier than three.
it's really less scary than it seems.
Recently someone asked me a question I’ve heard before—What age gap is the easiest? What age gap is the hardest? Going from one to two or two to three or three to four children?
I’ve had my babies all close together. While that wasn’t necessarily my plan, I did want at least three children, and had my first baby at thirty-one so I felt like a large gap wasn’t a luxury I could afford. My children are spaced as follows: 22 months, 14 months, and 22 months. That’s four children, five and a half years apart. As of today, this is the longest I have not been pregnant since starting my motherhood journey.
Presently, my children are ages six, four, newly three, and a delightful fourteen months old. It seems like it might be overwhelming, and it surely sometimes is. It seems like it might be expensive, and it can be. Mothering many small children, close together in age, has brought me to my knees more than once. I always know I’m going to have some sort of breakdown due to lack of sleep around twelve weeks postpartum, while it might be predicable, it still catches me off guard each time it happens. Still, despite the negatives, mothering my little flock is very special. I’m always going to be the friend who encourages you to have one more baby if you ask.
I think ultimately, though, that four has been the easiest (with one and three tied for the hardest). One was hard because becoming a first-time mother is a baptism by fire situation, and you really must be quick on your feet. It is a steep learning curve, and I came in prideful because I’d been a nanny before. Three was tricky for me because my second was only fourteen months old and didn’t walk yet. I also had a very mischievous toddler daughter who delighted in making messes during quiet time (emptying her entire dresser every day). I will admit that I simply love this number of kids.
Having four young children has its benefits: built in playmates as siblings, a Petrie dish for a kind of gritty flexibility, and a sort of old-fashioned magic that seems out of place. One of the sweetest parts of this season is checking in on my sons after they’re fallen asleep in their twin beds. It’s a Norman Rockwell scene of chubby hands tucked under chins, toys strewn about, and a giant goose nightlight. Seth and I remark frequently how we know we won’t regret our larger-than-average brood. I’m not saying I had a bunch of kids because of The Family Stone, but the glimpse of what a future of adult children coming home at Christmastime could be like was very appealing.
It also has its downsides: people ask me if I am pregnant when I’m not because I have diastasis recti, and of course it always hurts my feelings. The stretch marks that faded after my first pregnancy seem permanent now. I bear all the expected scars of nursing four babies. It’s a whole affair to simply go somewhere, but we make it out of the house all the same. Someone is always crying. Some people assume our politics just by the size of our family. Once, after telling a man I was a mother to four, he looked at me aghast and said rudely, “that’s excessive!” The car that holds all of us is a minivan, but I don’t despise my vehicle or pine for earlier days. When I was young and “cool” working as a magazine photographer, I was also miserable and out of sorts in a secular society. I just wanted to be a wife and mom.
One of my first memories after Penny was born is taking all the kids out for dinner at a pizza farm. Here on the border of Minnesota and Wisconsin we have these delightful places that serve brick oven pizza in pastoral locations with craft beer and usually twinkle lights. Penny was about three weeks old when we went to one. We came rolling in and got a few glances but settled ourselves at a big table and ordered two large pizzas. While the older three played barefoot with other kids on a verdant grassy hill, Seth and I sipped on beers, taking turns holding brand new Penny and marveling at her beauty. It was one of the most beautiful moments of my life.
Four has felt like a little reprieve because I cannot continue with neurosis. I can’t pine and make worry my shadow because it would prevent me from being present and doing the daily and necessary tasks like packing lunches. I can’t hover at the playground. As a generally cerebral person who is prone to over thinking and over processing, this requirement to be present is a gift. It draws me out of myself. I can’t sweat the small stuff. I’m just trying to get through the day prioritizing my imperfect attempt to raise good humans alongside my husband.
I simply must be a mother where my feet are.
This is relatable, Katherine. I am a mother of 8, and I recall the first 3 came in just over 4 years' time, and it was intense. Then, as I like to say, the 'stork' came about every other year - except with our last who is 4 years younger than the 7th. It was quite an operation just to get everyone out the door and into car seats in the early years. And, yes, that first one was tough. It seems no matter how prepared you are/think you are, the experience itself is so different from what I thought it would be. I recall looking at our first newborn - a son - peacefully dozing in his car seat just after we brought him home from the hospital, and asking my husband, "Now what do we do?" But somehow, we figured it out - and we're still figuring it out. We've made so many mistakes and we've learned so much. Thank God for grace and mercy - and Confession, as a fellow mom once said to me. And, yes, as they grow and mature and move out and have classes, jobs, different schedules, busy lives, I am most happy when we can have them all home together. Thank you for sharing your experience. Be encouraged, you are doing a beautiful and noble thing. Those children of yours have eternal, immortal souls and that is a wonderful legacy you can be proud of, however imperfectly it is done.
I had a similar experience - three babies within four and one-half years. I found going from zero children to one was, like you said, a baptism of fire - especially because my eldest had a medical issue which necessitated a lot of doctor's appointments and surgery during her first year. Going from one to two was even harder, as my eldest is on the autism spectrum which made her a very challenging toddler who did not adjust easily to a new baby sister. Oddly, going from two to three was extremely easy. My neighbor had seven children, and she told me reassuringly that "anything above three is a wash, you're outnumbered and there's always someone crying so you just adjust!" And indeed, I found with three children I accepted the fact that there would always be one child who was too young/too old/too tired/too bored/too overstimulated to enjoy whatever activity we were doing, and it was OK, they were learning adaptability. It probably helped that my youngest was a relatively calm, happy baby who slept through the night at a reasonable age; as I mentioned, my eldest is on the autism spectrum, and my middle one is the poster child for ADHD and hated anything to do with quiet, calmness or sleep.
My older two are grown up and moved out and the baby is in college now. I miss those days of feeling like mama duck with her three little ducklings following her every where. It was noisy and exasperating and chaotic, but also the most beautiful time of my life. I learned so much about life and about myself from my children, and having them forced me to become a better person.