[samcodes]

I have a 4 year old and a two month old. We’re in a major metropolis, and most couples seem to choose between 0 and 1 kid, but my wife and I have both always said we wanted 3 or more. This was a nice perspective to hear. For the first 2 years of #1’s life, I couldn’t imagine having a second. But the feeling of “that was it, no more kids” only lasted like a month with #2.

One thing I’m noticing - I expected the joy to grow linearly with number of kids, but I think it actually grows linearly in number of relationships in the family. The interactions between them are so amazing to watch. I’ve always been really terrified to die, and now I definitely don’t want to, because I want to be there for my kids... but if I know that they will have each other’s back, I’m much more okay with not existing one day.

[RobertRoberts]

That is an interesting way of looking at the relationship connections with "joy" (in a generic manner perhaps?). My kids' interactions with each other certainly add more to our enjoyment than just 5 individual people separately.