Ask The Sophist: Should I Let People Scold Me for Having Three Children?
Indignity Vol. 5, No. 85
ASK THE SOPHIST
Baby, baby, baby
Hi, The Sophist,
My wife and I have two children, both two-and-a-half, and it's great. They're incredible, we love them, they love us and each other, it is truly and unequivocally fantastic. We are both on the younger side as parents, however (at least for our class/race/social circle), and making parenthood work financially is not trivial.
Earlier this week, my wife learned she might be pregnant again, and while I'd be thrilled for us to add another baby I also feel like family members, friends, and coworkers are going to think we're being foolish and irresponsible if we have three kids under three. (One of our kids is also not our biological child and came to us somewhat unexpectedly, which doesn't matter to me and I think shouldn't matter to anyone, but grandparents and others have previously made some comments about the choices my wife and I have made about growing our family.)
I am confident we can make it work and think that this would be a great age gap between our kids, but I wish everyone would feel that way, or at least that I could stop caring about what other people might think. Tell me it's OK to be excited about another baby!
Third Time's the Charm
Dear Triple Threat,
Congratulations! The Sophist is sitting down to write this after whipping together a midafternoon dinner with a laser focus on getting the older teen out the door not too late for a 4:30 concert call, only to realize while cleaning up the dishes that also the younger teen was supposed to have been at basketball at 4. But you are already aware of the general outlines of this sort of problem, at least as it manifests at the toys-and-diapers stage, because you already have two kids. You're an expert!
Don't let any of those people outside your immediate family tell you you're not. You know what the burdens of having multiple babies around are, more clearly than do any of your one-baby-at-a-time family members or friends—or...coworkers? Why would this be any of your coworkers' business, unless they're the coworkers who are in charge of giving you a raise? Not because family breadwinners deserve more money for doing the same work as non-child-having workers! But in recognition of what have to be pretty solid time-management skills.
Where was The Sophist going with this? Oh, right: you have learned by now the basic baby math, which is that if you have a one-in-four chance to get a photo of a baby sitting still, you have a one-in-16 chance to get one with two babies sitting still at once. Three babies, then, would mean snapping photos to try to hit on a one-in-64 chance, except it doesn't, because nobody really cares if one of the babies is crawling out of the frame, because your illusion of control—and with it, the clenched supposition that you as a parent are responsible for making everything work out in an orderly, idealized manner—will have long since been vaporized. As it probably already has been by your two existing children, if The Sophist's experience is any guide.
The only opinion that matters here is your wife's. And yours. If the two of you are truly, sincerely happy about this and eager to go ahead—if those naysaying busybodies are actually existing other people, and not projections of your own reluctance and dread that you're otherwise afraid to articulate—then you know what you need to know.
The Sophist can barely even imagine what those grandparents (grandparents!!) or others (others!!!) thought it was appropriate to say to you about your decision to become the parents of a child who was in need of a replacement set of parents. Assuming your choices in building your current household didn't involve, like, kidnapping, The Sophist recommends you respond to any future commentary with something along the lines of "Why did you think you should say that to us?" Or something sterner, but you don't want to lose your cool in front of the babies.
Enjoy your babies! You will, as some parent of three said to The Sophist long ago, have to switch from playing man defense to playing zone. That's probably healthier for the children's development in the long run, anyway. Let them pair off and develop their independence and judgment under each other's eyes, buddy-system-style, while you deal with whichever one of the three has the most urgent need at the moment.
The Sophist was struck by one point of doubt in your letter, or by the way you combined two doubts: "We are both on the younger side as parents, however (at least for our class/race/social circle)," you wrote, "and making parenthood work financially is not trivial." But you've got the age part of that all wrong. Being younger parents isn't a reason to say "however"; it's one more reason to believe in yourselves.
Don't let other people, or your perceptions of other people, intimidate you. At whatever your current tender age may be, you know two and a half times as much about being a parent (if not four or five times as much, thanks to your chosen difficulty setting) as some well-groomed 40-year-old with a one-year-old baby in a top-rated stroller does. The extra life experience people may acquire while they wait longer to have babies is not especially germane to the question of how to deal with babies—and is more than offset by their loss of youthful vigor. Stoop low with your strong and painless knees, bend your supple lumbar region to scoop up one of your babies, swing the child around with your fluidly moving rotator cuff, and use some of your spare flexibility to pat yourself on the back.
The money part, now—the money part is not so easy. Children are expensive. Child care is expensive. Everything is expensive: children's fares barely exist, so before long, for your household of five, a $300 weekend round-trip airfare is going to be a $1,500 weekend, or more likely it's going to be a weekend spent doing something closer to home. In about 10 or 11 years, things are going to start happening to your grocery bill, and to the sheer number of calories you need to shovel onto the table, that are going to be genuinely appalling. College tuition will be rough.
Then again, you won't need to buy any new baby gear! If the third one is a good grower, with the age gap you've got, you might be able to move the hand-me-down clothes straight from the older ones to the youngest without even finding somewhere to stow them in between.
And just as you have plenty of non-arthritic years ahead of you, years in which your eyes can still make out the fine print on the children's fever medicine, your stage of life still probably puts you on the upswing of your earning potential. That thing The Sophist was just telling you about how extra years at the office won't help you learn how to raise children? On the converse side, though, once you've dealt with the raw, irrational, needy demands of two three- or four-year-olds at once, you may indeed find yourself with new and valuable insights into workplace politics.
Warm up those bottles,
The Sophist
Direct your questions to The Sophist, at indignity@indignity.net.
CORRESPONDENCE DEP'T.
Well, damn, boys. You did a sweet and honest job with the guy who is grieving his wife. I hope it helps him. It helped me.
Take care,
Lauren
Indignity values your correspondence! Email us any time you'd like at indignity@indignity.net.
WEATHER REVIEWS
New York City, May 11, 2025
★★★★★ The fig leaves were unfurled to catch the sun now. All the leaves everywhere were aglow; so was the American flag outside the post office. The air was rich with birdsong. The clouds evolved from scattered little shapes into a thin film over the top of the sky, then started gathering themselves into shapes again. It was too warm for bustling around the kitchen, and the subway car was no place to be, but for those with the sense or the schedule to just get outdoors, the temperature was entirely accommodating. An hour or hour and a half of writing on the balcony floated swiftly and easily by. The men on folding chairs on the sidewalk outside the housing complex were in a jolly hubbub. Basketballs and scooters were both in motion on the playground basketball courts. Well after sundown, people were still eating at outdoor tables in the dark, not letting go of the last hours of the day and the weekend. The moon hung over the Park, near-round and golden and swathed in its own diffused light.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
HERE IS TODAY'S Indignity Morning Podcast!
Tom Scocca
Click on this box to find the Indignity Morning Podcast archive.
TOM SCOCCA
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS in aid of the assembly of a sandwich selected from Practical Cookery; A Compilation of Principles of Cookery and Recipes and The Etiquette and Service of the Table, by the Department of Food Economics and Nutrition, Kansas State Agricultural College, published in 1921, and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
CHEESE AND OLIVE SANDWICHES
Cream cheese or grated American cheese may be used. Mix with chopped olives or chopped pimentos and sufficient cooked salad dressing to make it of the right consistency to spread. Additional seasoning may be used if needed. Spread between thin slices of buttered bread.
If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net.
