The myth of maternal math

Ronda Graff

Let's get this straight from the start. Raising four children is not the same as raising three children, just as rearing three is not the same as two and two is more work than one.

At some point during the past five years of my child-rearing experience, someone told me that once you have three children it doesn't matter how many more you have. It's all the same amount of work.

This theory has already been disproven, most noticeably in the laundry room.

The difference between three and four children starts even before the fourth child is born. As the parent prepares for the newborn, suddenly there are four stacks of T-shirts, four sets of hanging clothes, four piles of socks already missing their mates.

The amount of laundry does not just mildly increase with the addition of a new child; it doubles. I have a sneaking suspicion neighbor kids are somehow leaving their dirty laundry in my house on laundry day and the removing the freshly laundered garments from the clothes line when they are dry.

Once I do manage to get all the clothes clean (about three days from washer to dresser), it seems like I spend the remaining amount of my time rotating their clothes as the seasons change and they grow from one size to the next. But I developed a plan for my three boys. I'll simply hang all their clothes, from newborn through adult XXL, on a rod in the basement and they can progress along the line. For example, as one boy outgrows the four-toddler size, he can simply take a step to the left and grab a five-toddler shirt. Hopefully, men's fashion won't change too much in the next 18 years.

The laundry room is not the only place in the home which has seen a change since the arrival of the latest child. The kitchen also has taken a hit, primarily the dishes. While, I hate to admit it, meals have been determined some days by the dishes which are clean. Only a stack of bowls left on the shelf means it's cereal for lunch. The speciality plates for tacos are the only clean plates left means, you guessed it, tacos for dinner.

But the biggest change is out of the home and involves the question about the number of children a couple plans to have. This question evolves with each subsequent child. It starts before a couple even has their first child. "So, when are you going to have a baby?"

After the first child's birth, the question then becomes: "So, when are you going to give your baby a brother or sister?"

The next question depends on the sex of the first two children. Two boys or two girls: "Are you going to try for a girl (boy)?" A girl and a boy: "Are you done now?"

If a third child appears on the horizon, the question takes a nasty turn, especially if a couple already has a boy and a girl: "Was this one a mistake?"

Fortunately, my husband and I -- like any other couple with at least four children -- have already moved past all these questions and entered the final question: "So, just how many kids ARE you going to have?"

We're just going to keep everyone guessing.