1# Make soup not war

When Is the Right Time to Have a Second Child?

In my opinion, you can plan to have a child, but you'll never really get the timing right anyway. Yes, yes, such a banal answer … I know, I've heard it somewhere before … but it's true!

Three conversations with three different people about the exact same subject all led to one unanimous opinion. And it wasn't mine!

The subject was having a second child, and after openly sharing my plans and how much I wanted another baby, all I got in return were negative arguments. As if having children were something terrible and completely unacceptable.

Is Having Children Out of Fashion?

My best friend, himself a father of two, was puzzled by how quickly I could change my mind about having another child.

Admittedly, after years of trying without success, I had come to terms with the idea of not having another baby. But "HAVING ONE CHILD IS LIKE HAVING NO CHILD AT ALL." That's a saying the women in my family love to use. What I know today, by the way, is that it's a conspiracy.

Well, I don't want to turn 50 and regret never becoming a mother again.

My best friend then repeated that I "change my mind too often." I'm sure my friend never changes his mind and has somehow got stuck in life. Because a person who doesn't think stands still. And who's to say that just because you don't feel like having soup today, you'll never want soup again?

Okay, perhaps comparing children to soup isn't the best idea, but hope for another child is the last thing to die, and soup always helps. At least that's my father's advice for every situation in life.

My cousin, a career woman, world traveller, over 40 and still childless at the time, believes that "work should always come first." I should earn money, become a successful career woman and travel every now and then. In your mid-twenties, you're "far too young to have more children," she says.

"But in just a few years I'll be 30," I thought to myself. In this case, "young" is relative!

Then she suggested that I would surely meet a "nice young man" someday.

But I'm already in a relationship! For over 13 years, despite a separation and even a divorce, and with the father of my first child, no less. I feel the need to emphasise that because, these days, it's hardly something you can take for granted …

Those were just some of the words of wisdom from a woman who was no longer particularly young, who had stalled somewhere on her career ladder, grabbed the first available man in her late forties and hurried to have a child before the very last grain of sand fell through the hourglass.

But at least she has piles of holiday photos from her single days …

Yes, lovely, she went to Cuba. But my son's name is Fidel. So there!

Is That the Right Path – Building a Career and Travelling?

The number of women without children is rising. Only 784,901 children were born in Germany last year. But do children really get in the way of a woman's life or prevent her from pursuing a career? Why don't women want children?

Families with several children are quickly labelled as socially irresponsible, while the trend towards becoming a mother later in life continues to grow. On average, women have their first child at 29.

Is a child a chain that enslaves a mother's womb first, then her breasts, and finally her nerves?

By the time I'm 35, my son will already be an adult. I imagine my second life beginning then, and what fills me with sheer fear is the thought of no longer being called Mummy.

My mother says I should simply have another child at 40. After all, she gave birth to her third child at 42 without any problems.

But my life plan doesn't involve changing nappies again at 40. It involves simply being there and feeling proud of my almost-grown children.

How Other People's Comments and Arguments Can Make You Lose Sight of Your Own Beliefs and Goals

I almost gave in to their arguments and abandoned my wish to have a second child. But then I realised that nothing they said was really about me personally.

It was their own lives they were projecting onto me, as though I were some kind of canvas.

To put it mildly, they all wanted to impose their opinions on me and convince me that I would be better off not having another child. All neatly wrapped up as advice drawn from their own experiences.

My second experience arrived in August 2015 and now calls me Mummy.

And as for the saying "Having one child is like having no child at all," I discovered that it was a conspiracy once I realised just how incredibly difficult having two children actually is.

Having just one child, by comparison, really is no stress at all!

If you want to be a good mother, stick to one child. With the second, your parenting becomes second-rate. With the third, quantity matters more than quality.

But surely one of them will amount to something.

Anastasia Weimer