My partner and I have two boys. The younger one is 13 months old and the older one is 4 and a half years old. We've decided to close down the factory. We feel two is the ideal number.
The first kid was touch-and-go; it was just my partner and I in a foreign country with no help from relatives and no guidance apart from some counseling, a few courses and a book (highly recommended, by the way - it's called "What to Expect the First Year").
Unfortunately, you aren't born knowing how to be a parent, let alone a good one, and no books or training will ever prepare you like the real deal. That first night where you wake up to change the diapers, you know things are never going to be the same again. However, the joy of seeing my children grow into the fine young boys they are today is already a great reward, and it makes up for the restless nights and countless times I've had body waste ejected onto me.
Our two children are perfectly normal in development, which is all I ask for. The oldest son is extremely orderly and tidy, much more so than many adults I know. He also listens to us, protects his younger brother and is very respectful to others and is very social. (He can also pass all the levels in Super Mario DS!) He's a fantastic child.
The second child tends to develop much faster than the first, since parents now benefit from experience and know what to do and how to react. Such is the case with the young one - he regularly says "papa" and "mama" to address us since 11 months of age. He also started walking (not "coasting") about the same time.
I used to say that "we don't make enough money, we're not prepared, and we're too immature" or whatever excuse-du-jour I could conjure at the moment, but the truth is you will never be prepared. Just like the Xbox, you have to jump in. Once you're in, you will be prepared. You will see things differently. Tables are no longer tables; table corners now have the potential to gouge your son's eye out. Doors are no longer doors; the space between the door and the frame now have the potential to crush your son's fingers. You view the world in another way when you are a parent.
To paraphrase an advertisement, having children is "like having a Porsche. You don't know what it's like until you have one."
Good versus bad parenting is highly subjective and contentious. I can safely say that much, having had to fend off my parents and parents-in-law from influencing my children any way we didn't see fit (especially in terms of religion, with me being atheist, my wife being Buddhist, and half the family being Roman Catholics). As there are diabetics from both sides of the family, we don't let our children eat sweets, but I know other parents who allow it. I don't think children should even see their parent smoke cigarettes, let alone smell it, but there are parents who smoke in front of their children. To each their own I guess.
