A few days ago, María, the fifth daughter of Raúl González, a Real Madrid footballer, was born.
The news is "news" for two reasons. One to make Raúl's already large family even more so, and another because the footballer is only 32 years old, age at which many people have not yet started having children (and already has five children).
About the age to have children we have already talked on occasion, and about the number of children too, however I want to return to this topic because, commenting on this news with a friend, he replied: “Sure, if I had the money he has, I would also have five children. ”
This phrase led me to ask myself: “How many children would I have if I had more money?” And you, “How many children would you have if you had money?”
If I had the money Raúl has, I would have three children
As many of you already know I have two children, Jon, almost four years old and Aran, who will soon be his first year. Before having children I had always thought that the ideal was to have three.
One was little to me. I am the room of six brothers and being so many has helped me to value with conscience the good and the least good that it has to be part of a big family.
Among the good there are many, but many shared moments, games, toys, illusions, music, songs, vacations, friendships, dreams, secrets, questions, answers and the feeling of having someone very close to you with whom to share life, that's why I have always thought about having more than one child, so that they live the same as I lived with my brothers.
But five like Raul, or six like us, it is too much for me. Children grow up and as such they are maturing and needing new environments, new stimuli and new realities.
When Jon was two and a half years old, we started doing activities like going to the movies, to the theater, to a concert aimed at children ... but soon Aran was born and all these little things had to be relegated to a "later".
The consequence of having a second child is, for the eldest, to once again make a baby's life, since dad and mom have to multiply again to take care of the little brother and the house and the time devoted to fun things and Stimulants looks diminished.
The baby grows fast, more than it seems, and soon you can do things that please the older one (the other day we went to a concert of stringed instruments for children with both), but of course, the story becomes to repeat at the moment the third arrives. This is why (among other things) that I think three is an adequate and sufficient number.
Four would be too many
At least it's what I believe right now. Making calculations, taking into account that we have children every 2-3 years, when the fourth was born the oldest would be between 6 and 9 years old, the second between 4 and 6 and the third would be about 2 or 3 years old.
As a father I would be overcome, surely, in the intention of offering all of them the attention they require, the activities they request and the games they need if, at the birth of the room, we have to return to live as a baby (stay at home, Do not go out that it is cold, do not go to the field that the baby is tiny, etc.).
The time too divided
Another thing is the time factor. I enjoy being with my two children and, despite spending a lot of time with them still I have the feeling that I am with them less than they would like. If I had four children it would be impossible for me (I think) to give each of them the "little corner" of dad that they would like to have.
It is true that with more children, time would be shared. The games would be more numerous and perhaps more fun, however, as I say, the exclusive time, that in which a child sits on dad's lap (or mom) to explain how the day has gone and listen to dad while he tells her how his was, it would be little for what a father would like and little, surely, for what a son would like.
How many children would he have if he had less money
The question I can ask myself then is how many children would he have if he had less money. It is not that we have much, but with what we have we have been able to buy a three-room apartment in which we can live with three children (although we probably live better with two children, since only one of the three rooms is double).
However, if we had two rooms, it would be difficult to have three children, because children grow up and stop being babies and small children one meter tall who sleep anywhere and a simple room for three children is a fairly small space .
Here the debate would begin between what is really necessary and what is superfluous, between “we were three hundred and we all fit in my house” or “we were satisfied with what was there and the clothes and toys were inherited from other brothers” and the opposite argument "I will have only the number of children to whom I can give everything I did not have."
Faced with this debate, without being able to really position myself, because as I say, for the moment we have space, I think I would throw more for the first. I would have the three children that I consider ideal and we would live, if there was no other alternative, as my brothers and I lived at the time, sharing toys and inheriting clothes.
I never cared to do it nor did I have the concern of having an exclusive wardrobe so, although now it's other times, I think I would know how to educate my children, and in fact I already try, showing them that the important thing is not to have, but to give value to what you have.
