Reply #51: My personal opinion on that.

[Xithras]

IMO, that has to do with the way mothers deal with their children. My experience is that single children tend to get doted on. Because they are an only child, the parents often end up focusing on minute details of the child's life simply because they CAN. While this may arguably be good for the child, it can be stressful to parents who end up micromanaging every aspect of their young child's life.

In contrast, parents with multiple children usually end up taking a higher level view of their children's life. A "Don't sweat the small stuff" mentality sets in, and the children end up being a bit more independent and set their own routine. This results in less stress over each individual child.

Any parent with multiple kids should be able to confirm this. I know that when my wife and I had baby #1, we jumped and ran to her rescue every time she whimpered or fell, and spent countless hours planning and acting out this activity or that for her benefit. She was scrubbed after every meal, her outfits were always cute, folded away, and wrinkle free, and we ran her to the doctor every time she so much as sneezed. We were focused on her so much that being a parent seemed like a full time job.

By the time baby #3 showed up, that had all changed. When he falls, we tell him to brush it off or wait until he's down a moment before worrying. And playtime? We don't waste our time planning hours of "educational" games anymore, it's Tonka trucks and water fights in the backyard now. And baths? As long as he's washed once a day, we're happy. We don't sweat the details anymore which makes parenting less stressful.

And here's the funny part. My youngest was recently assessed to attend the same preschool his older brother and sister attended. His scores, which measured basic cognitive ability, speaking ability, and general knowledge, were no different than those of his older siblings (he actually speaks better at his age than his older brother did at the same age).