When to have my second kid? Or should I have one.....???

This post is for those of you who are tossing with the life altering question "When to have my second kid? Or should I have one.....???"

Disclosure: I have two kids!

Now, lets get done with the second part of the topic... "Should I have a second kid ?"...
Well, I am an only child... for the those of you who have siblings, I can give you the first hand insight of growing up alone...
Growing up alone... oh man, this sounds very negative! But no...Life as a single kid is awesome, you get two sets of clothes for Diwali when your friends with siblings just end up with one dress, you get all the attention, you get window seats all the time AND You don't have to share your mom with anyone!

What did I miss as a single child... mm.. I don't know.. I could only guess!
But I remember an incident which happened during my 7th standard - One day my classmate who had a lovely long hair wore a big hairpin in the center of her head - it was a funny sight. When I enquired what happend, she mentioned that her brother cut a bunch of her hair while she was sleeping. She mentioned this as if it was the most common thing - she was not mad at her brother. She gave a half smile and explained how she had infuriated her brother before she fell asleep. That was the first time when I thought that being a single child was not a boon - maybe it was fun  to have a sibling!

Of course there were other times - the time when I realized that my cousin brother was an "own" brother to my cousin sister. But then I never regretted that I was a single child as a kid.

Is there any negative behavior that I associate myself with the fact that I was an only-child? Mm.. No!

I don't think I am a spoilt brat. I usually adjust to circumstances and am a no-complainer. Sharing is slightly difficult for me... I wonder how other girls enjoy swapping dresses with friends!

Bottom line is that your single child can grow up to be a normal and healthy human being without having a sibling!

My only point of advocacy for having a second child is "to create a support system for your first one".
Who will I have beyond my marital bond after my parents are gone. (God, Let my parents live long!!). I can hear many of you say friends and cousins...! Believe me they are not the same as having a sibling.

Every summer, every holiday I have spent with my cousins! I have loads of cousins...my best memories of childhood feature them. But all of us have sort of drifted away with our marriages, kids and careers. My kids know less of their second-cousins...and second-cousins are just not same as cousins :)

My friends...my gang of gals from college are the closest I have to sisters... We hang out together when we can and our children are friends with each other too. But..my friends have siblings and of course I am no equal to their sister or brother!

Just one incident which made me believe that one needs sibling was when my dad got hospitalized. Both my Dad's siblings and my Mom's siblings were the ones who took complete control when me and my mom were stumped. Of course, my dad's best friend was there for him. But weeks of staying and caring were done by the siblings. Just think for a second on whom you will call in case of an emergency... will your kid have someone to call on in case of emergency when she is old. For those of you asking what if the second child and your first born are not supportive of each other? Well, its our responsibility to raise them with a great bonding.

Your first born may have the greatest friends and cousins but if you want somebody to stand together with her/him after you are long gone.... then consider having a second child.

WHEN TO HAVE MY SECOND CHILD?

This is the easier part - as soon as you can :)

• With the current generation's marriage age averaging at 27, finish the job soon so as to reduce the risk of medical complications.
• Your parents are getting old too - they need to have the strength to pull you through another pregnancy and infant caring.
• 'Life before sibling and life after sibling is never the same', having a lesser age gap might diminish this memory.
• Practically speaking, for a easier pregnancy you will be better off with an elder kid who can walk on their own.

I have friends whose kids are 7 years apart. My kids are 3 years apart. Both has its own pros and cons.

Pros of bigger age gap is caring for the second kid becomes easy with the elder one being able to feed herself, bathe herself and so on. Cons being, the elder one might feel left out and uncared for even if they don't let it show. My friend still cribs about how his life changed upside down with his brother's arrival.

Pros of a smaller age gap is that they barely remember their life before the younger one, making them less hostile towards their baby sibling. Lesser age gap usually makes the siblings bond easier. Cons - your pregnancy is likely to be difficult. I would vomiting in buckets when my 2 year old comes to me asking to read her a book!

So, "when" is a question that needs to be tackled personally. Just a word of caution - don't delay deciding; it might just stop you from having your second baby.

Multi-lingual kids

I love languages. I love learning new languages. I love to speak to people in their native language even if it’s a simple hello or thank you -  I know they love to hear it. At the least, I feel happy when a non-tamilian says “Vanakkam” (Hello in my mother tongue)

My mother was a College lecturer (Dept of Homescience). When I was around 10 years (frankly I don’t remember the exact age, but I know for sure it was before I started having big time crushes on boys), my mom declared that “Kids by the age of 4 have the ability to learn 5 languages”. This was from somebody’s thesis for the subject ‘Child development’. I was so livid with her that she let me learn only two languages (Tamil and English) and I decided that when I have a kid that she (I was sure that I wanted a girl baby even then) was going to learn 5 languages by the age of 4.               

Now my elder one, my God’s gift – Arushi (she is a girl and 3.5 years old) is nowhere close to learning 5 languages. But I should say that she is good in two languages (Tamil and English), speaks few words in Chinese and loves to learn Spanish and Hindi.

Yesterday I was speaking with an acquaintance from my condo and she commented on Arushi being bi-lingual successfully. Her son refuses to speak his mother tongue and prefers English. Another acquaintance (we met at our condo playground) said that she was a Tamilian, her husband Rajasthani and that her children speak neither!

Now, I am not an expert on kids nor  I am being judgemental about letting your kids be mono-lingual. All I am suggesting is that if you are multi-lingual, it is definitely a great gift that you can pass on to your child. I am chronicling below on how Arushi started speaking both Tamil and English so that she can raise her children multi-lingual in case I forget how I did it or if I am not around with my free advice ;)

Tamil

Tamil is Arushi’s mother tongue and her father tongue too J. Both me and my husband love Tamil. We grew up learning tamil literature at school and really were very keen that Arushi too should experience the beauty of Tamil. So, we decided that we consciously make Tamil as Arushi’s  natural language. We speak Tamil at home always. Arushi’s grandparents (one-set) speak to her in Tamil only, the other set speak in both Tamil and English. So Arushi became good at speaking Tamil, though our relatives back in India say that she has a quirky accent.

English

Arushi did not understand much of English when she began pre-school at 2 years and I have to thank her school (www.greatbeginnings.com.sg) for helping her pickup English. I translated Arushi’s basic Tamil words (water, milk, etc) for the teachers on day one.

 Arushi used to watch ‘Disney Junior’ cartoon channel – it is highly age appropriate and teaches her values too. Her English improved dramatically from watching TV. Watch out of episodes of Word world. Of course, we reading books to her helped too. Definitely, her English standard is slightly below her peers’ from an English-only speaking family background. But as of now, we don’t bother much about this. After a long holiday (minimal English exposure) her English goes down, that’s when we decide to speak in English only with her for some time, but she invariably comes back to form.

Chinese

Thanks to her ‘lousher’ (Chinese teacher) at school. She sings Chinese rhymes, knows Chinese equivalent of fruits, body parts, actions etc. She forgets them during holiday if we don’t brush it up. So, we requested her lousher to transliterate the Chinese words in English for us and ran through it for a couple of times during the holiday. It’s sad that I don’t have any Chinese neighbours or friends who could build her vocabulary, but we do ‘youtube’ some Chinese rhymes. If somebody can recommend suitable Chinese cartoon shows or movies it would be great. I really wish that she gets an opportunity to stay in touch with this language.        

Spanish and Hindi

I was in Puerto Rico for 4 months before my marriage and I loved the Spanish language and picked up bits of it. I had couple of close friends who were very sweet (Sheila Sanchez - I love you!) and constantly helped me learn it. So, I would love to pass to Arushi my bits and pieces of espanol. Of course, Handy Manny is a huge help. (For the uninitiated, Handy Manny is a cartoon show which teaches Spanish). My Filipino part time maid chimes in too, I understand there are a lot of Spanish influence in their culture.

Hindi… mmm.. its my national language, but I don’t know to read or write. But I picked it from watching Hindi movies and the fact that most of my school friends are Muslims helped too. Urdu was ubiquitous during my school days. Anyways, Arushi has just started identifying the language. Most of her park friends are north Indians and I hope she does pick up some Hindi from them.

What if Arushi crosses age four without knowing five languages, mmm…I understand it is very difficult to achieve that unless you have five next door neighbours – all of them with kids her age – each of them knowing only their mother tongue and that they use it during play…!

We can pickup languages even if you get old… I know I can and I did. I had a friend by name Gopi, who picked up reading and writing Tamil from Tamil movie posters!!! Don’t ask me how he did it, I really don’t know….!!!

Mmmm.. I now know that Arushi has her entire life to learn languages! I just wish that I can rub off my love of languages onto her.

*************

Hey, by the way I have published two bi-lingual books. 1) My first Tamil-English Picture dictionary and 2) Palikku sellum Kittuvum Chittuvum.

My first Tamil-English Picture Dictionary

The first one is a picture book with both Tamil and its equivalent English word, Arushi learns a lot of new Tamil words from this. Eventhough her Tamil is good, she usually substitues English nouns (crow, tiger, one, two, etc). This book helped her Tamil vocabulary.
Arushi adores the second book. This is a story book of a Kitten's first day at school. This is written in both Tamil and English(Dual Language). We read this book either in Tamil or English depending upon her mood and whim! 
Visit www.celebrationz.biz for more details on the books.