Second child regret...

In today's episode, we look at how many people regret having a second child, and whether happiness declines with the more children you have. Link to Georgia's recommendation: Teeny Tiny Stevies. We referenced this GQ article: My Second Child Is Perfect. He Ruined My Life in today's episode. Big thanks to ergoPouch for making this episode of The Room possible. From sleepwear and sleep tools to nursery essentials, ergoPouch has been pioneering sleep solutions for over 17 years. Use the code ‘THEROOM20’ to get 20% OFF SITEWIDE* from 9:00 AM on October 20th to 11:59 PM on October 27th, 2026. Thank you also to Babybee, who make beautiful, premium prams packed with genuinely clever features. You can find out more about Babybee here. The Room is produced by Dimity Kirkwood, edited by Eilish Gilligan and executive-produced by Lucy Hunt. Our social media team consists of Naima Fatema, Divya Simmie, Erin Taylor, and our partnerships managers are Tabitha Rachmat and Tahnee Malina. We're a new show, and the best way to support us is by clicking ‘follow’ on Apple and Spotify, and we're super grateful to anyone who leaves a five-star review while they're at it. Also! An old-fashioned 'Tell a Friend In Real Life' is equally appreciated. You can follow The Room on Instagram and TikTok. Follow our hosts on Instagram here: Freya, Rafa and Georgia. *Terms & Conditions: Enjoy 20% off full-priced products using any exclusive code shared by The Room podcast. Valid for a limited time and applied at checkout. Cannot be combined with any other discount or promotion. Valid on full-price products only; excludes gift cards, outlet items, furniture, multi-buy promotions, and bundles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Speaker 00

  Welcome to The Room, where mothers meet to share their inner world. I'm one of your hosts, Rafa Husain.

• 0:08Georgia Allison?

  I'm Georgia Allison.

• 0:09Freya Bleathman?

  And I'm Freya Bleathman.

• 0:11Speaker 00

  Hello, ladies.

• 0:12Georgia Allison?

  Hello.

• 0:13Speaker 00

  Happy Tuesday.

• 0:14Georgia Allison?

  I know.

• 0:15Speaker 00

  Another week down as podcast hosts.

• 0:19Georgia Allison?

  In our new life.

• 0:20Speaker 00

  In our new life.

• 0:23Speaker 00

  How are you all feeling?

• 0:25Georgia Allison?

  Yeah, really good, today especially, because I think it's a bit of a special day today.

• 0:32Georgia Allison?

  Freya, please take us away. Is it or is it not your birthday?

• 0:36Freya Bleathman?

  It's my birthday.

• 0:40Freya Bleathman?

  I'm so not a birthday person, so my skin is just crawling. But yeah, it's my birthday.

• 0:45Speaker 00

  Nothing like a live debut of your birthday to a national audience.

• 0:49Georgia Allison?

  Yes, please listeners, reach out to Freya. It is her birthday.

• 0:53Freya Bleathman?

  Oh my god.

• 0:54Speaker 00

  Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Freya. Happy birthday to you. Hooray.

• 1:17Speaker 00

  That's so nice.

• 1:20Freya Bleathman?

  Oh, well done, gang.

• 1:21Speaker 00

  Happy birthday.

• 1:23Freya Bleathman?

  A little snack between episodes.

• 1:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, we'll need that little, little sugary hit.

• 1:27Freya Bleathman?

  Thanks, guys.

• 1:28Speaker 00

  How does that make you feel? Was that okay?

• 1:30Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 1:31Freya Bleathman?

  That was tolerable. That was tolerable.

• 1:33Georgia Allison?

  As someone who doesn't love the Happy Birthday song, I cannot believe we just sang that on a recording, which is filmed.

• 1:39Speaker 00

  It's gonna be the most tone deaf audio of all time. Apologies.

• 1:42Georgia Allison?

  Apologies in advance.

• 1:43Speaker 00

  We have, I say this every week, but it's another massive topic, which I think is just gonna be the norm. Because there's so many amazing topics to cover off that I think will make families, women feel very seen and heard. And today's one is, does having more children ruin your life?

• 2:04Georgia Allison?

  I have, I feel like other listeners are just going to be itching to hear what, you know, the census or the Shameless Media Survey we put out and the data that came back. It's awesome.

• 2:18Freya Bleathman?

  Yeah, I'm excited. I feel like I'm just gonna be all ears, because I obviously only have one child and I wanna learn from you guys. But should we quickly hear from today's sponsor before we get into it? This episode of The Room is brought to you by Ergo Pouch. Wherever you are in your sleep journey, Ergo Pouch is there to make nights a little easier.

• 2:36Speaker 00

  We'll kick off with a bit of a touch base on the week. Anyone got any updates to share?

• 2:44Georgia Allison?

  I've actually just got a recommendation.

• 2:45Speaker 00

  Tell us.

• 2:46Georgia Allison?

  Yeah, I think this recommendation comes for any parents that are sort of maybe getting sick of, not, no disrespect to the Wiggles, Icons. But sick of maybe the Wiggles songs, this recommendation is music. It's called Teeny Tiny Stevie's. They're a duo band from Australia. They are kids, you know, specialise in kids' music, and they just don't get enough airtime. And truly, their songs are bangers. Yes.

• 3:16Speaker 00

  Where do we find?

• 3:17Georgia Allison?

  You find them on Spotify. And if you play it on your TV, if you've got a smart TV at home, and you can listen to their songs but also play their video clips, and that's what I recommend doing, because their video clips are awesome as well. One's called Boss of My Own Body, which is so good, and I Ate a Rainbow. So that is my recommendation.

• 3:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, I love that.

• 3:38Georgia Allison?

  For anyone listening at home who wants to just change it up, they're, I don't know, I use it all the time at my house to sort of like shift the mood.

• 3:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, nice. Always looking for recs. We're fully in Wiggles world at the moment, but always looking for additional suggestions.

• 3:54Georgia Allison?

  Will come back to me. Let me know what you think.

• 3:56Speaker 00

  I will, I will.

• 3:57Freya Bleathman?

  Freya, how was your week? My week was good, kind of along the lines or on the theme with my birthday. I've got some people staying, which is nice for my little barbecue. So my mum has come up from Tassie, and my best friend's come down from Newcastle. So we're a full house.

• 4:13Speaker 00

  Everyone's staying with you.

• 4:14Georgia Allison?

  Wow.

• 4:16Freya Bleathman?

  A two-bedroom apartment. We've got four adults, a baby and two dogs. I am not feeling very rested, but yeah, but it's fun. I mean, I just love things being busy. And it's so nice. Every time my mum comes to stay, I'm like, oh god, this is like a different experience than parenthood.

• 4:34Georgia Allison?

  100%.

• 4:36Freya Bleathman?

  Before we get into the article, Rafa, how was your week?

• 4:39Speaker 00

  So just to give a little bit of a snapshot on Wednesday, so my office days, and I wake up getting my kids ready. And Roomy, my two-and-a-half-year-old, he's really close to needing to be toilet trained. We've delayed it a bit too long. Anyways.

• 4:55Georgia Allison?

  Wow, that's actually early.

• 4:56Speaker 00

  He's like, no nappy, no nappy, no nappy, like screaming at me while I'm getting his nappy done. And I put it on like in a bit of a jumbled way, clearly, and run downstairs. About half an hour later, as we're getting out the door to drop off at childcare, he's like, I done a poopy. I'm like, okay. And he's like, ah, ah, ah. And I'm like, what? He's like, it's down my leg. I'm just like, oh my god. And Will's like, my husband's picked him up and he's like stiff as a board and he's like running down. Get him to the change table, take his pants off. We see a streak on his foot and there's no poo in the nappy. And Will's like, there's a runaway log somewhere.

• 5:38Speaker 00

  And we're like searching and I'm looking and I can't find it.

• 5:42Georgia Allison?

  Are you at the childcare yet?

• 5:43Speaker 00

  No, this is in our house, just as we're leaving for childcare.

• 5:46Freya Bleathman?

  Put on a nappy so badly that there's no trace of the poo.

• 5:49Speaker 00

  This has never happened. So we're running, the runaway log, I see it. My daughter is crawling past it. And thankfully has her eyes on her little pink car, so goes straight past it. I pick up the log, we get it rid of it, wash the car. Anyways, get them out the door to childcare. I'm in the office and we're doing qual research for one of our brands and I get the phone call, Lila's spewing. I'm like, great, let's do the childcare pickup. So Will and I are conversing and I was actually not in the office for the whole day. On the way home, we had to do some research groups and I parked in in Clearway.

• 6:32Georgia Allison?

  No, I know where this is going.

• 6:34Speaker 00

  Will's on Lila duty to pick up the daughter, who's probably got a little gastro. And I come out from the research group and I'm like, where's my car?

• 6:44Freya Bleathman?

  I thought you were gonna say you got a ticket.

• 6:45Speaker 00

  No, car got towed. Car got towed.

• 6:49Georgia Allison?

  Rough.

• 6:50Speaker 00

  And it was because I was in a different area on the way home. So these research groups were in different parts of Melbourne. And I was just out of like, you know, I was doing too much and car gets towed. So get home, do bed bath, and I don't even know where the depot is. So off I go to Collingwood with Will. He drives me, drives me off. I get the car and it's like 8.45 and I was just, we've had a day. We started with the log, the runaway log.

• 7:19Georgia Allison?

  The runaway log sounds like it's like a children's. I was just gonna say that. That is a great title.

• 7:25Speaker 00

  So I just did a touch on that. Anyways, we were in Collingwood, which we don't live near the area and I love the north side. And so Will and I were like, should we just get a drink? And so we turned the car collection into an impromptu date night. So there was a tiny win at the end of the day, but far out. It was just one of those days. And I think so many parents could relate to in terms of what you cover in a day from the moment you wake up at six in 9pm. Anyways, that was a very long story, but I just need to share the wild Wednesday that we had. And now we're here.

• 7:58Freya Bleathman?

  So funny. Was that also the night where you had to do a little drive by past my house?

• 8:03Speaker 00

  No, the next night, the next night. Sorry, that was the other win. Having a paediatrician on speed dial, i.e. my new girlfriend Freya, is God's gift to earth. With Lila's gastro burst, she was like vomiting and spewing non-stop for the next day. And so we were like wondering, is she all right? Is she not? And Freya kind of took me through the meals required, the hydration levels, and also supported in some medical respite, because she lives close by to me. There was an, it looked like a drug delivery.

• 8:37Freya Bleathman?

  Do you know what's so funny? Because Rafa like pulls up in her car, I come out and give her the goods.

• 8:44Freya Bleathman?

  But the funny thing is like, I live in quite, would we say like edgy parts of town?

• 8:51Freya Bleathman?

  I don't think anyone would have even batted an eye.

• 8:54Speaker 00

  Drive past the apartment, Freya gives me some hydro, some stuff like gastro medicine for poor little Lila. And she pulled down the window, hands me the plastic bag. Yeah, I put it in a hoodie, which probably didn't help. And then I just drove off and I was like, that looked like a drug deal. Anyways, it was, it was, it was a drug deal.

• 9:16Georgia Allison?

  It was a drug deal, but the legal kind.

• 9:18Speaker 00

  A legal gun. And don't tell April.

• 9:21Speaker 00

  Anyways, that was such a wild week, but I just needed to share it.

• 9:24Freya Bleathman?

  Okay, so I'm so keen to get into this article because, I mean, the second, I think, I was, I actually read this on the way home from our last record.

• 9:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:34Freya Bleathman?

  And I hadn't even finished it before I sent it in the group chat. Particularly, so it was in GQ magazine, written by Zach Baron. And the title of the article was, "My second child is perfect, he ruined my life", which I loved. And I wanna jump really quickly to the quote that made me forward it on, which was, "Here is my cliche for what little it's worth. A parent with one child has more in common with a childless person than they have with a parent of two."

• 10:02Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 10:02Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 10:03Freya Bleathman?

  And as the parent of one child in the room, I wanna hear your thoughts.

• 10:08Georgia Allison?

  Well, I feel like when you sent that-

• 10:10Speaker 00

  Let's jump to the extreme. I think the extreme needs to be covered off in the form of triplet boys.

• 10:14Georgia Allison?

  When you first sent that article, I feel like I hadn't also read the entirety of the article. But when I saw that quote, which was, you know, high up in its, um, in, in, in the, in the title, or one of the first quotes that they're quoting, I think my first response to the you both was like, preach, can completely relate.

• 10:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:36Georgia Allison?

  But then when I went through it and, you know, had a reflection on, um, where I sort of fit in that, you know, quote of a parent with one child has more in common with a childless person.

• 10:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:48Georgia Allison?

  I think that comes with a lot of nuance and there's a lot of circumstances with that. Like, I must say, I think that quote is pretty polarising for anyone who has one child. Like, I don't know, I don't know, jumping around a bit.

• 10:58Speaker 00

  Cause your life changes so much.

• 11:00Georgia Allison?

  Yeah, like, how did you feel? Like, does it annoy you hearing that quote?

• 11:04Freya Bleathman?

  Uh.

• 11:04Georgia Allison?

  As someone who has one child?

• 11:06Freya Bleathman?

  I mean, I, yeah, I feel like I can't really have an opinion. I, my, was I a little bit affronted, maybe? Yeah?

• 11:13Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 11:13Freya Bleathman?

  But I think, I mean, I was more just excited to talk about it, cause I just think there's so much to dissect there. My gut feeling is, like, surely it can't be. I don't know if it's also a little bit like, oh, as someone that wants two children, like, oh, surely it can't be.

• 11:29Speaker 00

  Please tell me it's not true.

• 11:30Freya Bleathman?

  Yeah, but, I, I, yeah, I wasn't, I, I just think it's, I think it's a juicy thing to say.

• 11:36Georgia Allison?

  Yeah, yeah, it's quite polarising.

• 11:39Speaker 00

  It's provocative. It's pulled us in.

• 11:40Georgia Allison?

  And I think one of the next quotes that I really liked, sort of pairs with it quite well. And Zach Baron says, "I had one and now I have two and it's simply not the same."

• 11:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:50Georgia Allison?

  And I think that together, it really sort of simplified, not simplified it to me, but it gave a lot more nuance and context to the circumstances that you might find yourself in. Like, I mean, for me, I've gone from zero to three. Like, I was cannon bolted into parenthood or motherhood. Like, there was no, my, my life drastically changed from the moment they found that third heartbeat. And I think for Matt and I, in the mix of finding out we were having triplets, we really had to grapple with the idea that our lives were going to be completely changed.

• 12:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:25Georgia Allison?

  Um, and there was just no turning back. There was no, and I think especially for Matt, which we have talked about at different times through our parenthood journey, is that on reflection, like, lots of his friends who had one child, we had lots of friends at the same time have children, which was real blessing. But our motherhood journey is completely different.

• 12:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:48Georgia Allison?

  What we had in common was that we were brand new mums, but we couldn't really relate to each other.

• 12:52Speaker 00

  Absolutely not.

• 12:53Georgia Allison?

  Yeah. And especially with Matt as well, because he real, his life really changed. Like, my, you know, when you're pregnant, your body's changing, you're, you're going to birth this child. So for a woman's perspective, your, your life is automatically gonna change. But for your partner, if you're in a heterosexual relationship, or any partnership, really, whoever's having the baby or whoever's not having the baby, their lives potentially don't change too much. They still gotta work, they don't look any different.

• 13:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:20Georgia Allison?

  But for Matt, watching his friends, his male friends, um, their lives, from him's, his perspective, didn't change. Like, Matt was there for every single feed. He, like, we couldn't, I couldn't be alone with them for a few months, really, because I needed a second pair of hands for every single feed.

• 13:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:40Georgia Allison?

  So we really had to, um, change our mindset about when we're having, uh, triplets because of the fact that it could have really been quite easy for Matt and I. And I think lots of multiple parents would agree with this, is that you have, you sort of have to mourn that parenthood journey that you were going to have.

• 14:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:00Georgia Allison?

  And it's very easy for parents with multiples to be like, woe is me.

• 14:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:06Georgia Allison?

  And like, this is so much harder for me than it is for you with your singleton. You don't get it.

• 14:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:12Georgia Allison?

  But, like, I didn't wanna live my life like that. So Matt and I honestly consciously made a decision, being like,

• 14:19Speaker 00

  This is gonna break us apart or pull us together, but you needed to have that.

• 14:22Georgia Allison?

  Yeah, absolutely. And we, we really did. And there's been a couple of times I've had to pull him up on, you know, he came home from, um, you know, meeting up with someone, being like, God, it's just so easy. Like, he only had one of his kids and we're at the park and whatever. And I'm like, don't go there. Like, you're, you're, you're going to, don't even envision what it would be like to have one, because you don't.

• 14:43Speaker 00

  No.

• 14:44Georgia Allison?

  You have three and not, and of course he would never change it, I would never change it, but.

• 14:48Speaker 00

  What an amazing mindset. I have to say, like, kudos to you, because it absolutely could have pulled you apart.

• 14:58Georgia Allison?

  I do think how you, whether or not you're an optimist or a pessimist, will really change the way you parent. And it just so happens that both Matt and I fit into that sort of optimistic view of the world. But I just wanna, like, you only get one life. Like, I, I sort of really, and that's not to say that I have had, like, dips in it. And of sure, when I was pregnant, I had to really mourn what my motherhood and parenthood journey was gonna look like.

• 15:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:24Georgia Allison?

  But once you put that aside, you sort of just gotta move on and you don't have time to dwell on it. Like, you've, yeah, there's a lot to do.

• 15:33Speaker 00

  And because you didn't have, you went from zero to three immediately. Do you relate to this article at all?

• 15:43Georgia Allison?

  Yeah, I do in a little way. Like, I think, um, that when I had, now with, um, when I'm with one of my children, I can really relate to it being like I have no children.

• 15:56Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 15:57Georgia Allison?

  I didn't really split up my triplets.

• 15:58Speaker 00

  One feels like none.

• 15:59Georgia Allison?

  One feels like none. Bang on. Um, I didn't really split up my triplets until they were about two and a half, because we were pretty regimented on, um, their sleeping and feeding schedules. And that, um, really allowed us to have a bit of, uh, flexibility or spontaneity in our lives. Um, I, I think some twin parents might relate to that. Other people, um, I've met really were led by the children in their sort of sleep and eating, um, routines, which I completely respect, and hats off to you, but I really needed it to be quite regimented. So I didn't split up the boys for, until, until they're about two and a half. Much to my parents and, like, family members dismayed, like, they, they would love the idea of having, uh, one-on-one time with them.

• 16:41Georgia Allison?

  And I didn't. I sort of, I, I wanna have one-on-one time with my children, but.

• 16:46Speaker 00

  So not, you never let one sleep over at that grandparents' place, like, to rotate around?

• 16:51Georgia Allison?

  Also, I didn't, I didn't want them away from me. Like, I, I don't know, it was sort of like a bit primal, being like, though, they need to be together with me and, um, yeah, not separate them. But now, at two and a half, Matt and I really did try and make a conscious decision about spending one-on-one time with each other. But my kids don't know any different. They have been together from day dot.

• 17:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:11Georgia Allison?

  And I, they don't really like being away from each other. They really don't. They're often, if we, we do have one-on-one time, each of them are sort of saying like, where's Jude? Where, where's Marlo? Where, is Finny coming back? And it's beautiful spending that one-on-one time together. Don't get me wrong. Um, and like I said, that's where I relate to this article, because I do feel like when I have one kid, I could take on the fucking world.

• 17:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:34Georgia Allison?

  Like, my, I can really relate to my girlfriends who had their singleton when I had my triplets. Like, they could go, um, to mums and bubs classes, pair appointments, take their one child to go get their nails done. Like, I've got friends who do that now. Yeah, that's not an experience that I ever had. Not even like breastfeeding on the go, baby wearing, co-sleeping, the list could go on.

• 17:57Speaker 00

  On, yeah, gosh, your postpartum is so different to what your current reality is, I guess, with one.

• 18:03Freya Bleathman?

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think what, it's interesting, I feel like multiples is almost like a completely different.

• 18:08Speaker 00

  It's a universe.

• 18:10Freya Bleathman?

  I mean, it's almost beyond the scope.

• 18:11Georgia Allison?

  I know.

• 18:12Freya Bleathman?

  Article, isn't it?

• 18:13Georgia Allison?

  Yeah, it really is.

• 18:14Freya Bleathman?

  I, I'm really keen, Rafa, to hear your take.

• 18:17Georgia Allison?

  Me too.

• 18:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, cause this is my current reality, isn't it? Like, I feel this, I felt this article in my bones, um, as a parent of two within 13 months. So my daughter's now 15 months, son's almost two and a half, there are 13 month gap. So, um, when this article said, "The child is perfect, but it's ruined my life", I was like, oh, gosh, because, and I felt a bit guilty admitting that parts of it were true when I read the depths of the article. Um, I mentioned this in episode zero, I had a bit of a fertility journey to get pregnant. So it was about 10 months for my son.

• 19:00Speaker 00

  And, um, you know, anyone that's had a slightly different or challenging journey to conception, when you have that baby in your arms, it is such an amazing experience. And so for Will and I, when we held my son, I was like, oh my God, everything is right in the world. Like, it, it literally makes me so emotional and I absolutely adored postpartum. I found it hard, absolutely. There were moments of anxiety, all that sort of stuff. But generally speaking, when I got to cuddle him every contact nap for those early weeks, I was like, oh my God, he's here and he's real and I'm just so grateful. So that was your overarching theme for my first, um, child.

• 19:42Speaker 00

  So fast forward, um, you know, a few months, and this is not aged well, but some of our closest friends have the exact same gap as us. So they got pregnant four months postpartum and I walked out of my MCH appointment four months postpartum. And I messaged them and I said, "I cannot believe that you found out you were pregnant going into this appointment. I didn't know I was already pregnant."

• 20:07Speaker 00

  I was already pregnant. And I've got the audacity to be like, meh, meh, meh. Such for you. And so when I told them we were pregnant, the guy bugged that message and said, "This is not aged well."

• 20:23Speaker 00

  That's funny.

• 20:23Georgia Allison?

  I'm glad he did that. That's good.

• 20:25Speaker 00

  Absolutely not, because, you know, for someone that had a bit of a challenging conception journey the first time, how do you get pregnant on the pill exclusively breastfeeding without your period? Like, you're a doctor, riddle me that.

• 20:38Georgia Allison?

  Answer.

• 20:39Speaker 00

  Tell me.

• 20:40Freya Bleathman?

  Usually it's compliance with technical medication.

• 20:45Speaker 00

  Dad. Not to be too plain.

• 20:46Georgia Allison?

  Was she a bit worse, you guys see?

• 20:48Speaker 00

  I know, I was like, alright, it's like 6% chance of getting pregnant with you.

• 20:51Freya Bleathman?

  My friend the other day was like, oh, it's so annoying. Every time I forget to take one of my pills, like, I just get my period. I'm like, yeah, because you're meant to take it every day.

• 20:58Speaker 00

  At the same time.

• 20:59Freya Bleathman?

  Isn't it so annoying when you don't take it properly? It doesn't work.

• 21:04Speaker 00

  So funny. I'm hurt.

• 21:05Freya Bleathman?

  She's doctor as well. No, I'm sorry.

• 21:07Georgia Allison?

  Shout out. You know who you are.

• 21:10Speaker 00

  Oh gosh, and so, you know, I was desperate to get pregnant with Rumi, checking those pregnancy tests, and I didn't know that you could feel devastated seeing a pregnancy test, which is how I felt when I realised I was pregnant with Lila. And, um, so this article talking about the second, I was just like, far out. Like, there's a lot, like, having one baby, as you know, the world that you're living in, imagine being pregnant now, or like, you'd be, you know, four months pregnant by now. You know, it's a huge.

• 21:42Freya Bleathman?

  Yeah, well, I feel like since I've read the article, I've been thinking about that a little bit more. Like, even when Rue gets home from work, he does bath time in a lot of the evening routine. And that's my moment in the day where I can just like, sit down, relax, scroll my phone, just decompress a little bit.

• 21:59Georgia Allison?

  It's sacred, yeah.

• 21:59Freya Bleathman?

  Yeah, and I have been thinking the past sort of week or so, like, I'm not gonna get that if there's two of them, because there's two of us.

• 22:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:08Freya Bleathman?

  And, you know, we have to have one each.

• 22:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:11Freya Bleathman?

  And I went, I mean, there's a couple of other quotes I really liked from the article. One of them was, "One feels hard precisely because of how much connection remains tantalisingly with your old life, your old hobbies, your old friends, your old functioning brain. With one, you even get to visit this old life from time to time. With two, that old life is so completely gone, it's like it never even happened. With three, I'm told you simply give up." I myself will never find out.

• 22:40Georgia Allison?

  Yeah, but I just, I can see how that could be true, because I do, it's like you said, Georgia, I do go to mums and bubs classes. I do, like, Gold's and I got, well, I mean, I got a pedicure, but.

• 22:52Speaker 00

  The lady gave her a little foot massage.

• 22:54Georgia Allison?

  And she just sat on my lap. Yeah. Like, I can do those sorts of things. And while I feel, it's funny, because I feel like my life has so completely changed. And maybe, or maybe my identity is so completely changed, but I could believe that having a second could maybe change my life, rather maybe than changing my identity.

• 23:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:16Georgia Allison?

  I mean, I could believe that. Another quote I really liked, that I thought was a really interesting perspective, was, "What I did not know is that one kid is less than half of two kids. That a second kid would not amount to one extra tantrum per day, or one additional cold per month, because, as another father of two explained to me, adding kids to a family is geometry, not arithmetic. A four-person family contains six relationships, six vectors for squabbling or sharing viruses." Because a couple, you've got the one relationship, one baby, you've got three.

• 23:48Freya Bleathman?

  Yeah.

• 23:48Georgia Allison?

  But adding just one more baby is six different relationships. What do you guys think?

• 23:52Speaker 00

  How many relationships? That means you've got eight.

• 23:53Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 23:54Speaker 00

  Far out.

• 23:54Georgia Allison?

  And I, that didn't surprise me, because that is something that, now that my kids are four, and their personalities are really flourishing, they can talk, they can answer back, and they can, they have their own wants and needs. And so, that wasn't that surprising me, it hit me in the face a bit, because I'm like, yeah.

• 24:11Speaker 00

  I've never thought of it like that.

• 24:12Georgia Allison?

  Yeah, maybe I hadn't thought about it, but I do, I do experience it, because my mornings, I'm dealing with three people. Like, early days, I used to dress all my children in the same outfit. I don't know, is that controversial, but I loved it.

• 24:27Freya Bleathman?

  I don't think that's controversial.

• 24:28Georgia Allison?

  But now that they've got their own personalities, wow.

• 24:31Freya Bleathman?

  I mean, they're always wearing dress ups.

• 24:32Georgia Allison?

  They're just, yeah, it's just a dress up box. It is just a dress up box.

• 24:37Georgia Allison?

  So, just dealing with all of that, no, no, no, just constantly rationalising with three, three-year-olds is a lot. And so, adding more children to that mix is a big decision. If you were going to add a second child, or a third child, or even a fourth, I think that is, people miss that. I think that might hit home for a lot of our listeners, because I don't think people think about when they add a new child to their life, they're thinking about a baby.

• 25:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:05Georgia Allison?

  They're not necessarily thinking about a child, or a fully-fledged teenager, and so on.

• 25:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think, yeah.

• 25:13Freya Bleathman?

  And that probably does change, I mean, for him, I think his kids are maybe four and two or something. So he maybe is still in the trenches a little bit. It'd be interesting to see how he feels a few years from now.

• 25:25Georgia Allison?

  Hmm.

• 25:26Freya Bleathman?

  But, I don't know, I mean, maybe Rafa, this question's more for you than Georgia, because you have the ability to compare, one and more than one. But was there anything that was easier? I mean.

• 25:38Speaker 00

  I think so, yeah, definitely, for sure. I feel like, so what I will say, and a couple of those great comments that you pulled out from the article, um, talk about the dynamic, I think it's important. So this article's written by a man. He's not the person.

• 25:54Georgia Allison?

  Yeah, do you think we should touch on that?

• 25:56Speaker 00

  It's like, it gave me a teeny ick.

• 25:58Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 25:58Speaker 00

  But I think it's a valid article, and, um, my husband read it, and it's very much from his point of view. And I think what's important to touch on is that a woman who's pregnant for the first time, I don't know if anyone else relates to this, or you related to this, but I think the mental preparation that you go on by donating your body over to pregnancy tests, ovulation, diet changes, tracking, all that sort of stuff, you're like, kind of mentally preparing, um, for the pregnancy. Then you hopefully get pregnant, have a healthy pregnancy, then the birth. You've got like 10 months ahead of the guy, their life changes when the, the child really arrives. And then, you're still two on one, the dynamic is still held by the parents onto one kid, which is what you're experiencing right now.

• 26:43Speaker 00

  The shift is seismic for the mother, I don't think with one child, it's seismic for the dad. And a lot of the content I see in my algorithm, and then just verbatim through friends, is that the dad's lives really change with the second, because all of a sudden, it's one parent on one child.

• 26:59Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 26:59Speaker 00

  So what you mentioned about your evenings, that sacred, it's gone.

• 27:02Georgia Allison?

  Hmm.

• 27:03Speaker 00

  And that, so when you ask about what's easier, I think like, for me personally, I back myself so much more as a mum, second time around. So parenting as a whole feels more familiar. Um, I don't Google as much, I trust my gut instincts so much more, like, having gone through the process once before. So I'd say, like, overall, parenting is easier. Logistics, environment, everything else around your relationship with that second child is much harder.

• 27:33Georgia Allison?

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:34Freya Bleathman?

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• 28:39Georgia Allison?

  From our recent Chainless Media survey, we found that one in 25 mothers regret having more than one child. This was asked of those who have multiple children.

• 28:50Freya Bleathman?

  So 4%.

• 28:51Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 28:51Freya Bleathman?

  Regret. But what do you think, I mean, we kind of spoke about this in the how happy are you in your marriage episode. What, someone saying they regret having more than one child, do you think that that is, again, maybe a bit of a personality thing? Or who do you think would be comfortable saying regret versus not? Do you think that makes a difference?

• 29:14Georgia Allison?

  Yeah, I do.

• 29:15Freya Bleathman?

  Yeah.

• 29:16Georgia Allison?

  Um, personally, I don't think I could ever.

• 29:21Georgia Allison?

  Put regret if that was in the, in the, um, the survey answer.

• 29:25Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 29:25Georgia Allison?

  Something about the word regret, it feels, I link it to like it being a mistake.

• 29:30Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 29:31Georgia Allison?

  And I just don't think I could put it out there into the universe.

• 29:34Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 29:35Georgia Allison?

  Whereas if it was, it may be differently worded, perhaps, um, I might be inclined, depending on the day, of course, to answer that way. Yeah. What do you guys think?

• 29:45Freya Bleathman?

  I think you can, I wonder if it's whether you interpret it as regretting potentially the decision to have a second or subsequent child. You know, you can love your child more than anything in the world and still recognise that your life is objectively harder because you had that subsequent child versus those who may be interpreted as regretting the outcome. Like regretting the child themselves.

• 30:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's a hard one to separate.

• 30:10Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 30:11Freya Bleathman?

  I wonder, yeah, I wonder if you really frame it as the form. Do you think that maybe your life is harder or whatever, having had that subsequent child, whether the proportion, sort of one in twenty five would become, uh, you know, one in, I don't know, ten or.

• 30:26Speaker 00

  One in three even. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think if the question was, you know, not so much regret the child, but identifying that it's harder, like I probably, because I don't think I would have said regret.

• 30:38Georgia Allison?

  Hmm.

• 30:38Speaker 00

  Because I love where my life has ended up, but the journey to getting here, um, has been that, it's been a journey.

• 30:45Freya Bleathman?

  Uh huh.

• 30:46Speaker 00

  So yeah, I wonder if, you know, I interpreted like regret as a bit of grief in my specific case around the second, like, do I regret the timing? Yeah.

• 30:56Georgia Allison?

  Hmm.

• 30:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, I do regret the timing, like.

• 30:59Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 30:59Speaker 00

  And that's what I found so challenging to get my head around. I, this feels ridiculous to say because you went straight to three.

• 31:08Georgia Allison?

  Not at all, it's all relative.

• 31:10Speaker 00

  Relative. And I, you know, during my experience, I felt a bit robbed with that one-on-one time with my son because I, I genuinely just thought we were gonna have, you know, a couple of years, if that was the age gap that we were aiming for, where I got to en- enjoy him a little bit more as a baby. I feel sad that I was, you know, almost four months pregnant when I found out I was pregnant and he was only five months old, you know? And like, he was such a baby. And then my pregnancy felt hard because I was so tired and I just, and I couldn't really pick him up when he was a nine month old because I was seven, like, you know, a lot of that chapter for me, I was just like, this is insane. Like, I cannot believe that I'm pregnant. And, you know, the deciding factor for us

• 31:56Speaker 00

  to continue with that pregnancy was writing out a bit of a list and my husband was very supportive about the fact that I was holding the pregnancy and he's like, we're gonna do what you wanna do. But, you know, we write down a bit of a should we, shouldn't we, pros and cons on the advice of our friends that ended up continuing with their pregnancy as well. Um, we always wanted a second kid and I just couldn't face the fact that if I was to have a challenging fertility journey, um, I would never ever forgive myself, I don't think. And so we were like, okay, no, two, two kids is right, we'll, we'll get on with it. But that's not to say that the entire process wasn't really hard. And I don't think anyone sort of talks about,

• 32:39Speaker 00

  you know, the unplanned timing of a second child or a third child that you went through. And to your point, like, no one really talks about grieving.

• 32:47Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 32:47Speaker 00

  Whatever vision you were gonna have.

• 32:49Georgia Allison?

  Yeah. And yeah, they, maybe they don't, not enough. And, and I think, I think lots of our listeners would be able to resonate with the timing.

• 32:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:58Georgia Allison?

  Like maybe people have a really preconceived idea of what age gap you want between your children. Like, I know in my friendship circles, um, like I'm mid thirties and some of my friends are wanting to have their second and third kid. And they're grappling with the idea of whether or not they'll face secondary, third fertility issues. And because you're just getting a bit older. Whereas of course, I fell pregnant straight away and I had what I counted as, you know, fast family, straight away. And whilst I grieve the idea of not being pregnant again or not experiencing a singleton, and we can get into that because, I don't know, I'm still sitting on the fence about having four. But I,

• 33:42Georgia Allison?

  in lots of ways, in, in those conversations that I'm having with my friends grappling with that, I feel content that I have my family now. And when I was pregnant, people would say, wow, you've got it all in da- all out in one go. Like, how good is that? And I was like, I don't love that comment. Like, I sort of, I didn't really, I, I didn't really plan for that. That wasn't the timing that I wanted. I, you know, wanted to enjoy one, potentially have a second and then maybe contemplate a third.

• 34:07Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 34:08Georgia Allison?

  Um, but whereas I feel differently now that I've got my three boys and, you know, Matt and I are planning, my, we're not planning another child, we're planning other fun things to do as a family, which, yeah, there's a bit of contentment there.

• 34:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think that's the part of it that I've actually now reflected on. The decision got taken away from us.

• 34:28Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 34:28Speaker 00

  And now I'm like, oh, actually, when would have been the right time? And what would have been the right age gap for a second? In my head, it was like, oh, you know, two and a half years or three.

• 34:39Georgia Allison?

  Hmm.

• 34:39Speaker 00

  That puts me closer to forty for a second child. And, you know, Roomy's pretty intense now. I could not imagine going on that trying to conceive journey right now, you know, with a toddler in the house and that's really, really hard. So honestly, now I'm like grateful that the decision got taken away from me. I got decided of.

• 34:58Georgia Allison?

  Well, you don't have time to get freaky anymore.

• 35:00Speaker 00

  Exactly. No, we don't. We can touch on that in another full episode around the right time to conceive, you know, or like to plan for the second. There's a lot to unpack about the idea of regret. We also have stats around happiness levels of some of the respondents of one, two, three kids. But first, let's hear from today's sponsor.

• 35:22Freya Bleathman?

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• 35:48Georgia Allison?

  Okay, so moving on to our shameless, uh, survey data, the question related to how happy are people who have one versus two versus three kids? So the question overall was, which of the following best describes how you feel about your life right now? Answers with those between one to three kids was actually quite similar.

• 36:09Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 36:09Georgia Allison?

  Eighty one percent on average with one to three kids answered either loving life or I'm happy.

• 36:16Freya Bleathman?

  So just to clarify, that's on average eighty one percent of people who had either one or two or three kids.

• 36:23Georgia Allison?

  That's correct.

• 36:23Freya Bleathman?

  Would say I'm happy or loving life.

• 36:26Georgia Allison?

  Yes.

• 36:26Freya Bleathman?

  And within those three groups, was there much difference? Kind of that's the average overall.

• 36:31Georgia Allison?

  It is the average overall. There's very little difference. There's a slight dip from one to two kids, but no dip between two to three kids. So Freya, as someone who has, you're ever so slightly happier because you, eighty two percent of people with one child answered either loving life or I'm happy.

• 36:52Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 36:52Georgia Allison?

  Whereas on average, uh, eighty percent of people who have either two children or three children answered, I'm loving life or I'm happy.

• 37:03Freya Bleathman?

  So, I mean.

• 37:04Georgia Allison?

  What do you think?

• 37:06Freya Bleathman?

  I think the little data nerd in me is wondering how statistically significant that difference is.

• 37:11Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 37:12Freya Bleathman?

  I'm sorry, the P value, but I, like, two percent, I mean, for me, that's basically the same. They all seem to have.

• 37:17Speaker 00

  Which is pretty amazing. I would have thought, expected way more dips.

• 37:22Freya Bleathman?

  I, I.

• 37:22Speaker 00

  Based on the article.

• 37:23Georgia Allison?

  Oh, based on the article. Yeah.

• 37:25Freya Bleathman?

  Or what about even based on your experience?

• 37:27Speaker 00

  Oh, my own experience.

• 37:30Speaker 00

  Living.

• 37:30Freya Bleathman?

  Yeah. I mean, for me, I think it's quite reassuring. Obviously, there's selection bias with who we've got filling in these surveys. It's shameless listeners, but I think kind of demographically, that's probably where I fit. So it's nice to know, uh, that there's, doesn't seem to be a huge drop. Cause I'm hearing all this stuff, what you guys are saying and from the article, and I'm sitting here like, oh shit, like I kind of wanted another one or two, but am I gonna be completely miserable? Well, the data we've got suggests maybe not.

• 37:59Georgia Allison?

  No.

• 38:00Freya Bleathman?

  And it was funny, I did, no offence to the shameless census, but I thought I would look up a bit of sort of peer reviewed data online and just look at some studies to see, is this something that people have tried to test for? And they have many, many times.

• 38:14Georgia Allison?

  Hmm.

• 38:14Freya Bleathman?

  And interestingly, there doesn't really, there's lots of conflicting data. So there's there doesn't seem to be this big difference purely based on the number of children you had. But the one thing that does seem to impact satisfaction, happiness, whatever, is how many children you have versus how many you wanted to have.

• 38:33Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 38:34Speaker 00

  There's a gap. Or like the gap in what you end up having is.

• 38:37Freya Bleathman?

  So whether you have one child, five children, doesn't seem to matter as much as whether you had the number that you wanted to have. So you wanted five children, you only got one. Maybe you're less satisfied with that.

• 38:51Speaker 00

  So interesting.

• 38:52Georgia Allison?

  Well, I wonder if we answered when we were about sixteen. I think when I was sixteen, I wanted about four kids. So I don't know. I think just time creeps up on you. And as, you know, we're all having children a little bit later. Um, and I think that's a really interesting point you raised, Freya, because I wonder if whether or not you can afford what you wanted originally has a huge impact. Like, I feel like in my conversations with my friends, talking about adding to their families, um, or having their second or third child, it real, all of my conversations are centred around whether or not we can afford it.

• 39:26Freya Bleathman?

  Yeah. And that's the same even when I'm talking to my husband about how many kids we have. I really do think in the current climate.

• 39:35Freya Bleathman?

  How many children you have is almost a bit of a stutter symbol or an indicator

• 39:41Georgia Allison?

  Oh my gosh, I agree.

• 39:42Freya Bleathman?

  of how financially comfortable you are.

• 39:44Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 39:44Freya Bleathman?

  Because we do, we can probably, we've got a little two-bedroom apartment, we could probably manage two in there, but if we had a third, we'd have, we'd probably have to move, we'd need a new car.

• 39:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:54Freya Bleathman?

  We'd need to pay an extra, like, what, fifteen, twenty grand a year of childcare fees?

• 39:58Georgia Allison?

  And not to mention schools, like, depending on where you want to send your children.

• 40:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly.

• 40:03Freya Bleathman?

  Oh, yeah, I mean, that's not.

• 40:05Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 40:05Speaker 00

  One, that's not gonna, she's got a preschool.

• 40:09Georgia Allison?

  Those are my conversations right now, it's like, we're going into that school-age education chat, whereas when I had three little tiny children and the conversation was like, oh, you know, three boys, your school fees are gonna be astronomical, I'm like, can you not, actually, I'm not even there yet.

• 40:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:24Georgia Allison?

  Whereas I'm now heading into those conversations being like, okay, wow, if we move house, I need to think about the school zones.

• 40:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 40:31Georgia Allison?

  Where are we gonna send the boys to high school? And they're not even four, it's wild.

• 40:36Speaker 00

  It's a huge factor. Finances is absolutely the dictator of whether or not I would have a third child. And, look, I grew up as a, um, two sibling household, I have an older sister and I love that dynamic. I also think what you grew up with

• 40:52Georgia Allison?

  Yep.

• 40:52Speaker 00

  is what you have envisaged, or so you were one of three, you kind of, three or four didn't scare you.

• 40:57Georgia Allison?

  Yep.

• 40:58Speaker 00

  Three didn't even enter my realm of possibility because I was a family of two. I'm like, oh, I just love that dynamic with my sibling, you're one of three.

• 41:05Freya Bleathman?

  Yeah, but my husband's one of two. And I want three, he wants two. I mean, I'm so interested in how much of the, how many kids you have, how much of it's a decision or led by sort of strategy and thinking versus led by emotion and feeling.

• 41:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:23Freya Bleathman?

  Like, I feel like my desire for three kids is very much emotion-led, and I just, I mean, what did he say? There was this one quote I freaking loved in this.

• 41:32Georgia Allison?

  I think I know the one that you're, um, talking about. I think it's the quote, "The absence in my life before becoming a parent was two kids shaped."

• 41:40Speaker 00

  Mmm.

• 41:41Georgia Allison?

  And it is the best way I can put it. I think that's a beautiful description of longing to be a parent and having an idea of what it was gonna be like.

• 41:50Freya Bleathman?

  Yeah, I feel like the, there's a three-kids-shaped hole in my life, or maybe two more kids-shaped, and that's completely illogical and probably not gonna work for us, because my husband's much more analytical and he's like, I think two's gonna be our limit.

• 42:07Speaker 00

  Fact-based, you know, and, and it is, it's probably a smart reality, like, I look at, sometimes I go to the park, I had kids a little bit later on in life, my parents also, and my husband's parents had kids later in their life, so most of our, the grandparents are in their late seventies, eighties, and I definitely have a village, but in terms of physical grandparents support, it's not on the table for us. And we go to the park and there's some grandparents, like, throwing five-year-olds into the, the sky, they've got another baby in the pram, and we're like, how lucky are these families that have.

• 42:45Freya Bleathman?

  But it's such a sweet spot, isn't it? Because all my in-laws and my parents all work.

• 42:49Speaker 00

  All they work, exactly, or they're interstate, and so to your point around families considering three or four, like, I was like, you've gotta have that family support, right?

• 43:01Georgia Allison?

  Well, on that, I actually have one more stat to share, it's in relation to those who have four children, the same question was asked, which was, overall, which of the following best describes how you feel about your life right now? Seventy-three percent of those who have four or more children answered either loving life or I'm happy.

• 43:20Speaker 00

  Hmm, so that's a dip.

• 43:21Georgia Allison?

  A little bit of a dip.

• 43:22Freya Bleathman?

  Yeah, because the one-to-three kids were all about eighty percent.

• 43:26Georgia Allison?

  Eighty percent, and so there we've got seventy-three percent.

• 43:29Freya Bleathman?

  I don't, I don't really see that as much of a dip. It would be interesting to see sort of the numbers and how statistically significant that change is.

• 43:38Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 43:39Freya Bleathman?

  But what, I think what I'm taking from this episode is that the actual number of kids you have, or the number of kids our listeners have, that answered the poll, doesn't seem to change their happiness level. I wonder if it is so much more to do with the other things we were talking about.

• 43:54Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 43:55Freya Bleathman?

  Finances, support.

• 43:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:57Freya Bleathman?

  How many kids you wanted to have.

• 43:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:59Freya Bleathman?

  Than actually how many you've got in front of you.

• 44:02Speaker 00

  Well, interestingly, I found a bit of research from the Max Planck Institute that the more children young parents have, the unhappier they are.

• 44:10Georgia Allison?

  Hmm.

• 44:10Speaker 00

  But from age forty-ish onwards, which goes back to the Nara Smith sort of example, the pattern completely reverses. So, parents over forty with more children are actually happier than their childless peers. Um, so the researchers have called this as children being a long-term investment in your happiness, and I quite like that because it's definitely where we are at the moment. I think what I love about this is reassuring, is that your trajectory, like, we're in the trenches right now. But the trajectory kind of does end up changing a little bit, where, you know, you kind of look at the factors that make up whether or not you're happy, and some of the data

• 44:52Speaker 00

  suggests that, um, there's a couple of ingredients that make that up, it's what meaning is brought to your life by having a child, how enjoyable it is, and so it kind of comes back to this article, right, that we've been talking about, that maybe the wrong measuring stick is being referenced here around happiness.

• 45:13Georgia Allison?

  Yeah.

• 45:13Speaker 00

  Because if it was around meaning, I think the article would have a very different shape.

• 45:18Freya Bleathman?

  Perfect, I think that's a great place to end it.

• 45:20Georgia Allison?

  Thank you all. If you enjoyed this episode, please pass it on to a friend, we are loving, um, getting everyone's responses and sort of feedback around our episodes. If you were listening to this episode and thinking, I know someone who had a few thoughts about this, and specifically the data, send it on, and then please send in your thoughts and questions, we're loving to receive them, um, and you can do that by sending it to our email, [email protected], and please follow us on Instagram at The Room Podcast. Thank you so much.

• 45:57Speaker 03

  Shameless Media. This podcast was recorded on Wurundjeri land, always was, always will be Aboriginal land.

• 46:06Georgia Allison?

  When fall comes back around, there's a sense of a reset, and new pieces from Lululemon's fall drop are an inspiration to push your goals and elevate your routines. As your calendar fills, easy-to-layer styles meet the demands of your day, and as you challenge yourself to try even more, versatile sets transition with you. The Lululemon fall lineup brings new levels of comfort and confidence, whether you're starting something fresh or starting something over. Check out the latest arrivals in store and on lululemon.com now.