The Tantrum: Should You Have Another Goddamn Kid? Part 2

The answer to this Tantrum question is pretty easy. Let’s look at the facts, shall we? Your kids are annoying. They scream behind me on the airplane, they intrude on my special bar time, they shoot my kid with water pistols (okay, Theodore’s kid does). Should you have another goddamn one? Hell, no.

But if we adjust the question slightly—should I, Matt Gross, have another goddamn kid?—things get much more interesting, I think we’d all agree.

First, let’s look at this on a practical level. If Jean and I had another child, we’d be spending more money, time, and energy raising it. We might feel constricted in our present situation and consider moving—not a pleasant prospect. We’d also have to figure out another name for a child, because apparently we can’t name them all Sasha Raven Gross. (Or can we?)

And we’d have to figure out how far apart to space them. Sasha’s now 19 months old, so if we were to conceive tomorrow (a challenging task, given that I’m in Morocco and Jean’s in Brooklyn, but I’m willing to give it a shot), Sasha would be roughly 2.5 years older than her sibling. Is that good? Is that what I’d want? To me, frankly, it seems like not quite enough distance. I want one kid well toilet-trained before I have to change another diaper. (Also, I come from a family where there’s at least four years between siblings.) Jean, however, points out that kids closer together can be better friends. She offers as proof of this herself and her brother, with whom she almost never speaks.

It all pretty much boils down to: Do we want another? And frankly, we have no idea. So, we recently came to a decision. Or rather, we decided to let Sasha decide.

Yes, that’s right. If my darling daughter one day asks us for a baby brother/sister, we’ll do our best to oblige. If she doesn’t, we won’t. And if she asks us for a puppy, we’ll tell her to go live with the downstairs neighbor.