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It's possible to go from DINK to traditional family but you have to be realistic about the lifestyle differences especially with 4 or more children. We may have had 5 or 6 if we'd started earlier. The first 7 years of marriage we were busy being DINK with nights out/trips.
See, I absolutely think the major problem is that we've turned having children from something that naturally happens, 'well of course now you're married and having regular sex, pregnancy is going to occur', into something that needs to be planned like the D-Day Normandy landings. From the scaremongering around abortion (every child a wanted child, as unwanted children are going to be victims of abuse, so if you don't plan it out perfectly then you will be an unwilling parent who will physically and emotionally abuse the child you resent), to the idea that you must be ready so you need the education, the career-building, the having fun while you're young, then settle down to having the perfect kid at the perfect moment with the perfect trajectory for making them successful in life.
I'm not saying you shouldn't consider finances and time and the rest of it when having children, but fuck it. The best way to have more children is just to have more children. No planning. No erecting astrological charts to decide the optimum moment for conception and then forecasting the future. Just do it (to swipe a phrase).
EDIT: That's also part of my dubiousness around this enthusiasm for polygenic selection. We've already made having children, for the people who should be having more kids, so stressful and expensive and high-stakes, now we're going to throw another gallon of accelerant on the bonfire: what, Justin and Pippa, you mean you didn't undergo IVF to create a bunch of embryos that could then be selected for the optimum traits for a Better Baby? You just got pregnant like some Stone Age cavepersons? Ahahaha, surely you must be joking! You're setting up your unfortunate child to be a failure and loser in life with deleterious traits being freely expressed in their genome!
Yeah, that's going to encourage people that having three kids at a minimum is a feasible thing.
I agree absolutely. There's less expectation that children would/should follow naturally from marriage.
The difficulty for me was a working top decile spouse.
The best and brightest of the PMC ladies are indoctrinated very early with plans and pathways. Achievements and career milestones. It's challenging to move past the sunk cost even if continued career progression is unlikely to make you happy.
There was much less planning for 3 and 4 than for 1 and 2. Partly due to experience and mostly that my wife was already full time homemaker after 2.
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It used to be that the astrological charts were used by couples who wanted children and they weren't coming along.
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