We welcomed our third child, Ángel, to the family a month ago, and he and mom are healthy and doing great I wanted to share some notes and observations specifically about the transition from 2 to 3 kids, for posterity: 1. The jump from 2 to 3 kids is very clearly the frontier of modern family life. At 2, people's comments are along the lines of "Yeah makes sense, the family starter pack is complete." At 3, it's more like "Whoa! You're really going for it!" And this applies both to the US and Mexico, which I'd say is much more family-friendly. 3 represents a kind of familial ambition, a desire to go beyond the pale. 2. A lot of people have commented that this particular shift is the biggest one, because "they now outnumber you," which is true. But I think a more important reason is that you can now no longer take turns. With two, one of you can hang out or play with them for awhile, and then you switch. This is actually easier to do than with one, because they entertain each other to some extent. But now that's over – the minute I'm done playing with the two older ones, I get handed the baby! 3. It's been MUCH easier for both of us this time around, compared to the previous two. For many reasons: we're older and more experienced, we have more help living in Mexico, and we're not so anxious and fearful of every little thing. To the extent this trend is true for others, it makes me wonder if by having fewer kids, we overestimate how hard it is to raise them, simply because first kids are harder, causing us to overweight that experience. 4. We had 3 different birth experiences – first in a US hospital, second at home in the US with a licensed midwife, and third at home in Mexico with a traditional midwife. It's hard to describe how utterly different each one was. The hospital was so cold, mechanical, bureaucratic, and was constantly trying to scare us into doing things (such as triple feeding, because supposedly the baby's weight was dropping too much). We vastly preferred giving birth at home and would recommend it to anyone who can. Especially the trad'l way – every moment was so beautiful, thoughtful, spiritual. Everything was a ritual or a ceremony, something we've really forgotten in the industrialized world. 5. It's amazing to see how quickly you rise to the occasion as a parent, and reset your standards of what is hard. Before Ángel arrived, I often found spending long stretches of time with the first two to be exhausting. I'd need hours to recover. But the moment he arrived, taking care of two instantly feels easy! Because now I know what it's like to watch three. Everything's relative, and there's even a way in which having fewer is harder, because they demand more of your attention individually. My productivity is also soaring, I feel like, because every moment of focus time is so much more precious, there's zero time for procrastination, delay, or lack of clarity. 6. It’s fascinating to watch how the arrival of a new family member completely changes the dynamics of the family. Certain kinds of attention suddenly become scarce which causes a kind of restructuring of the internal attention economy of the family. Everyone starts to try out different strategies for getting what they want and need, like pretending to be a baby, or trying to be more helpful, or throwing tantrums. Everyone is trying to find their new place in the system, including me. It's fascinating. 7. I see many of my generation not interested in having kids, and I can clearly see that starting a family is well on its way to becoming a highly specialized lifestyle niche, like owning horses or living on a boat. Rather than a default life path for everyone, it's becoming one you have to pursue very intentionally and proactively, at significant cost, and with unavoidable tradeoffs. I think this will ultimately be good for children, as a higher % of them will be raised by parents who enthusiastically wanted them. But I do fear for us, the potential parents, as there are many many positive impacts of becoming a parent that are hard to attain in other ways. All considered, having children has been by far the most rewarding and profound experience of my life. I don't think we talk about this enough. It's easier to complain and commiserate, but it is THE grandest, most epic adventure I could have ever imagined. Even the worst parts are among my most precious memories. Highly recommended!