One-child families like mine are getting more common – and it works for us

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/09/one-child-families-more-common-cut-tax-credits

Version 0 of 1.

Related: Cuts to tax credits in budget hit women twice as hard as men, says Labour

I always imagined I’d have two children. Coming from a family of four, my younger sister and I just over two years apart, it seemed the ideal family size.

So when I had my son five years ago, I assumed that at some point in the not too distant future, the urge to procreate would come again – and maybe this time I’d have a baby girl. I’d left it fairly late, like many women, through circumstances rather than design. But I’d got pregnant almost before we started trying, so had no reason to think there would be a problem the next time round.

But that “right” time never seemed to come. Like many new mothers, I struggled blearily through the first few months, shocked by the all-consuming needs of my baby boy. Shocked, too, by how it changed my perception of myself as a woman, feeling I had little role or value in the wider world. Having been so used to going out and working, being financially independent, my world shrank.

Going back to work four days a week when the maternity pay ran out after 10 months was a necessity in more ways than one. We would have struggled to survive on my partner’s salary, less than mine but still just above the £27,000 national average.

We live in north London, in a modest two-bedroom flat that I managed to buy nine years ago when I was single and working freelance without a full-time salary. I was lucky, house prices in my area hadn’t gone stratospheric – I wouldn’t get a mortgage in the same situation now.

Like many new mothers, I struggled blearily through the first few months, shocked by the all-consuming needs of my baby

As new parents we decided that we’d share childcare and each work four days a week. I think in the early days we even qualified for tax credits. We were lucky with childcare too, with a lovely childminder living just next door.

I never wanted to have children too close together. I felt almost sick when I heard about a friend of a friend who’d had twins, getting pregnant with another set of twins after only five months.

Turning 40 felt a bit of a milestone, I thought it would focus my mind on having another. But it came and went and the second baby seed was not planted.

My life got back into a kind of groove. Working four days a week, it’s possible (just) to make time for my son, negotiate childcare, pay the mortgage and bills, have a holiday here and there. Life would be infinitely more complicated and expensive if a second child had come along. It would also be squashed, and I have no desire to move out to the seaside or suburbs.

Related: Spoilt little emperors? Only children aren’t just normal, they are the future | Gaby Hinsliff

Economic circumstances have always affected people’s family decisions. In countries where there’s high infant mortality and no welfare safety net, parents tend to have many children so there is someone to work and look after them when they cannot.

With figures showing that one-child families are becoming much more common, and this week’s budget clamping down on tax credits for parents of more than two children, the small or one-child family may now be becoming, if not the beautiful ideal, then the more sensible choice. Of course, I know from those around me that it isn’t a happy choice for some, and people’s reasons for sticking at one are not straightforward.

As for my son, he may miss out on the shared imaginary world my sister and I grew up with, but nor will he have the vicious arguments. When his childminder was pregnant, he asked if I was going to have another baby in my tummy, but he doesn’t now seem bothered about brothers or sisters. Of course, that may change and in later years he may curse us for not having someone to share the burden of care with. But a lot can happen between now and then.

While it’s a huge shame if people are desperate to have more children yet can’t afford it, and the government and media focus on big, “benefit-scrounging” families is sickening, in a climate where women’s fertility choices are considered ripe for public dissection, it’s also good to be able to say: this is my decision and I’m happy with it.