The Secret to a Happy Family- 2 Daughters!

When the ultrasound revealed that our second baby also had the XX chromosomes, I immediately began forecasting a dreary future filled with girl fights, battles over tangled hair, and endless nights comforting devastated tweens in the midst of girlfriend drama.  However, it turns out that this combination of children leads to the happiest families.  Who knew that my husband had the secret sauce all along?

Recently the British website, bounty.com, surveyed 2116 families with two to four children in a variety of combinations.  According to their report, families with two girls "make for the most harmonious family life as they are unlikely to fight, will play nicely and are generally a pleasure to be around. Two girls rarely annoy their parents with too much noise, confide in their parents and are unlikely to wind each other up or ignore each other."

Hmm... they seemed to have forgotten to include my lovely family in the results.  Had Bounty been at my house this morning, they would have observed anything but a harmonious family.  No one was playing nicely together, and the noise level was above 80 decibels (without a vacuum in sight).  Elana and Maisy were taunting each other- Elana tried to commandeer Maisy's new Barbie and hide it in her bedroom, and Maisy responded by repeatedly whacking Elana on the head with her yogurt covered spoon.   Oh yes, two girls rarely annoy their parents!

It also turns out that families with four girls are the least happy of them all (25% of these families admitted to having difficulty coping with family issues on a daily basis, and may manage up to four fights per day).   This makes perfect sense to me.  As a former middle school teacher, nothing was more dreadful than a gaggle of girls ready to tear each other apart.  Four girls is more like running a sorority than a family. 

Here is the complete list of boy/girl combinations from happiest to most miserable:

1. two girls
2. one boy/one girl
3. two boys
4. three girls
5. three boys
6. four boys
7. two girls/one boy
8. two boys/one girl
9. three boys/one girl
   
10. three girls/one boy
11. two girls/two boys
12. four girls

There are a few critical points to note. First of all, the survey did not include families with only one child, since we all know that these families are even more content than the ones with two girls.  Nor did it it include childless couples (the most joyful of all).


Secondly, the study emphasizes what early studies have already shown, that happiness levels decrease with each additional child.  Notice how the happiest families in this table have the least number of children and the least happiest families have the most children.


So the moral of this story, it's time for Ted to get that vasectomy that I have been dreaming about for two years.  Put a fork in us, we are done!