Amusingly, both my mom and her sister had 3 children because their parents had 2. They were annoyed because one of them was "daddy's child" and one was "mommy's child" and they figured that having 3 each would prevent that. Numerology matters.

They both did end up having 3 kids, and I can report that I think the problem they thought they were preventing didn't happen. Win!

Can you describe the dynamics that did occur? Were the kids happier overall when there were 3 of them than 2? I know it’s tough to reduce everything to that one factor but still curious.

> I know it’s tough to reduce everything to that one factor

Yes, that's the whole problem with this discusion. It isn't scientific, lots of anecdata, and correlation does not imply causation.

Interestingly enough, both of my parents came from families with even numbers of children, and it was a lot.

BTW, 1 is also odd, so I'm not sure if you're just trying to say "used to have 3 children" or literally an odd number (1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 23, etc)

I think it was supposed to be a joke about how there is only a middle child if there is an odd number of children.

That's a matter of perception.

The way I see it, every child who is not either the youngest or the oldest is the/a middle child.

With 3, that's #2. With 4, that's #2 and #3. With 5, that's #2 and #3 and #4.

Though usually the context is that parents have 3 children because that's the most common version of having more than 2 children.

When I look at people who I know and their families, I can report that the middle child always appear to be self-centered, egocentric. As if they lacked love in their youth they're continuously trying to make up for the rest of their life. Oh, and they have twisted ways of justifying that behaviour.

I was just explaining the joke the guy was trying to make.

My dad was one of 8 siblings, and my mom was one of 6. So I guess I have a lot of egocentric aunts and uncles.

My last comment was regarding families with 3 children, and it is anecdata, sure.