22 July 2010

Exponential chaos

There’s nothing like adding a baby to make one wonder what on earth seemed so hard about life before another extremely needy human being was thrown into the mix.*

In my humble experience,** household chaos, or at least the potential thereof, increases exponentially rather than arithmetically with the birth of each child. (It seems to me that this is often particularly true with the birth of the second child.) Long ago, I hopefully postulated a more reasonable hypothesis, but experience has not borne it out. So the equation for potential household chaos upon adding a baby isn’t simply n+1 (where n=number of havocwreakers already in the household). Help me out, people—what’s the equation I’m looking for? (Those of you with multiples can tell us how it needs to be adjusted for that situation.)

I’m thinking about this because if I can describe the situation in a neat equation, then at least one thing around here will be neat . :P

*Counterpoint: there’s nothing like adding a baby to make one marvel at the wonders God works in each family member’s heart through that newest soul.

**I'm at a particularly crazy point right now. Check back later and I may think that there's an inverse exponential effect. Or at least a plateau at some point. Or something.

9 comments:

Pr. H. R. said...

Let O = Odds of household cleanliness
Let n = number of children


O = 1/2^n

+HRC

Melrose said...

Well, let's see:

Let's say you have 3 kids...then you add a 4th, now you not only have the chaos of kid 1 to kid 2, kid 2 to kid 3, and kid 3 to kid 1, but also the possibility of kid 1+2 ganging up on kid 3, kid 2+3 ganging up on kid 1, etc and then the possibility of all 3 being at odds/needing you at the same time. Now add a 4th and you have to add that many more possibilities.

So I suppose you must divide mom by each child's potential for argumentation to each child in the family then in groups and as a whole and then add h for housework c for cooking s for shopping e for educating p for prayer for the whole mess, i mean vocation, and q for quality time with each member of the family. And there you have it.

mz said...

Math always made me cry.

Reb. Mary said...

HRC, now that's just too neat :P

Melrose, just trying to figure out all the variables does get complex, no?

MZ, :D (me too!)

Hemmer said...

Nice equation, but you can't divide by zero. That N is often zero is demonstrated by this blog's appeal to mainstream society.

Maybe O=1/2^(n+1) ?

Mrs. Hume said...

chaos= n^2, where n= number of children

Occam's razor

;-)

Dakotapam said...

math was never my best subject. Probably why I have six kids:)

The chaos lessens somewhat when kiddos get a little older. But I was blessed with kids that were spaced farther out or I nursed too much or both:D

lisa said...

"math was never my best subject. Probably why I have six kids:)"

Hah hah haha...that's awesome.

Anonymous said...

Seems to me that there is household chaos even in homes where no baby enters the picture. I'd much rather have it be because of a new baby entering the picture than no worthy excuse. Neatness is for when we are old and we have nothing else to do but by that time we may not care. Debbie S.