There’s something in the air. In the more expensive postcodes of Britain, in the upper-earning, over-achieving echelons of life in general, there is a new must-have status symbol. Not a car, not a certain type of house, not a super-sleek yacht, but something much more fundamental – and so much more significant: a child.

Specifically, a fourth child. Leading the pack are some of the richest and most powerful people on the planet: the Blairs, the Gores, the Jaggers, the Pitt-Jolies. Ségolène Royal has four children, as does Ruth Kelly. Roman Abramovich, not to be outdone by mere world leaders and superstars, has five. Nicola Horlick, that veteran overachiever, must have about 27 by now (actually it’s five, but you know what I mean).

Elsewhere, among the ever-increasing ranks of the anonymous super-rich – the fund managers and private equity whizzes – four children has now become almost a minimum requirement. Why? Wouldn’t you have thought that, with all that high-powered posturing, life would be exhausting enough. Why compound things by adding to the never-ending pile of washing and 5am wake-up calls?

Because having four children without incurring so much as a blip in your lifestyle is the ultimate proof of success. The pile of washing is irrelevant: someone else is doing it; there is any number of highly-trained nannies to do the early shift on a Saturday morning. Tony Blair may have been up to his ears in foreign policy when baby Leo came along, but it was a point of principle that he still found time to do the odd night feed. That’s the kind of tough stuff a world leader is made of.

What might defeat ordinary mortals is just so much grist to the alpha daddy’s (or alpha mummy’s) mill. For men, the message is quick and effective: there’s plenty of lead in my pencil. For working women it reinforces just how super they really are: four children, a size ten and still got balls in the boardroom. For nonworking mothers it’s a similar thing: such is their allure that they’ve married an alpha capable of supporting not just her in suitable style, but a nest of embryonic alphas too.

Having four children means that you need a house the size of Texas; it means a convoy on the school run; an army of highly trained staff; multiple school fees. It’s the Darwinian expression of a person’s physical, mental and social superiority.

By comparison, people like myself, for whom two is already plenty hard work, both in terms of holding down a job and generally retaining some, however small, vestige of sanity, are losers.

A friend, whose wife has vetoed having even a third child, let alone a fourth, recently found himself accused of mediocrity (by a father-of-four colleague, naturally).

Mediocrity? What are these people on? And can I have some?

The mother of four

ANDREA HEY
Four children aged 13, 11, 9 and 4
Looking after three children under 4 had been desperately hard work but the worst was behind us. So what happened five years ago, when my third child was within striking range of that welcoming reception class door? You’ve guessed it. As my mother mutters darkly, I have ended up with “more children than is strictly necessary”.

“How clever you were to get it all over with quickly,” everyone said after my third was born. But the details were lost in the blur. It had all gone so fast. We’d started young and now our friends were beginning to produce gorgeous bundles of their own. I felt broody and left out.

There were also deeper forces at work, less comfortable to examine. At some level, the idea of having four children appealed to my vanity. What a statement about the health of my marriage! Look how competent I must be as a mother! At the time we were feeling financially secure. If I put off rebuilding some sort of career for myself, never mind. I wouldn’t be just a mother; I’d be a chief executive mother! And the small question of what to do with the rest of my life could be shelved for a few more years.

So I luxuriated in the pregnancy, savouring that “last time” feeling. This would be the child whose parents had finally hit their stride: the mother relaxed and experienced, the father competent and attentive. This time we’d do it properly – the activities, the social life, the table manners, all the niceties that had fallen by the wayside in the first crazy batch. Then we were handed 8 lb 4oz of reality, and a whole new set of problems.

Don’t get me wrong. We adore her. We’re beyond lucky to have four healthy children. But perhaps all mothers come prewired with a set number of times that they can perform certain tasks before blowing a circuit. Just how many repetitions of The Wheels on the Bus can anyone bear before reaching for the gin? Think hard about a fourth baby if, like me, you can’t afford a nanny to sing the Postman Pat theme tune while you lie in a darkened room.

Maybe mothers, like other ageing flesh, have a best-before date. I came to realise quite quickly that my energy for the more practical tasks would have been nicely used up by three-and-a-half children. That extra half has sometimes pushed me beyond fulfilment into despair.

The early months passed in a fog of exhaustion. My husband and the cat escaped expulsion from the house, but I can recall banishing the dogs to a kennel: the numbers had to be reduced somehow. I couldn’t cope.

A not untypical “first year” scenario involved driving to school with the baby screaming for some undiagnosed reason; Number Three being sick in a handy bucket; Number Two sobbing because I had put the wrong filling in his sandwich; and Number One announcing that I had forgotten her swimming kit again.

The packed lunches were made with the newborn ululating for the morning feed. Tummy-bug victims couldn’t stay home alone but had to trail out on the school run.

Nurturing another small personality has remained endlessly fascinating, but after 13 years I’m numbed by the practicalities. Forget 9 to 5, it’s the monotony of the 0-to5 routine that kills the spirit. When you shovel yet more gloop into the little mouth or gird yourself for another round of potty training, you know where this is heading and it won’t be pretty.

As Number Four starts to develop her own collection of little friends, fitting her social life into the busy whirl of the greater family is like stuffing a balloon into a sock. My brain can’t hold another classful of names, faces and birthday parties.

I am stale. Walking into her “first” third birthday party felt like stepping back in time. The roar of the bouncy-castle pump, the rioting of hyped-up toddlers, the impossibility of conversation with other distracted parents: hadn’t anything changed? Well, yes. I had.

Older children doing more grown-up things is exciting. Yet our late addition slows us down (or necessitates a babysitter).

Even the simpler aspects of family life – cinema trip, bike ride – are compromised by the little one’s inability to keep up with the gang. Her infant illnesses tear up my agenda at a moment’s notice. Last Saturday I was housebound with a very sick youngest. My husband was left to cope with the birthday disco party (including the scene where teenage daughter locks herself in the loo five minutes beforehand, howling that her outfit is wrong). I can feel my eldest storing that particular maternal absence for future recrimination.

Whereas our third child’s delight in the birth of his fan club has been constant, there is slight resentment in the older pair. “You said that when Freddie was bigger we’d go on a skiing holiday. Instead we got another baby,” moaned the elder daughter.

Plus a bigger car . . . financially, how naive we were. My broody self had “reasoned” that surely one more baby wouldn’t add that much expense. What about all the hand-me-down clothes, toys and equipment that we already owned?

But it transpires that the cost of rearing four children is actually about one third again more than the cost of raising three.

Funny, that. The lesson I have learnt is that having four children is indeed a status symbol. But doing it in comfort is the preserve of the seriously rich.

Life out there feels closer now but I still can’t quite touch it. And when my baby starts school in September, I face my fourth encounter with the same reading scheme.

There is a look that I recognise in the eyes of mothers of four. No matter how much we dote on our brood, it’s as if we left something important behind and can’t quite remember what it is. Socks? Wipes? Car seat? No. It was our better judgment.

Three’s company

EMMA THOMPSON
Three children aged 13, 12 and 8-going-on-13
My second son was a peaceful, agreeable child and I thought that I’d cracked this parenthood lark. But two kids felt too neat and tidy, so we “went back” for another.

Two kids is a pair, three is a pack and I found myself spread as thinly as the butter on Victoria Beckham’s toast. Yes, I know, that high-flyer in the City has eight. But with two nannies on a round-the-clock rota, it’s not herself she’s spreading, is it?

So was that it for us? My husband never wanted the expense of four: end of story. My mother wanted her once-educated daughter back from the land of barefoot and pregnant. And yet, and yet . . . in a woman’s heart there is always room for one more child. I know so many women – some far beyond menopause – who live with this regret. There is a deep-seated longing to know how the recipe might turn out next time.

If you have a single-sex family, heading back to the lucky dip for “one last go” seems especially tantalising. While my sons were in Cornwall last summer, I found myself wistfully picturing my friend Amy’s youngest. In sandy knickers, with bucket and spade, she would have made a jolly addition to our family.

Perspective was restored by an e-mail from Amy herself: “Owing to the impossibility of entertaining four across a nine-year age gap, I have perfected the art of reading the paper while the little darlings maraud over the wreckage of my life’s aspirations.” Yes, putting one’s own life on hold may seem seductive but you can’t keep the nest full for ever.

The logistics are more challenging than running a FTSE 100 company, minus the status. Swimming is one entertainment for all ages, but the pool won’t admit you if three are under 8. And the older your eldest, the less hope of having them all abed by 7pm to get some recovery time. I see the weariness in Amy. There’s a funny, driven woman in there but she’s Not Available Until Further Notice.

You have to know your limits. Instead of a fourth baby, we got a dog. He’s cuddly and loving, yet when I’ve had enough of his whining I can shut him in a cage and go out on my own.

Nevertheless, I picture my old age, with my sons’ love transferred elsewhere. Meanwhile, Amy will have two lovely daughters to help her choose a new coat.

Perhaps it's not too late to go back for one more after all. You can rationalise that it’s not a good idea, yet this is irrational territory. The door is shutting on a powerful experience, and it’s still mighty tempting to go back and fling it open.

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