Why two kids became the middle-class Kenyan dream

A family with preschooler kids sit on couch use gadgets together. [Courtesy/iStock]

What informed the Kenyan dream of one spouse, two children, three bedroomed house, a four-wheel SUV and the recent addition of a fluffy white dog? I got thinking of how two children became the standard unit for a middle class family.

Looking back, our parents in the city lived in single rooms or two room houses in Nairobi's Eastlands. Some of these families had two spouses, polygamy was still the norm even though some people had only one wife. Today, serial monogamy is the norm. People leave their spouses and can marry several other people in the course of their lifetime.