Stay at home father

[Edwin Earl Brandon]

My ancestor had two sons born only one year apart in 1832 & 1833. Then it was 1837 before the next child, my GGGrandmother. After her there was a sister born in 1840 & another brother born in 1844. The father was a farmer, although I do not know what type of farmer (property owner or tenant). From his childrens birth I gather that he was not home much after 1833 (4 years between births).
   Was he an unskilled laborer, a unemployed farmer? Before seeing Swedish records, but knowing his childrens birth dates from U.S. records, I thought he might be a seamen. He was said to have worked for his & the families passage. He was legally a resident of Frödinge Parish in Kalmar from 1798 to 9 May 1846 & all of his children was born there. Would it have been possable to live temporarly in some other location, but maintain the records in his home parish ?

[Christina Backman]

Did your ancestors have names?  
 
Anyway, four years between births is no big deal. Maybe the mother had a miscarriage, maybe one child was born at the end of a year and the other at the beginning etc.

[Anna-Carin Betzén]

Breastfeeding can delay ovulation and menstruation. So women sometimes breastfed their youngest for 2 or 3 years, to delay the next pregnancy.  
 
For example, my gggrandmother was 45 when she had her last child and she breastfed him for at least 3 or 4 years to feel sure that she wouldn't get any more children.

[Edwin Earl Brandon]

Sorry, the family I was writing about here was - Erik Johansson & his wife Anna Jonsdottor of Frödinge Parish, Kalmar:
 Johan Peter Erik, b. 21 Mar 1832
 Nils Fredrik Vilhelm, b. 26 Apr 1833
 Johanna Kristina, b. 5 May 1837 (4 year break)
 Emelie Josefina, b. 21 Aug 1840 (3 year & break) then
 Bror Jonas Otto, b. 4 Aug 1844 (almost 4 year break)   Perhaps I am thinking of American Farmers who wanted children (The more the better). Most of my farmer ancestors had 9 to 15 children.

[Anna-Carin Betzén]

I think most Swedish families had more children too, though in my limited experience 10 or more children has been very rare.
 
If that couple took means to have only a small number of children, they probably had some special reason for it - perhaps they lacked the means to support a large family (though I'm not sure if people planned that way at that point in time; more mouths to feed also meant more hands that could work), or perhaps the wife had suffered greatly at childbirth. My mother, grandmother and ggrandmother all lost so much blood when having their first child that their lives were in danger, and I bet that if a woman had two such experiences in little over a year she would do what she could to delay additional pregnancies simply in order to stay alive.
 
Of course this is just a theory, there may be others that have better ones!