Illustration by Barry Falls

A boy and a girl. The ideal family, right?

Not according to the British parenting Web site Bounty.com, where a survey of 2,116 parents concluded that the happiest are those with two daughters.

Parents were asked to grade each child’s behavior using criteria like “ease of care,” “compatibility,” “helps around the house” and “generally like each other.” Of all the possible combinations and numbers of children, Bounty’s editors insist, “two girls make for the most harmonious family life, as they are unlikely to fight, will play nicely and are generally a pleasure to be around. Two girls rarely annoy their parents with too much noise, confide in their parents and are unlikely to wind each other up or ignore each other.”

But, the site warns, if you are tempted to double your bliss by having four girls, that might be a mistake, because “mums and dads with four girls turned out to be the least happy with family life over all, with one in four of those admitting that they were not 100 percent happy with their lot – and one in three finding it hard to cope on a daily basis. Parents of four girls also admitted to having to cope with an average of four fights or arguments a day.”

Doubling the number of boys, on the other hand, doesn’t have the same effect.

Here’s the Bounty list, in decreasing order of parental happiness:

1. Two girls

2. One boy and one girl

3. Two boys

4. Three girls

5. Three boys

6. Four boys

7. Two girls and one boy

8. Two boys and one girl

9. Three boys and one girl

10. Three girls and one boy

11. Two boys and two girls

12. Four girls

There are two other lists on the Web site too:

BENEFITS OF HAVING TWO GIRLS:

1. Rarely noisy

2. Help around the house

3. Very few fights and arguments

4. Quite easy to reason with

5. Play together nicely

6. Rarely ignore each other

7. They confide in you

8. Very well behaved

9. Rarely try to wind each other up

10. Really like each other

and

NEGATIVES OF HAVING FOUR GIRLS:

1. Fight and argue all the time

2. Difficult to reason with

3. Ignore and dislike each other

4. Bedtime routine is a nightmare

5. Create a lot of noise around the house

6. Rarely confide in you

7. Hard to deal with when ill

8. Takes ages getting ready for school

9. Had to buy a bigger house and car

10. Hard to cope with on a daily basis

So, does any of this ring at all true in your own house?