| |
 |
 |
 |
Welcome to familywisdom.com, a website dedicated to informing and inspiring couples and families. Each week you will find a new article, story or essay about parenting, marriage or life. Suggestions for articles and questions to Ellen Terich are welcome. You can contact her at e.terich1@verizon.net |
RAISING A FIRST CHILD AS IF IT WAS YOUR THIRD 2006-02-04 If only we could raise a first child with the patience, common sense and laissez-faire we develop with a second or third child. With a first child, we easily fall into the supermom trap. There is no toddler or preschooler demanding our time, fewer clothes to wash and toys to pick up, and therefore more time to dote, worry and read about all the things the experts tell us we should do. With my first child I had time to sew her clothes, take her to the beach with friends, sit on the floor and play with her and make sure she ate the very best food. By the time I had my third child, I was content with hand-me-downs, went very few places with all three children, expected them to play with each other, and was happy if they ate half a hot dog for dinner. Now that may make me sound like a bad mother, but actually it was about the only way we could all survive. There simply isn't as much time to have that intense one on one relationship with three individual children as there is when you only have one child. It's a matter of math. The bad thing about it, I suppose, was that they didn't all get to learn to play a musical instrument, or play every sport, or have a birthday party each year, or have the undivided attention of their mother. But the good news was that by the time the third one came along, they had to be a little more independent and they didn't have mother hovering over them all the time. I actually think they preferred fewer after school activities to more maternal hovering. And today, of course, they are all exceptionally independent and capable adults, each with one or more artistic talents that they developed without mom taking them to after school lessons. My daughter Jenny now has three children and her oldest is having trouble adjusting to sharing his mom with two younger sisters. As the oldest, he is the only one who ever had a supermom. When he was a baby, she picked him up whenever he cried, rocked him to sleep each night and at naptime, made his baby food, didn't allow him the use of a pacifier, and used cloth diapers for a while. He didn't really sleep well through the night until he was in a twin bed. When he got a little older she took him to play groups and even to speech therapy when he didn't talk as early as other children. Toilet training was a nightmare spread out over many months. Now, with her third child, there is a marked change. Her three month old isn't rocked to sleep; in fact, when she's cranky she is put to bed and goes right to sleep on her own. If the baby wakes up too soon, Jenny sends her five year old in to stick the pacifier back in the baby's mouth so she can finish what she is doing, which is usually washing clothes or fixing meals for the children. She is not using cloth diapers and I doubt she will have time for home made baby food. Play groups for the baby will consist of running around the house and backyard with her older siblings, and toilet training will probably be a breeze. The two year old middle child has practically toilet trained herself. She had to. Who had time to stress over it? The fact is that by the time you have a third child you simply don't have the time or energy to worry or dote as much as you did when you only had one. Perhaps that's why oldest children tend to hate to share with younger siblings. They were conditioned to expect royal treatment. And perhaps that's why third children tend to be more independent and easy going. It is much easier to raise a third child. Because you don't jump to meet their every need they adapt and learn to accept what they get. And even though my daughter occasionally says she feels bad that she doesn't have the same amount of time for the new baby that she did for her eldest, I see her as much more relaxed and infinitely less worried about every little thing. It's too bad we don't know how to be as relaxed raising our first child as we have to be in raising our third. It would make parenting so much easier! |