Family Life

I had an interesting email discussion tonight over whether, as parents, we favour one child over another. This discussion was prompted by yesterday’s blog post by Daniel, and a video of his I had posted to YouTube. The concern was that all this attention might go to his head, spoil him, psychologically unbalance him. Or, that his younger brothers would get less attention, fall by the wayside, and grow up feeling unloved and resentful.

OK, so I speak somewhat in jest. But the discussion does raise a valid point: do we love and praise and listen to all our children equally? My first reaction is, Of course! We love all three boys. But there are complications that make it less clear-cut. The boys are different ages, at a point in life where the difference really matters. The oldest will start school soon. The youngest is a baby who’s just learning to crawl. On a purely physical level, I play with the two older boys a lot more than I play with Micah, the baby. Running, jumping, chasing, spinning–Daniel and Joel wear out their poor old Dad. And Micah just can’t keep up. Sometimes I try to hold Micah in my arms while I play with the older two so he can be a part of the fun, but it’s often too much for the wee baby. So Micah gets sidelined.

That’s a difference in parental attention due to physical ability.

Moving up the ranks, Joel is very affectionate, so he asks for, and gets, a lot of snuggles. Micah gets held because it’s the easiest alternative to enduring his crying, but Joel gets held because he’s so friendly and lovable. Daniel prefers to sit on his own. That’s a difference in attention due to personality.

Daniel talks well, likes to chat, is easily understood, and understands you with little difficulty. He thinks quickly, has an excellent memory, and can recall points of conversation from a year ago. If you want to have a long, serious, involved conversation, then Daniel’s your man (er, boy). In fact, because he talks so much, Daniel gets a lot of verbal attention. Joel comes in at the fringes of those conversations, but he’s usually not at the center of it unless Daniel’s not there. Micah can’t talk at all yet. That’s a difference due to their age and mental development.

Daniel is serious in his conversation, while Joel likes to joke. Interacting with Joel is often very entertaining and easy on the brain. It’s yet another difference driven by personality.

Deciding whether we pay equal attention to all three is like comparing apples and oranges (and peaches). Three boys, close in age, from the same parents, and yet so different from each other.

Throughout their childhood Daniel will always be ahead in physical ability and schooling. At any point in time he’ll have had more experiences and more opportunities, just because he’s lived more years and is able to do more. This is not a question of fairness, merely a calendar fact. Nevertheless, every now and then his younger brothers wish they could do what he does, and perhaps even resent that they can’t. Tough. That’s life. It doesn’t worry me too much. We’re able to praise and encourage the boys based on their own merits and capabilities. The fact that they compete amongst themselves, although normal, is more difficult to address. In the struggle between older and younger, it’s easy to be biased against the older because he bosses the others around. It’s easy to be biased against the younger because he’s disruptive and butts in. We have to take care to arbitrate based on intent, and determining intent takes time. In the heat of the moment I have to force myself to slow down and take enough time to sort out the motives of the heart.

Adding further twists to life, the boys will grow up with different interests because of their wildly different personalities. The tricky part here is if one child develops interests similar to mine while another child is interested in things I find boring. It would take a constant effort of will to nurture the interests of the latter, while not giving exclusive attention to the former. We’re not at that point yet, so for now I’m just speculating, looking ahead to What If.

For the most part, we try to involve the three children in all that we do, with an occasional one-on-one with each child individually. In that respect, I’m more interested in raising a family than in raising three individuals.

I’m certain that in the distant future the kids will look back over their childhood and find many occasions when their parents treated them unfairly, or didn’t give them the attention they deserved. For example, most nights Joel believes he’s unfairly treated by being made to go to bed. Micah feels he’s hard done by every time we put him down. Daniel thinks he should have absolute rights over his brothers, and anything less is a miscarriage of justice.

I may smile at my sons’ foibles, but it’s a wry smile as I’m conscious of my own shortcomings as a parent. Debbie and I talk about it from time to time, looking for strategies to improve how we relate to each other within our family. I hope that when the kids are all grown up they won’t hold our failings against us. We try. We work at improving. We love them.

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