The Birth Order Book (33 page)

One of the most challenging tasks of parenting is preparing the firstborn child for the intrusion of the second.

My advice to parents awaiting the arrival of #2 is to have their firstborn put away some of his or her special toys in a safe place so “the baby can’t get them.” At the same time, let #1 child choose some toys he or she is willing to give to the new little brother or sister. And finally, be sure to reassure your firstborn that when his or her little brother or sister arrives, there will be plenty of kisses from Mommy and Daddy for both of them.

When the secondborn child comes home from the hospital, it will soon dawn on the firstborn that the “thing” is not temporary, that it is going to stay. At this point it’s an excellent strategy to get the firstborn involved in caring for the new baby. If the firstborn is big enough, he or she can help feed the baby, even diaper the baby if possible. Yes, the diaper may look a bit askew, but bite your tongue and fight off that urge to redo it “perfectly.”

Dethronement is a profound intrusion for your firstborn. He can’t help wondering,
Why? Wasn’t I good enough?

The second strategy is to talk with your firstborn about what the newborn
can’t
do. “[Baby’s name] can’t catch a ball, can’t walk, can’t talk, can’t do anything.”

And then there is bedtime. Tell your 3-year-old that he or she won’t have to go to bed so early; he or she gets to stay up later with Mommy and Daddy.

Not a Minor Problem

No matter how much you try to help the firstborn with the adjustment, keep in mind that dethronement is a
profound
intrusion for your firstborn. He or she can’t help wondering,
Why? Wasn’t I good enough?
There is a natural rivalry that starts between the firstborn and the secondborn. It may not be overt and in plain sight at first, but it is always there, and it always comes out sooner or later.

Sande and I are still amazed when we watch some old super 8 movies my mother took of the two of us plus Holly and newborn Krissy. When we took the movie, no one— not even my mother—saw 18-month-old Holly slip into the picture and smile broadly as she dug her elbow into Krissy’s midsection.

When we got the film back, our reaction was ambivalent. Yes, Holly’s little elbow toss was cute, but it also graphically demonstrated how firstborns feel dethroned and how they make perfectly natural (selfish) moves to regain their “fair share” of attention from their parents.

This natural inclination toward selfishness (really a matter of self-preservation and survival as far as the child is concerned) is why you have to be careful about giving your firstborn “special treatment to balance things” when the new little intruder arrives. Guard against having your firstborn manipulate you to get special advantages or spoiling. Never give in to a temper tantrum or outburst of tears. If necessary, isolate the firstborn briefly and then go in and talk about it.

If you must discipline your firstborn, always follow up with lots of hugging, touching, and talking when you emphasize the firstborn’s “superiority” over the new baby because he or she can do so many more things. Always enumerate the things the firstborn can do that the baby can’t. This way you will lay groundwork for a cooperative firstborn child who will get through the dethronement crisis more easily, knowing that he or she is more capable, bigger, stronger, etc.

But while you assure your firstborn that he or she is bigger, stronger, and smarter, don’t confuse that with being perfect. For probably two to three years, your firstborn has been learning to be a perfectionist by watching you. But when you tell your firstborn that he or she is bigger or stronger, be sure to let him or her know that everyone makes mistakes; no one does everything absolutely perfectly.

Everyone makes mistakes; no one does everything absolutely perfectly.

Keep in mind also that when your firstborn does get dethroned by your secondborn, issues like power and authority become very important. No, he doesn’t come to breakfast and say, “More power to the firstborns, pass the Cocoa Puffs.” But inside his little head he understands plenty about power and authority and how precious it is. Dr. Alfred Adler emphasized the importance of the power struggle that goes on when a firstborn loses the exclusive small kingdom that had belonged to him or her before the secondborn brother or sister arrived. Consequently, as the firstborn continues to grow up into adulthood, he or she may exaggerate the importance of rules and laws. In other words, firstborns go by the book and don’t want any deviations.

What better example of this than the prodigal son, who undoubtedly was a baby of the family. He split with his share of the inheritance and promptly lost it all. The elder son—the firstborn—stayed home and worked hard in the fields. When the prodigal finally wised up and came back, his father threw a big bash, complete with fatted calf and gold ring (today, he would probably buy the boy a nice Mustang convertible).

Firstborns go by the book and don’t want any deviations.

The elder son—who was out in the fields, naturally—heard all the commotion and came looking. When he saw what was going on, he got irate. Here his father was throwing a big bash for his ne’er-do-well younger brother, and what had he ever gotten? Not even one little party! Where was the fairness in
that
?

But as we see, the father was being fair by treating his children differently. He pointed out to the older boy that he had always been with him, and everything he had was his. But the younger boy, who needed love and understanding, had been lost and was now found, so why not celebrate?
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Also be aware that it’s typical—almost inevitable—for new parents to be more strict and lay down more rules and regulations for their firstborn than they do with laterborn children. After all, they must “do it right” with this first child, so part of that is keeping a tight rein on him or her. Wherever I speak and teach, I emphasize the need to be an authoritative parent who is loving and fair but also consistent and firm. The authoritative parent is the happy medium between the permissive parent and the authoritarian, who overdoes it on rules and limits and simply cracks down too hard.

If I Had It to Do All Over Again . . .

Even psychologists with doctorates know there is a big difference between correct theory and right practice. People sometimes ask me, “As you look back on rearing your children, do you have any regrets or things you’d do differently?”

Good question. If there is anything I would have done differently, it would be in the way I handled Holly, our aggressive, go-by-the-book, perfectionistic firstborn.

In an earlier chapter I mentioned how a parent will tend to overidentify with a child of the same birth order. I tended to overidentify in an indulging way with laterborns in our family, particularly our son, Kevin. But when the only children we had were Holly and Krissy, I overidentified with Krissy, who was younger, because she was constantly getting teased and pressured by her older sister, who was still smarting from dethronement and wanted to compete with her little sister in every way she could. I became protective of Krissy and cracked down too hard on Holly.

Of course, I had good reason to crack down, or so I told myself as a young father with two daughters who were in constant competition. Actually, much of the competitiveness came from Holly’s side (we’re back to dethronement again, of course). When Holly threw that elbow at Krissy during the movie, it was just for starters. She proceeded to make a career out of running Krissy’s life.

We have on tape an occasion when Holly snatched a certain toy from Krissy and said, “You don’t want that. Here, play with this.” Of course, “this” was an old, beat-up rubber frog.

And when it came to money, Holly would constantly try to tell Krissy, “Those big nickels are worth more than these little dimes.”

To give Krissy her due, as she got a little older, she didn’t take big sister’s manipulation and direction lying down. There were many times when I would arrive on the scene after hearing a squall of protest from Krissy and would reprimand Holly because she was older and “should know better.” Now I’m sure that in many of those instances, Krissy had set up her big sister with the skill that only younger children possess.

But I confess that Krissy usually faked me out (after all, she was laterborn, so how could
she
be guilty?). So I would correct Holly rather severely: “Holly, that’s Krissy’s. You have your own! Now stop it.”

Occasionally, however, when Holly was being really unfair (in my opinion), I would send her to her room. Did I do this out of authoritarian perfectionism? Hardly. I did it out of lastborn frustration with an older child taking advantage of a younger one, something that had happened to me on numerous occasions while I was growing up, when my big brother, Jack (and even at rare times my loving big sister, Sally), would give me a bad time.

Fighting and arguing are acts of cooperation, and it takes two to cooperate.

In retrospect, I realize that I should have followed my own reality discipline advice and disciplined both of them when I found them fighting and arguing. Fighting and arguing, after all, are acts of cooperation, and it takes two to cooperate.

Authoritarians Grow Discouraged Perfectionists

People often ask me which style of parenting is more harmful—the authoritarian or the permissive. I really can’t give the nod to one or the other, since both are harmful, but I will say that authoritarian parenting is more likely to produce a discouraged perfectionist who can’t measure up to the demands the parents place on him or her.

Nicole, 14 when her parents brought her in for counseling, is a good example. She had been suspended from school for cutting class and smoking pot. Her parents asked what I could do to cure her “rebellion.”

I talked with Nicole alone and quickly learned she had little freedom and made very few choices of her own, even at 14. Her parents controlled everything—clothes, going out, coming in, bedtime. To hear Nicole tell it, she lived in a home with about as much freedom as juvenile hall. To find opportunities to slip away with her peer group, she would lie and sneak around, and that’s how she’d begun using drugs and alcohol and being promiscuous with boys at school. Nicole had a plan—turn 18, get out of the house, buy a car, and split.

Nicole was the firstborn child and had a younger sister, 11, and a younger brother, 8. She also had an ultraperfectionist mother who kept the home impeccably neat. Interestingly enough, Nicole kept her room immaculate at all times, but it was actually a cover—part of her “I’ll tell them what they want to hear” strategy.

Nicole had a plan—turn 18, get out of the house, buy a car, and split.

I didn’t make much progress with Nicole until I got her parents to see how they were being too authoritarian and why Nicole was afraid to tell them what was really going on—she feared retribution big time, and she feared maybe even being kicked out of the house completely.

Fortunately Nicole’s parents listened and learned, and we did make some progress. At the end of six weeks Nicole wrote a summary of the positive things that had come out of counseling. Among the things Nicole said: “Mom and Dad are giving me more leeway, and I’m not lying to them. I am being honest with them, and it makes me feel good.”

Nicole is a classic example of a firstborn child who grew up watching Mom and Dad and wanting to imitate them. But this lasts only to a certain age. As she became a teenager, the authoritarian treatment proved to be too much. She became a discouraged perfectionist and turned to wild behavior as a way of crying for help.

Nicole is convincing evidence for why I believe no parent should ever think a firstborn child is not a perfectionist simply because the child isn’t toeing the mark and obeying all the rules. The child may be breaking a lot of rules because he or she is a perfectionist who can’t handle the cards life has dealt.

Super Parents and the Critical Eye

Let’s face it. There is a lot of concern about how to raise children. For any parent who wants to take advantage of them, there are literally tons of books, articles, pamphlets, CDs, films, and DVDs available to teach you how to be a super parent. And I’m well aware that at times I can sound just like the rest of the experts:

Be sure you don’t do this; be sure you do that.

Be faster than a speeding bullet as you use actions, not words.

Be more powerful than a locomotive as you enforce the rules of reality discipline.

Leap tall problems with a single bound to be loving, caring, and aware of your child’s feelings.
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I don’t believe there is a parent alive who has never made a mistake. There are, however, a lot of them who refuse to
admit
their mistakes!

If I have given that impression, I apologize. Actually, I believe that we don’t need super parents, and that goes double or maybe triple when parenting all those little firstborns and only children. They have enough problems trying to be perfect and fail-safe as they imitate moms or dads who, in their minds at least, are giants and never make mistakes. I don’t believe there is a parent alive who has never made a mistake. There are, however, a lot of them who refuse to
admit
their mistakes!

The Deception of Perfection

There’s no doubt we have become a society of flaw pickers. Just listen to the newscasts or pick up your newspapers. A child brings home a report card with four As and a B. Dad gives it the critical eye and says, “Not bad. Too bad about the B, though.” The bottom line is that it’s so easy to be critical, even while trying to be positive. Remember Emily’s mother? She didn’t shout at her child. She just nicely remade Emily’s bed after Emily had done the best she could at the job.