The Birth Order Book (36 page)

When the sister is the older child, the typical picture is that the little boy has a second mother. This can work out fine unless the little guy feels that two mothers are too much.

Shane, 15, ran away from home because his mother and older sister “ganged up on me to nitpick.” In this case Mom was the chief culprit, but older sister didn’t help when she told Shane, “You’re
so
immature!”

Shane finally came home after spending a week or so at a friend’s house across town. When the family came to me for counseling, I learned that Shane resented how his mom “wore the pants in the family” and dominated him as well as his quiet, passive father. Fortunately, the mother was wise enough to be willing to learn. After counseling sessions in which I encouraged the father to do the talking and leading for a change, we got it worked out. Shane didn’t pull any more runaway capers and eventually wound up helping teach younger kids.

Granted, Shane’s story is something of an extreme case. A more typical scenario finds the older sister and younger brother going in their own directions in a much less radical way. If given equal treatment and opportunity, they both take on firstborn traits as firstborn girl and firstborn boy.

That was exactly what happened with my older sister, Sally, and my secondborn brother, Jack. I have already extolled Sally’s A+ qualities at great length. Jack wasn’t quite in Sally’s A+ league, but he held his own nicely with a B+ average in high school, making the dean’s list in college and going on for a PhD. He also became an excellent football quarterback in high school and played on his college team. Jack always had lots of friends—especially among the young women!

A basic parenting principle: accept their differences.

Jack never really competed with Sally that much, and she treated him with a lot of respect—even leading cheers for his football exploits. When they were small, Sally tried “mothering” her little brother (who was three years younger) on occasion, but he never bought into it much. She had a lot better luck when bear cub Kevin came along five years later.

Beware of Labels

Whatever combination you come up with, the two-child family is an excellent laboratory for practicing a basic parenting principle: accept their differences.

Of course, we should accept differences no matter how many children are in the family, but there is something about having only two that focuses the challenge more sharply. We soon see that we can accept some things more easily than others. For example, when one child is six inches taller than the other, we can accept that. But suppose one child tends to challenge the rules or has a completely different set of attitudes and emotions? One child is easy to handle, or what a lot of parents like to call “good.” The other child is a handful, and naturally his behavior gets labeled “bad.”

The challenge for parents in families like this is to remember they must love each child but relate to each child differently. They must maintain some kind of order and consistency in the family and yet always be aware of the individual differences.

I can recall Olivia, a 19-year-old secondborn, telling me in a counseling session, “I wish you’d tell my mother I’m not like my older sister.”

I had a good hunch what Olivia meant, but I asked her to explain a bit more. Out tumbled her burden: her mother was always telling her she had to measure up to the standard-bearer in the family, big sister Rebekah. Because Olivia wasn’t making it, she didn’t feel accepted in life. I counseled the parents to realize that, even though Olivia was an adult, they needed to go out of their way to tell her what they appreciated about her and to look for the positive points in her life.

Also, they needed to do all they could to separate the girls at that point in life. Olivia had graduated from high school but had spent the past year working in menial part-time jobs while her sister, two years older, was about to start her junior year in a college the parents approved of a great deal. They had wanted Olivia to go to the same school, but I urged them to enroll Olivia somewhere else where she could make her own life and not be in the shadow of her older sister. If there is anything you can and must do as a parent, it’s this: give your children unqualified love that is not determined by how good their grades are, how well they perform at home, or anything else.

The challenge is to love each child for who he or she is. If you can pull that off, the two-child family can really be a breeze. Think of all the advantages: The whole family fits better in the average car. When you all go out to a restaurant, you don’t have to wait as long—most restaurant booths are made for four. And, if Mom and Dad are still up to it, they can ride with the kids on the roller coaster, two and two!

Give your children unqualified love that is not determined by how good their grades are, how well they perform at home, or anything else.

The Night I Blew It Big Time

It’s easy enough to hand out all this advice on reality discipline. I believe in it and have tried to practice it with all five of our children, but as I have already admitted, my firstborn daughter and I knocked heads as she grew up. Holly never stopped competing with her sister as she fought for her firstborn birthright as the oldest. She had the constitution of a salmon, which can leap tall rapids with a single bound. No matter how much I disciplined her for arguing and fighting with Krissy, she just kept coming. Whenever I thought I knew how to handle Holly, I discovered that I still had a lot to learn.

One of my most memorable lessons happened when Holly was 10 and I had just finished writing
Making Children Mind without Losing Yours
. Because I was leaving the next day for a sales conference at my publisher, I thought I’d better brush up on some of the tips I gave in the book about how to be a loving, responsible parent. So I asked Holly if she could spend some time with me that evening.

“Without
them
?” she asked incredulously.

“Just the two of us.”

“All right!”
she said, and we took off on what was, indeed, a great evening. At 10:30 p.m. we pulled into the driveway. It was well past Holly’s bedtime on a school night, and I was eager to get to bed myself because I had to be up at 5 a.m. to catch a 7 a.m. flight to New Jersey.

“Daddy,” Holly said, “for a special treat, can I pull my sleeping bag into your room and sleep on the floor next to your bed?”

As usual, my assertive little firstborn had really enjoyed her evening without
them
, and now she wanted a little icing on her cake. Faster than any expert on reality discipline should, I replied, “Holly, no. Listen, it’s late; it’s a school night. You need to get to bed and get a good night’s sleep.”

Don’t always give an immediate response to a child’s request. Think about it for a few seconds or a minute and then try to answer with understanding and reason.

My snap answer contained excellent logic and adult wisdom, but in giving it I violated one of my own key principles: Don’t always give an immediate response to a child’s request. Think about it for a few seconds or a minute and then try to answer with understanding and reason.

But I was in a hurry. Five a.m. was going to come all too soon, and I was due in New Jersey, where I would extol the wisdom of making children mind without losing yours.

Holly was not impressed with my fatherly wisdom about a good night’s sleep. I was being unreasonable, and the tears began to flow.

“But Daddy, I just want to sleep by your bed.”

“Holly, no, the floor is hard; you won’t sleep all that well. C’mon, we’ve had a great evening together. Don’t spoil it!”

But for Holly everything was already spoiled. “You never let me do
anything
!” she wailed as our wonderful evening blew up in my face. As I got Holly into bed, she was still sobbing, “You never let me do anything” over and over.

Feeling frustrated, angry, and guilty, I tried to finish packing and be ready to go at dawn’s early light. Sande had washed the slacks and shirt I wanted to wear on the plane, but my loving Mama Bear had forgotten to iron them and had gone on to bed. So there I stood at the ironing board. I could have probably worn something else, but I liked these clothes. Besides, when I spoke at the sales conference in the morning, I could use ironing my clothes as an illustration of what a loving and sacrificial husband I am!

As I ironed, I could still hear Holly. She hadn’t stopped her wailing. In fact, it was getting louder.
She’s being a powerful little buzzard, Leman
, I told myself.
Time to pull the rug!

In this case pulling the rug meant firmly telling Holly to quiet down. But “firmly” turned into “loudly irate”: “Listen up, Holly! I’ve had enough of this. Do you
understand
me? We had a wonderful evening—
wonderful
. Now it’s time for you to be in bed and asleep. And do you know
why
I’m upset, Holly? I just found my clothes that your mother was supposed to have ready for me in a wrinkled mess, and I’m
not in a real good mood!
”

I capped my lecture by telling her she was going to
sleep
, and that was
final
!

Coming out of Holly’s room, I slammed the door so hard it shook the whole house, waking everyone but Sande, who sort of rolled over. To calm down I turned on the late news, but then “the guilties” got to me. I knew I was wrong. In fact, I had lost it. Holly’s cries had stopped, but I had to do something to make up. Maybe she was asleep by now, but I still wanted to give her a kiss.

Feeling terrible, I gently opened Holly’s door. She wasn’t in her bed! I tore through the house looking for what I thought was a disobedient child. What had I just written in
Making Children Mind
about using spanking sparingly? This time I had a few good swats to spare, all right.

I tried our bedroom where I thought Holly had carried out her original plan, but her sleeping bag wasn’t there, and neither was she. I checked Kevey’s room, but no Holly. Then Krissy’s—still no Holly.

Had she run away—at 11:00 at night?

Now I was really anxious and did what any trained therapist does to pull himself together—I headed for the refrigerator. As I walked by the sewing room, there was Holly, ironing one of my shirts!

Her first words were sort of cute, coming from a firstborn perfectionist: “Daddy, I don’t iron real good.”

My 10-year-old was trying her best, using the old-fashioned method of sprinkling the shirt—with her tears. I just said, “Oh, Holly, will you forgive me?”

“I’ve ruined the whole evening!” Holly cried. “I’ve ruined the whole evening!”

“No, Holly, Daddy ruined the whole evening. I was wrong. Will you forgive me?”

One thing about Holly, she loves emphasis: “I’ve ruined the whole evening! I’ve ruined the whole evening!”

I tried again. “Holly, will you hush up and let me apologize?”

The time we really look big in a child’s eyes is when we go to him or her to apologize for our mistakes, when we say, “I was wrong. Will you forgive me?”

Holly put down the iron, then burrowed her head into my chest. She squeezed me, hugged me, held me, and told me she loved me. I did the same. Two minutes later, Holly was in her bed, fast asleep.

Somehow I got the ironing done and caught the plane the next morning with only a few hours’ sleep. I presented my new book on parenting to the sales staff. I chose not to mention my bumbling and stumbling the night before, but the easiest part of my presentation were the following words, which are useful if you’re parenting two children or ten: I believe the time we really look big in a child’s eyes is when we go to him or her to apologize for our mistakes, when we say, “I was wrong. Will you forgive me?”

Have your children heard that from you?

5 Tips for Parenting the Two-Child Family

It’s important to emphasize consistency and fairness. For example:

1. Give your firstborn a later bedtime. Even if the difference is as little as half an hour, the difference must be enforced. Your firstborn is watching.

2. Make responsibilities and allowances different. The rule is this: the older child gets the most allowance and the most responsibility. But be sure the younger one does his or her share of the work.

3. Avoid comparisons. That’s easy for a psychologist to advise but hard to do in day-today living. Be aware of the dangers of those famous words, “Why aren’t you like your brother [or sister]?” Obviously one child is not like his or her brother or sister, and your remark is not only damaging, it is a foolish waste of breath.

4. Don’t feel compelled to do for one what you did for the other. Treating each child differently may mean that sometimes one child gets a little more than the other. But it all evens out in the end.

5. Do things with one child at a time. Give both children plenty of one-on-one opportunities. How can you find time in your busy schedule to do this? You don’t find it; you make it. Take one child alone on a shopping trip or even a business trip. If possible, leave half an hour early in the morning and stop for breakfast before dropping him or her off at school. Dozens of ways to spend one-on-one time will occur to you, if you really want to do it. Just remember the cardinal rule: if you do something with one child, be sure to do something with another, always gearing the activity to the need of each child.

15
Taking Off the Squeeze
Parenting the Middle Child

T
he only true middle child in the Leman family is Krissy, a very friendly, outgoing, together, 34-year-old who carved out a promising career in education both as a successful teacher and also as director of curriculum at her school. Then, when firstborn son Conner arrived, Krissy made the choice to stay home. Little Adeline came along a couple of years later. Presently Krissy has her hands plenty full, trying to keep up with the rigors of being a mom to two young, busy children.