How in the world do you love a second baby as much as the first?
April 13, 2018 9:21 PM Subscribe
Asking as a clueless first time mom to a 4 month old baby who is nearly perfect. I didn't know I could feel this way about anyone, but now as I wonder whether to have a second child, I wonder how the heck could I love it as much as baby #1?
I used to always wonder why "firstborns" were so unique. Now I know. Parents just have so many hopes, worries, and dreams about them. Maybe baby #1 will turn out to be a little toddling terror or a teenage junkie, but so far she's incredible. She's relatively easy to care for, is a breastfeeding champ, gorgeous, sleeps almost through the night. I'm worried she got all the good genes and a hypothetical baby #2 will get the bad genes - inherit the looks of the uglier people in our families, etc. What happened when you had baby #2? Did your heart just grow bigger as they say? Did you end up regretting it?
I used to always wonder why "firstborns" were so unique. Now I know. Parents just have so many hopes, worries, and dreams about them. Maybe baby #1 will turn out to be a little toddling terror or a teenage junkie, but so far she's incredible. She's relatively easy to care for, is a breastfeeding champ, gorgeous, sleeps almost through the night. I'm worried she got all the good genes and a hypothetical baby #2 will get the bad genes - inherit the looks of the uglier people in our families, etc. What happened when you had baby #2? Did your heart just grow bigger as they say? Did you end up regretting it?
When my own mother voiced this same concern, her mother (who had 4 kids) told her: Loving the next child, it's like finding a part of yourself that you somehow never noticed before. It's not that your heart gets bigger, it's that you suddenly know it so much better, and there will always be room.
posted by Iris Gambol at 9:55 PM on April 13, 2018 [14 favorites]
posted by Iris Gambol at 9:55 PM on April 13, 2018 [14 favorites]
ahahahah it is a total non-thing. You love every kid in a specific way and completely. I remember feeling so awful for my fifth biological child that she would not be loved as fiercely as I loved my four adopted children, and then relief when I realised I did love her as much as them.
I know favouritism - I was the last daughter before the wanted son, and told and demonstrated that I was not wanted - and it doesn't come from parents who can fiercely love one child. It comes from parents who have children for bad reasons and aren't loving parents anyway to any of their children, favourite or not. If you can love your first child, you will love your second, I promise.
You may not like them. But you will love them.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 10:38 PM on April 13, 2018 [28 favorites]
I know favouritism - I was the last daughter before the wanted son, and told and demonstrated that I was not wanted - and it doesn't come from parents who can fiercely love one child. It comes from parents who have children for bad reasons and aren't loving parents anyway to any of their children, favourite or not. If you can love your first child, you will love your second, I promise.
You may not like them. But you will love them.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 10:38 PM on April 13, 2018 [28 favorites]
So I only have a #1 but I’m hoping to get blessed with a #2, and I used to worry about this but then I realized I can’t wait to meet another gorgeous adorable perfect baby who will be preciously unique and yet different from #1. Who will they be? I’m more excited to meet them than I was my first actually :P
posted by St. Peepsburg at 10:40 PM on April 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by St. Peepsburg at 10:40 PM on April 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm worried she got all the good genes and a hypothetical baby #2 will get the bad genes
By the time you have Baby #2, Baby #1 will be a toddler and all the other genes will start to appear. It won't make you love #1 less, but it will give you perspective on #1 and 2.
posted by Toddles at 10:48 PM on April 13, 2018 [14 favorites]
By the time you have Baby #2, Baby #1 will be a toddler and all the other genes will start to appear. It won't make you love #1 less, but it will give you perspective on #1 and 2.
posted by Toddles at 10:48 PM on April 13, 2018 [14 favorites]
Not only will you love #2 just as much as #1, but you'll love how #1 dotes on #2 and how #2 idolizes #1 and how they eventually become Team Tiny Terrors against Team Overstretched Parents.
Not only will #2 double your heart so you can love #2 totally and completely, but it'll more than double so you can just adore #1 even more for how much #1 loves #2, and vice versa.
Love's multiplicative: the more people you love, the more you love each one of them.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:54 PM on April 13, 2018 [33 favorites]
Not only will #2 double your heart so you can love #2 totally and completely, but it'll more than double so you can just adore #1 even more for how much #1 loves #2, and vice versa.
Love's multiplicative: the more people you love, the more you love each one of them.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:54 PM on April 13, 2018 [33 favorites]
They aren’t Identical moving parts—they might share your DNA, but each child had qualities and characteristics that belong to them alone.
posted by Ideefixe at 11:20 PM on April 13, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Ideefixe at 11:20 PM on April 13, 2018 [3 favorites]
I've worked with people who have some really challenging kids. Even if baby #2 gets "bad" genes (funny nose or ugly features don't count - they will be special and lovable when part of the child you love so much - but colic or worse that keeps you up at night and drives you crazy) you will find that you still love the child fiercely and deeply. It is true that certain children can be hard to parent but good parents (even when exhausted) will appreciate the special personality and virtues of their kids and truly, truly love them.
posted by metahawk at 11:49 PM on April 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by metahawk at 11:49 PM on April 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
To be honest, I'm sure I am not alone in this, my baby #2 has fewer pictures, a smaller memory book and I don't remember all the "first" milestones for baby #2 as vividly. With #1, everything that was first for him was also a first for me as a parent. With #2, first for baby was special but not as memorable. But that has nothing to do with how much I love #2. Plus both #1 and #2 benefit from their very special friendship with each other.
posted by metahawk at 11:54 PM on April 13, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by metahawk at 11:54 PM on April 13, 2018 [4 favorites]
I was almost 35 when my daughter (now 28) was born and I was over-the-moon happy. I felt like I "knew" that child before she born and I was sure that if anything happened to her, I wouldn't survive, i.e., that if she died, I would too—and I wasn't thinking suicide here, I simple couldn't imagine life without her.
I had similar concerns re another child during my second pregnancy (my kids are 3 years apart), which intensified when I learned I was carrying a boy—I had always seen myself as the mother of girls. In addition, I didn't feel that semi-mystical (illusional) connection to this baby. My daughter had shown me that I did not, in fact, "know" her, rather, I would have to get to know her as she became her own person. So, my second pregnancy was something like preparing for the arrival of a stranger—someone that I expected to love and I was looking forward to his arrival, but a stranger, nonetheless. And he was joining a family already in place, not making one, as had my first born.
He was born 2 weeks late, weighing 10lb 5 oz, and he was a redhead, reminding me of an uncle who grated on my last nerve. When we were finally alone later that evening, my first words to him were "we're off to kind of a rough start here, Bud, but I'm sure everything will be fine". I quickly realized that now there were 2 people who I knew I couldn't bear losing, but I no longer had the option of not surviving if anything happened to either, i.e., I wouldn't want to leave the other behind. (Admittedly, a morbid way of looking at things, but I can't help were my mind goes.)
My point, finally, the fact that first borns seem to get an inordinate amount of attention as evidenced by pictures and baby books is simply a matter of logistics. I love both kids with all my heart—I can't explain the math.
Side note: my son has gorgeous dark red hair and, unlike me and that uncle, no freckles. In this regard, he more closely resembles my maternal grandmother, who passed when I was just 9 years old.
(On preview, seconding what eyebrows said.)
posted by she's not there at 3:27 AM on April 14, 2018 [8 favorites]
I had similar concerns re another child during my second pregnancy (my kids are 3 years apart), which intensified when I learned I was carrying a boy—I had always seen myself as the mother of girls. In addition, I didn't feel that semi-mystical (illusional) connection to this baby. My daughter had shown me that I did not, in fact, "know" her, rather, I would have to get to know her as she became her own person. So, my second pregnancy was something like preparing for the arrival of a stranger—someone that I expected to love and I was looking forward to his arrival, but a stranger, nonetheless. And he was joining a family already in place, not making one, as had my first born.
He was born 2 weeks late, weighing 10lb 5 oz, and he was a redhead, reminding me of an uncle who grated on my last nerve. When we were finally alone later that evening, my first words to him were "we're off to kind of a rough start here, Bud, but I'm sure everything will be fine". I quickly realized that now there were 2 people who I knew I couldn't bear losing, but I no longer had the option of not surviving if anything happened to either, i.e., I wouldn't want to leave the other behind. (Admittedly, a morbid way of looking at things, but I can't help were my mind goes.)
My point, finally, the fact that first borns seem to get an inordinate amount of attention as evidenced by pictures and baby books is simply a matter of logistics. I love both kids with all my heart—I can't explain the math.
Side note: my son has gorgeous dark red hair and, unlike me and that uncle, no freckles. In this regard, he more closely resembles my maternal grandmother, who passed when I was just 9 years old.
(On preview, seconding what eyebrows said.)
posted by she's not there at 3:27 AM on April 14, 2018 [8 favorites]
Just noticed that your first is a girl and I was reminded of this remark from an older, experienced parent following the news that I was carrying a boy. "Oh that's good. When they're teenagers, you'll still have one you want to keep."
(Before I had kids, I dismissed any notion that "boys as easier" as evidence of the sexism inherent in our culture. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, I don't know, but I've learned to keep my mouth shut on the subject.)
posted by she's not there at 3:41 AM on April 14, 2018 [2 favorites]
(Before I had kids, I dismissed any notion that "boys as easier" as evidence of the sexism inherent in our culture. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, I don't know, but I've learned to keep my mouth shut on the subject.)
posted by she's not there at 3:41 AM on April 14, 2018 [2 favorites]
Not to sound like a jerk, but your 4 month old may have "bad genes"* and you just don't know it yet. She may end up with a rabbitlike overbite. Her nose may grow weirdly. She may be super gangly and funny looking. But you're going to love her deeply because she's your kid.
You'll feel that way about all the kids you have.
One of the nicest things that happens with subsequent kids is how it removes all the focus from the eldest. Parents of only one kid do have a tendency to put all their eggs into that one basket and develop a skewed perception that their kid is super bright, super talented, super everything, and that's not necessarily the reality. When there's a constant base of comparison, i.e. Thing 1 reads books, Thing 2 eats books, it's far easier to accept your kids for who they are. You end up loving all their individual differences and abilities and get a far clearer sense of who they actually are.
Subsequent kids give parents a reality check.
* Don't say "bad genes." That's horrible.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 4:03 AM on April 14, 2018 [6 favorites]
You'll feel that way about all the kids you have.
One of the nicest things that happens with subsequent kids is how it removes all the focus from the eldest. Parents of only one kid do have a tendency to put all their eggs into that one basket and develop a skewed perception that their kid is super bright, super talented, super everything, and that's not necessarily the reality. When there's a constant base of comparison, i.e. Thing 1 reads books, Thing 2 eats books, it's far easier to accept your kids for who they are. You end up loving all their individual differences and abilities and get a far clearer sense of who they actually are.
Subsequent kids give parents a reality check.
* Don't say "bad genes." That's horrible.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 4:03 AM on April 14, 2018 [6 favorites]
It just works.
My second son’s pregnancy was challenging and for various reasons, I had a hard time connecting to it… Until I had a lot of bleeding at 16 weeks and I had an ultrasound where I thought the results would be that the baby was lost. Well that’s when they told me that the baby was all right and also a boy like my older son. I was like you save this child! This is my capital S capital O capital N!
posted by warriorqueen at 5:20 AM on April 14, 2018 [2 favorites]
My second son’s pregnancy was challenging and for various reasons, I had a hard time connecting to it… Until I had a lot of bleeding at 16 weeks and I had an ultrasound where I thought the results would be that the baby was lost. Well that’s when they told me that the baby was all right and also a boy like my older son. I was like you save this child! This is my capital S capital O capital N!
posted by warriorqueen at 5:20 AM on April 14, 2018 [2 favorites]
I am not a parent, but I have never considered that there might be a limit on a person's capacity for love. One of the great beauties of being human, I think, is that we have the potential to love infinitely. No matter how much you love your first child, there will always be more love to give to your second one—it's not something that can run out. If you have two children you will simply love twice as much, and your life will be all the more enriched by doing so.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 5:38 AM on April 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 5:38 AM on April 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
I had this worry while pregnant with my second but it's just not a thing. Your heart increases manyfold. I love my oldest completely, she is perfect. I love my youngest completely, he is perfect. I love the bond the two of them share, the triangular relationship between the two of them and me, the relationship between the two of them and my husband, the four of us altogether, and all the various iterations in between. They are all special and perfect and I can't imagine them differently.
And despite all that, my kids are NOT perfect. They are, subjectively, the most amazing, perfect, adorable, funny, and smart people on the planet. I know that's probably not objectively true, but it feels like it. This is a feature, because sometimes kids are so annoying that I understand why some species eat their young.
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 6:52 AM on April 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
And despite all that, my kids are NOT perfect. They are, subjectively, the most amazing, perfect, adorable, funny, and smart people on the planet. I know that's probably not objectively true, but it feels like it. This is a feature, because sometimes kids are so annoying that I understand why some species eat their young.
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 6:52 AM on April 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
Many people cannot sustain romantic love with more than one person. They are wired to be monogamous, you see. If their feelings for one lover increase, their feelings for the second lover decreases.
Parental love is not like that. It taps into a whole different system of love. With parental love you tend to love to the extent of your resources and when the resources tap out the failure of love is experienced not as a criticism or rejection of the child, but as the feeling of "I can't! I can't!" It becomes terror for the child.
Your first child is not, in fact perfect, or wonderful. You are experiencing the same mis-perception experienced by someone in love who knows that their new lover has faults but believes these faults really don't matter. Your child is in fact, dead average, and compared to other people's kids is of equal worth. However since a parental bond is much stronger than a romantic bond due to the shared genes, you are now basing your standards on what your kid is, rather than external factors. What she looks like has become the defining standard of attractive. The strength of your love bond is so strong it makes you believe this child above all others, ensuring that if you even suspect for a moment that there is a coyote near the baby you will already be running towards the coyote screaming aggressively before you have actually conceptualized the thought "coyote" let alone the concept of "I could get bitten!"
Assuming you are not dysfunctional your bonding will expand to include baby number two. In fact, as baby #1 had a higher chance of succumbing to the never-been-a-parent-before incompetence, you will probably bond to number two more strongly than the first one - but your bond to the first one will increase at the same time so that the second child makes you love the first one even more as you get more practice at this parenting thing.
It is always possible that you will have some adjustment problems due to resource limitations. Since love occurs at a bio-chemical (or spiritual) level you may not be fully aware of it the week or the year you bring your second newborn home, as your ability to experience this bonding as a pleasure could be compromised by lack of sleep, the foetid smell of unwashed diapers etc. But it will be there unless there is some rare and horrible thing wrong. It may not be experienced as delight and admiration - it might be experienced as deep determination and sorrow, for example. Love can be felt in many different forms, but love is at its basis a word for the bonding instinct that makes us willing to sacrifice for others.
If your second child is not a cuddler and your first child is, you may notice that you don't get the oxytocin rush as easily with number two. But a Wise Nature has ensured that there are many, many, many different triggers to bonding with a baby to allow for all the temperamental variations. If an adoptive parent can bond with a baby, the percentage chance of you being able to bond with a biological child is so high as to be something of a juggernaut.
Think of it this way: Your most favourite food ever might be lemon chiffon pie. Oh my God, lemon chiffon pie is good. You want to eat it all the time! It's soooo good. But then again, there is also rare roast beef. Ooh, that succulent roast beef with the fat on the outside brown and crackling and the fragrant moist centre... And then one day, long after you became an adult someone introduces you to Obscure Ethnic Delight. You have never eaten Yemeni food before and you would never have remotely thought of combining that spice with those other ingredients but Holy Hannah! This is good! And every time you eat Obscure Ethnic Delight it becomes more familiar and still tastes so, so good! After six months it has become one of your fallback comfort foods. You are not meant to monogamous with food, nor to eat nothing but lemon chiffon pie until all your teeth fall out, you are diabetic and have become the poster child for malnutrition. Somehow you have the capacity to extend your appetite to other menu items. Loving children is like my food analogy, rather than an obsessive goal like getting onto the US Olympic Sandbucket Team where your sacrifice your relationships, your economic prospects and your joints to achieve it. You're not going to keep obsessing over child one at the expense of child two - you are going to consider your family a banquet - that meal where a dinner of roast beef, obscure ethnic delight and lemon chiffon pie for dessert is the best of all possible things.
You might want to look into the possibility that "What if I don't love this child as much as the first?!" is a more admissible way of thinking a different dreadful thought, such as, "What if I end up over extended and can't take proper care of two kids?" or "What if I am underneath all, a bad person who is capable of not loving my children the way I should?" If either of those thoughts or something similar is boiling to the surface, don't sweat it. You are going to be a lousy parent to both those kids, because every single parent at some point is a lousy parent. Some morning you will sleep in and find your kids got up before you and did something awful and got hurt.
(My son found a large tumbler of pepper, poured it out on the floor to be sand and started driving his dinky cars and front end loaders through it. This raised dust which made his eyes hurt. So he rubbed his eyes, thus applying copious amounts of pepper... Cue the parent on duty rising out of bed to respond to magnificent screams of pain.)
Your kids will likely be as resilient as you are, so most of your parental failures will be on par with your other life failures - oh crud! I forgot to pick up milk and its a long weekend!!
Here's the thing: you have started to worry about child number two. You have started to develop a neurosis about the little creature's well-being, and that there might be hazards that the wee mite will have to face, hazards that it is YOUR fault if they make the baby's life less than optimal. And what is that worry except the fact that you are beginning to bond with the baby already, to make space for him or her, in your heart, and in your logistics. You are already worrying that you are not giving baby #2 everything he or she needs. That's a sign that you are already emotionally engaged with this kid. Your worry is in fact significant evidence that you have started to love this child and prepare to change yourself to love this child more.
Back in the day the police van that was used for arresting multiple people was known as "the mother's heart" - always room for one more.
posted by Jane the Brown at 8:33 AM on April 14, 2018 [9 favorites]
Parental love is not like that. It taps into a whole different system of love. With parental love you tend to love to the extent of your resources and when the resources tap out the failure of love is experienced not as a criticism or rejection of the child, but as the feeling of "I can't! I can't!" It becomes terror for the child.
Your first child is not, in fact perfect, or wonderful. You are experiencing the same mis-perception experienced by someone in love who knows that their new lover has faults but believes these faults really don't matter. Your child is in fact, dead average, and compared to other people's kids is of equal worth. However since a parental bond is much stronger than a romantic bond due to the shared genes, you are now basing your standards on what your kid is, rather than external factors. What she looks like has become the defining standard of attractive. The strength of your love bond is so strong it makes you believe this child above all others, ensuring that if you even suspect for a moment that there is a coyote near the baby you will already be running towards the coyote screaming aggressively before you have actually conceptualized the thought "coyote" let alone the concept of "I could get bitten!"
Assuming you are not dysfunctional your bonding will expand to include baby number two. In fact, as baby #1 had a higher chance of succumbing to the never-been-a-parent-before incompetence, you will probably bond to number two more strongly than the first one - but your bond to the first one will increase at the same time so that the second child makes you love the first one even more as you get more practice at this parenting thing.
It is always possible that you will have some adjustment problems due to resource limitations. Since love occurs at a bio-chemical (or spiritual) level you may not be fully aware of it the week or the year you bring your second newborn home, as your ability to experience this bonding as a pleasure could be compromised by lack of sleep, the foetid smell of unwashed diapers etc. But it will be there unless there is some rare and horrible thing wrong. It may not be experienced as delight and admiration - it might be experienced as deep determination and sorrow, for example. Love can be felt in many different forms, but love is at its basis a word for the bonding instinct that makes us willing to sacrifice for others.
If your second child is not a cuddler and your first child is, you may notice that you don't get the oxytocin rush as easily with number two. But a Wise Nature has ensured that there are many, many, many different triggers to bonding with a baby to allow for all the temperamental variations. If an adoptive parent can bond with a baby, the percentage chance of you being able to bond with a biological child is so high as to be something of a juggernaut.
Think of it this way: Your most favourite food ever might be lemon chiffon pie. Oh my God, lemon chiffon pie is good. You want to eat it all the time! It's soooo good. But then again, there is also rare roast beef. Ooh, that succulent roast beef with the fat on the outside brown and crackling and the fragrant moist centre... And then one day, long after you became an adult someone introduces you to Obscure Ethnic Delight. You have never eaten Yemeni food before and you would never have remotely thought of combining that spice with those other ingredients but Holy Hannah! This is good! And every time you eat Obscure Ethnic Delight it becomes more familiar and still tastes so, so good! After six months it has become one of your fallback comfort foods. You are not meant to monogamous with food, nor to eat nothing but lemon chiffon pie until all your teeth fall out, you are diabetic and have become the poster child for malnutrition. Somehow you have the capacity to extend your appetite to other menu items. Loving children is like my food analogy, rather than an obsessive goal like getting onto the US Olympic Sandbucket Team where your sacrifice your relationships, your economic prospects and your joints to achieve it. You're not going to keep obsessing over child one at the expense of child two - you are going to consider your family a banquet - that meal where a dinner of roast beef, obscure ethnic delight and lemon chiffon pie for dessert is the best of all possible things.
You might want to look into the possibility that "What if I don't love this child as much as the first?!" is a more admissible way of thinking a different dreadful thought, such as, "What if I end up over extended and can't take proper care of two kids?" or "What if I am underneath all, a bad person who is capable of not loving my children the way I should?" If either of those thoughts or something similar is boiling to the surface, don't sweat it. You are going to be a lousy parent to both those kids, because every single parent at some point is a lousy parent. Some morning you will sleep in and find your kids got up before you and did something awful and got hurt.
(My son found a large tumbler of pepper, poured it out on the floor to be sand and started driving his dinky cars and front end loaders through it. This raised dust which made his eyes hurt. So he rubbed his eyes, thus applying copious amounts of pepper... Cue the parent on duty rising out of bed to respond to magnificent screams of pain.)
Your kids will likely be as resilient as you are, so most of your parental failures will be on par with your other life failures - oh crud! I forgot to pick up milk and its a long weekend!!
Here's the thing: you have started to worry about child number two. You have started to develop a neurosis about the little creature's well-being, and that there might be hazards that the wee mite will have to face, hazards that it is YOUR fault if they make the baby's life less than optimal. And what is that worry except the fact that you are beginning to bond with the baby already, to make space for him or her, in your heart, and in your logistics. You are already worrying that you are not giving baby #2 everything he or she needs. That's a sign that you are already emotionally engaged with this kid. Your worry is in fact significant evidence that you have started to love this child and prepare to change yourself to love this child more.
Back in the day the police van that was used for arresting multiple people was known as "the mother's heart" - always room for one more.
posted by Jane the Brown at 8:33 AM on April 14, 2018 [9 favorites]
I had this worry when I was pregnant with my second child, and so did the midwife, because the circumstances of our life at the time were so dire: her father had a depression and disappeared into a scary world of drugs and weird people. So I was allowed to stay an extra night at the hospital to say hello to her. And like it was mentioned above, each child has it's personality from the first instant, and while the first one was and is a beautiful little monkey who would never ever let me alone for a second, this new baby was rather reserved. But that night, I got to know her, and by the next day, when her dad and sister came to take me home, my heart had grown to double size and if anything, we are more similar in temperament and can share other things. I love them equally, but differently, the elder one is a more different person who always inspires me and lights up the universe, and the younger is a more similar person with whom I can be quiet and know she knows. I feel so lucky to have them both, and my love for them is bigger than the universe. My girls are young adults now, and I'm looking forward til when they have babies, because I can feel I have room in my heart for more babies.
posted by mumimor at 9:21 AM on April 14, 2018
posted by mumimor at 9:21 AM on April 14, 2018
Erma Bombeck wrote about this: I've always loved you best because.... There's a longer version, folded into a story, in her book Motherhood: The Second-Oldest Profession, but I can't find that passage online.
Searching for it, I found this: I Have a Favorite Child & I Let Everyone Know It.
It is possible that you will share more interests, more activities, with one child than with another. That one will make you smile, and one will always bring an edge of worry. That you will enjoy long conversations with one, and provide toys and travel to the other, and feel like "anyone could do that."
But you can love all of your children deeply and fiercely, and fight to bring them the best life they can have, and want for them to grow up happy and proud. You can't love them "all the same," but they really can each be "your favorite."
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 9:27 AM on April 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
Searching for it, I found this: I Have a Favorite Child & I Let Everyone Know It.
It is possible that you will share more interests, more activities, with one child than with another. That one will make you smile, and one will always bring an edge of worry. That you will enjoy long conversations with one, and provide toys and travel to the other, and feel like "anyone could do that."
But you can love all of your children deeply and fiercely, and fight to bring them the best life they can have, and want for them to grow up happy and proud. You can't love them "all the same," but they really can each be "your favorite."
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 9:27 AM on April 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
I Have a Favorite Child & I Let Everyone Know It.
Aaaw, what a sweet story. It reminded me of my dad who would always call each of us his favorite something. His favorite eldest daughter, his favorite only son, his favorite tiniest daughter etc.
posted by mumimor at 9:50 AM on April 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
Aaaw, what a sweet story. It reminded me of my dad who would always call each of us his favorite something. His favorite eldest daughter, his favorite only son, his favorite tiniest daughter etc.
posted by mumimor at 9:50 AM on April 14, 2018 [1 favorite]
Some people don't. It's one of those things that there isn't really a "how" for; you just have to take it on faith that it'll happen.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:02 AM on April 14, 2018
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:02 AM on April 14, 2018
Despite the ubiquitous examples of stack-ranking that infest our entire culture, love doesn't actually work that way.
Love is simply not capable of being reduced to a single number, which is what it would have to be in order for the concept of loving one child more or less than another to make any sense whatsoever.
Just bear in mind at all times that the entire job description of children is to push all their parents' buttons and stretch and explore all their emotional boundaries, and you'll do just fine.
posted by flabdablet at 10:08 AM on April 14, 2018
Love is simply not capable of being reduced to a single number, which is what it would have to be in order for the concept of loving one child more or less than another to make any sense whatsoever.
Just bear in mind at all times that the entire job description of children is to push all their parents' buttons and stretch and explore all their emotional boundaries, and you'll do just fine.
posted by flabdablet at 10:08 AM on April 14, 2018
since a parental bond is much stronger than a romantic bond due to the shared genes
Speaking as a foster parent with no biological offspring, I can report that the qualities of the parental bond appear to have not much to do with direct biological inheritance. Doesn't really matter whether you make your children yourself; what matters is that you know you have chosen to be their parent. Once that commitment is in place, all the underlying brain machinery kicks in and there is indeed plenty of love to go around.
posted by flabdablet at 10:15 AM on April 14, 2018 [9 favorites]
Speaking as a foster parent with no biological offspring, I can report that the qualities of the parental bond appear to have not much to do with direct biological inheritance. Doesn't really matter whether you make your children yourself; what matters is that you know you have chosen to be their parent. Once that commitment is in place, all the underlying brain machinery kicks in and there is indeed plenty of love to go around.
posted by flabdablet at 10:15 AM on April 14, 2018 [9 favorites]
I've heard my mom say the same thing. And, being an only child was absolutely fantastic. Do keep that option in mind when making your choice.
posted by eotvos at 10:41 AM on April 14, 2018
posted by eotvos at 10:41 AM on April 14, 2018
My mother always says that babies bring the love with them. She had four kids so probably had some idea.
posted by plonkee at 1:51 PM on April 14, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by plonkee at 1:51 PM on April 14, 2018 [2 favorites]
My daughter is a lot like me, and so I can't help loving her (and sometimes being quite exasperated with her) for reflecting myself back in all the best and worst ways.
My son came along next, and I had a few silly thoughts like "how will I connect with him, he'll like boy things and I'm a girl and I don't know all about boy things." Which it turns out is completely ridiculous because little boys love their mothers like you are their entire sun and moon and stars, even if you know nothing about how to play rugby or what the difference is between a bulldozer and a backhoe. And so you can't help loving them back just the same way.
Also when you see your older child getting bigger and more independent and gaining all kinds of skills, you will be proud and sad all at once watching it happen, and then you'll look back at your younger child and go "this is my BABY, don't ever ever grow older my dear little baby." But you know that they won't stop growing and soon they won't want to have hugs and kisses all the time and they'll start to be embarrassed to hang out with you... and then you might start wanting another baby.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 4:43 PM on April 14, 2018 [3 favorites]
My son came along next, and I had a few silly thoughts like "how will I connect with him, he'll like boy things and I'm a girl and I don't know all about boy things." Which it turns out is completely ridiculous because little boys love their mothers like you are their entire sun and moon and stars, even if you know nothing about how to play rugby or what the difference is between a bulldozer and a backhoe. And so you can't help loving them back just the same way.
Also when you see your older child getting bigger and more independent and gaining all kinds of skills, you will be proud and sad all at once watching it happen, and then you'll look back at your younger child and go "this is my BABY, don't ever ever grow older my dear little baby." But you know that they won't stop growing and soon they won't want to have hugs and kisses all the time and they'll start to be embarrassed to hang out with you... and then you might start wanting another baby.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 4:43 PM on April 14, 2018 [3 favorites]
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posted by b33j at 9:53 PM on April 13, 2018 [11 favorites]