Treating Them Differently

I always knew it was common for people to treat their second child differently than their first.  It makes sense.  You have more experience and less time.  I didn't realize just how differently we've treated our kids until a recent trip to the beach.  Our family loves the beach.  My kids are total beach bums.  They would spend all day every day at the beach if we would let them.  All of our kids first saw the ocean when they were about 18 months old, and all three practically jumped in.  They loved the waves crashing into them even when the water splashed in their face.

When she was three, my oldest got to spend about 3 days at the beach and it was difficult to get her to leave.  She loved to go in the water and we made sure one of us was with her every second.  The first time my son went he was far more interested in playing in a dirt hole than anything else and we let our oldest hang out in the water by herself as long as the water didn't get above her ankles.

During our most recent trip we let our oldest and our 4 year old son just go in the water.  At one point the waves were going over their heads and while we were near them, we weren't close enough to grab them up should they get pulled under!  And the baby was allowed to sit in the water without us holding onto her.  We were next to her the whole time just not on top of her.

It's crazy how the baby is getting an almost completely different upbringing.  The important stuff has stayed the same.  We expect her to say please and thank you and to be nice, but she gets to eat way more junk food than the other two did and is allowed to get a lot dirtier.  We also expect more from her.  I was laughing at my husband the other day because he was talking to her like she was a 10 year old; explaining why he expected her to behave a certain way and giving her detailed instructions on how to throw her lunch trash away.  That's right, our 17 month old can throw her lunch trash away.  

It's funny to think back at how stringent we were about food and toys and TV.  Our oldest didn't even get a french fry until she was 3 and almost never watched TV.  The baby loves it.  We never had anything against french fries.   We didn't want them to be the only thing she would eat, so we put off letting her try one.  We have since learned that we control what our kids eat, not them and letting them have a few french fries every now and again is not going to stop them from eating green beans.

As far as the TV goes, we still don't let the kids watch too much TV.  They probably watch more than they should, but we have three kids.  Sometimes the only way I can get dinner made in less than 2 hours is to turn it on.  I don't feel bad about that.  50 years ago, if you needed the kids to leave you alone, you'd just send them outside.  That's not really something we feel comfortable doing now.  We are still very picky about what the kids watch especially if the baby is watching.  Some things have to change as our family changes.  They important things like love don't change.