Susan, a visitor to the Fertilityblog and who writes her own blog left an interesting comment on my post fretting about whether to add or not add another sibling for our son. This is what she said:
Ah, Marie, you know what the rub is? They’re all right. Siblings are a blessing AND a curse. I was one of those only children who always wished for siblings. But I was thinking Brady Bunch and the Von Trapp family. I really did not have any clue about reality.
This reminded me of how as humans, for some reason we always seem to want what we don’t have. This seems incredible to me now, knowing what I know, but when I was little, I earnestly wanted to be adopted by our neighbors, a sweet elderly couple who would let my sister and me rampage through their house. Their kids used to be our babysitters, and when they grew up and left home, the neighbors still let us hang out at their house, occasionally we even had sleep overs. I remember once, when my dad came to get us, I set up a howl and didn’t want to leave. I can’t remember if I actually said I wanted to be adopted by them, but I was certainly thinking it.
At the time (I think I was about 5 maybe 6), this is what I was thinking: ice cream with dinner, never being scolded even if I broke something, cool basement with fishing equipment and big bulky toys of the kind our parents would never let us have, a new mom and dad who didn’t speak with an accent and have other people making fun of how they talked or made chink-eyes at them in the super market, etc., etc.
My parents, of course, were very upset about my wishes to be adopted by our neighbors, and this made me want to be adopted even more. You could see how this could spiral into something unpleasant, if not ugly, and our poor neighbors were so embarrassed.
Today, as an adult, I can’t believe I ever did something so awful to my parents, but I did. And when I think back to the five year old I was, it still makes perfect sense.
It’s just like in the post: people with siblings want to be only children. People who are only children dream of being in the Von Trapp Family (?). I think as parents we need to be sensitive to the way kids think, even though I am betting I’d flip out if some child of mine said what I said to my own parents.
So, in a practical sense, how are we to find our way as parents, as ex-children, with new little beings in our care who come up with ways to surprise and dumbfound us in every way? I often feel like I’m treading through endless paths whose forks turn into forks and with few, if any signs and all I have to make my way through a foggy, scary jungle with no clear end in sight is a single, dull machete. But I think Susan said it right again when she closed her post with:
I think we have to just make a decision and then do what we can to make that decision work.
We can’t control what happens, but we can control how we react to it, and that isn’t nothing. Hack away!
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