Our two year old daughter can be ruthless. She’s at the stage where she’s developing her vocabulary but isn’t quite clear enough to always get her point across. This can prove to be particularly troublesome for her four year old sister as the mounting frustration is often displayed in the form of a closed fist.
Dad: (in another room)
4 year old: She hit me!
2 year old: ma ba!
Dad: Ok. Hold on. Why did you hit sissy?
2 year old: ma ba!
Dad: Your ball?
2 year old: (nodding) yep ma ba!
Dad: You don’t need to hit. Ask sissy if you can play with the ball.
2 year old: Sissy play ba peas
How the rest of this played out is of little importance to the remainder of the post. What’s important to understand is these exchanges occur pretty frequently. My wife made a comment, after just such an exchange, that I seem to favor supporting the four year old while she typically favors the two year old. Favor in this context means that I may initially seek out the two year old as the instigator.
I was a bit taken back when she said this only because I had never given it enough thought to notice. My wife apparently had, as she expounded on the comment. She seems to think that I, being the older brother to a younger brother, can see things easier from the four year olds perspective while my wife, the younger sister to an older brother, remembers well the treatment she would often get and therefore sides with the two year old more often.
You should know this subconscious siding doesn’t happen if said incident occurs in our presence. If this is the case then whomever instigated the act is the one being corrected depending of course upon how late it is and how tired we are. Correcting an incident may sometimes mean starting the bedtime, or naptime, routine a few minutes early.
Now, I have this thing I need to consider when I find myself presented with these “opportunities”. Truth be told, the two year old does instigate a lot of … ugh, I’m doing it again … OK, I know the way the kids interact is simply an indicator of where each of them are given their collective six years of experience on earth. In short, kids fight. You can’t get around this. I, on the other hand, have a few more than six years experience at my disposal and I can’t even bring myself to calculate what my wife and I have together. The question here is whether the parents running this place can learn to correct their behavior before the kids in question get old enough to react a little more civilly when dealing with disagreements. Yea, my money is on the kids getting there first.
Wait a minute. We have a third little girl arriving in December. This should really mess with things. We are clearly going to be too tired to do things like correcting our behavior.
That seems pretty easy to me, man. Both of you should blame the third kid for everything every time.
Problem solved. That’ll be seventy -five dollars, please.
Honestly, I have actually never even remotely considered the older sibling bias. Makes sense, but it never crossed my mind either.
matts last blog post..No Mercy! – The First Rule of Child Combat.
@matt -
Ha! I’d be lying if I said that thought hadn’t crossed my mind as I was writing this.
Your girls sound like people at my job. The software guys verses the hardware guys. I am not sure who is the one saying “Ma Ba” but everyone argues and never takes time to listen to the other or look from their perspective. I personally like to just sit back and watch, it’s quite entertaining.
orlunds last blog post..Friday’s Photo: Bear Hug
@orlund -
Man, don’t even get me started on that parallel. I know exactly what you mean. Personally, I’m one of the hardware guys and the hardware rarely fails. Just sayin’.
it’s soooo true. I am the youngest of seven kids. I don’t think I have ever given our oldest the benefit of the doubt in situations like this. Totally unfair, totally unintentional.
PGs last blog post..Hopefully a Clincher (245/365)
Certainly in my family, consciously or otherwise, Dads do favour the older kids.
Granted they are not kids anymore, but it’s as clear as the nose on my face.
Fascinating actually.
Xbox4NappyRashs last blog post..While you were sleeping
I never though about this birth order thing before either. It’s funny, I’m the youngest of two, Hubs is the middle child. I seem to favor our younger child and Hubs our oldest. I’ll have to pay more attention to this the next time an opportunity arises. Thanks for the food for thought.
Tara R.s last blog post..I rock!
@PG – @Xbox4NappyRash – @Tara R.
Thanks for chiming in. I don’t know who my father would have favored but my mother definitely favors the youngest. It’s interesting to read these comments and see others are in the same boat or have been. If I wanted to do a bit of research I’d probably find studies or something supporting this, frankly, I’d rather hear from the lot of you.
Well we only have only 1 child at this point, so I really don’t know what to say and I am the oldest of 3 siblings. Now my husband is the youngest of 8, well 7 now one sibling passed. He has some whopper stories to tell about him and his brothers and sisters. For me it was more of a jealousy thing when I was younger, because I was the first born and there was such a big age difference between my brothers and I.
I like Matt’s idea just blame the third child for everything. lol
Just kidding!!!
wblmoms last blog post..A Phone Call and My Marriage Rocked
Here’s the problem, man. You’re going to be switching from a man-to-man to a zone defense. They’ve got the upper hand and the sad reality is–you can’t quit the game!
Good luck!
Ed (zoesdad)s last blog post..A Sunday Repost–Heroes
I think I’ll be in the same boat Chuck, as the older sibling in my family. We’ll see in a year or so when mine are about the same apart as yours are now. I wonder if I’ll favor the older child? Hard to say. Thought provoking post though!
Jeremy (Discovering Dad)s last blog post..Spotlight on Dads – Elliott Kim
This was REALLY good food for thought like Tara mentioned.. I am the oldest of three.. and I really do tend to side with my oldest.. where my husband takes the youngest side.. (he is a middle child).. Interesting!!!!
Kims last blog post..JIC WINNER!!! Who Won the Peanuts DVD?? Find out!
Sorry to blow the theory but, I’m the youngest and I don’t usually side with my youngest child. The baby has always exploited being “the baby” and still does whenever possible. The older sibling more often than not gets the bad rap from Dad and the baby gets the benefit of the doubt.
I too am a youngest sibling, and tend to side with the older ones now that our four-year-old son is the primary instigator. Before he came along I usually sided with my youngest daughter, and I knew perfectly well that it was because I was a youngest too. But now that I have a son whom I see is eerily like a young version of myself, I have less patience for his behavior.
But this is excellent food for thought, and something that my wife has tried to make clear to me, with very little success to this point.
I must reconsider my position and probably apologize to my wife about a million times.
toms last blog post..A Journey into Michael’s Mind
@wblmom – I was in kindof the same scenario. I call myself the older brother but I have four older siblings, much older.
@Ed (zoesdad) – I’ve heard that analogy before and it seems to sum it up nicely!
@Jeremy (Discovering Dad) – I am curious where you’ll land on this one. Good luck!
@Kim -Thanks Kim! I’m glad you stopped to comment. I was just wondering how you have been doing today. Glad this gave you something to think about.
@HorseChick – Well, leave it to you to buck the trend
@tom – It’s really tough isn’t yet? You can tell your wife she’s welcome.
Your wife is wicked smart.
Momo Falis last blog post..It’s Only Disrespectful If You Get Caught