I just returned from a weekend with my 19-year-old son. He read my blog! First I am grateful that he took time from his 19-year-old self to read it, but he liked it! A parental moment to savor the fact that I got a genuine “good job” from my son…it is a parent’s dream, right?! Ahhh…ok, but that’s not all. This discussion led to one about his own memories of growing up with Jessica and boy, was that enlightening. I have invited him to share his perspective in a guest post at some point (he said “maybe”). But for now, the overall message was that he felt like he was the one that got in trouble more than anyone else. If he and Jessica were arguing over something trivial, his experience was that he was reprimanded and Jessica never was. Hmmmm. I needed to ponder this one. It is possible that this is somewhat accurate. I would not say Jessy was NEVER reprimanded, however, Jessica, though chronologically older, is developmentally (social/emotional) younger (in some cases 4-5 years along the way).
So here is a side story…at age four, my son came to me very upset. He said ” Why was Jessy born first? I should have been born first.” There were probably other complaints as to why he should have been first-born, but I can’t remember every detail…you get the gist. Insightful for four, that he knew before I did that something was different. There definitely is a reversal in birth order traits (I did my Master’s Thesis on Birth Order and Sibling Rivalry, by the way…coincidental??).
So, is it out of the realm of possibilities that the child with the stronger sense of self, leadership strengths, socially more mature, etc. received more first-born parenting? (First born parenting, for those of you who are not first born (I am the oldest of two): higher expectations, more parenting over reactions, gets in trouble more often because they are the ones doing things for the first time and freaking their parents out, creating the most stress for their parents not because they are doing anything wrong, but simply because we are so afraid we are going to fail or mess them up in some way). Yes, it is entirely possible for this to happen. The older Jessica got the more apparent the gap in social emotional development became. So when Jessica was 10 and her brother was seven, Jessica was probably somewhere between five and six and her ability to navigate social situations was not as easy as it was for her brother. As he moved through that concrete thinking phase into more sophisticated problem solving, Jessica was still very literal and concrete.
We have to parent our children where they are developmentally, not chronologically. So, yes, discipline for my son who was developmentally where he was supposed to be, would look different from discipline for his older sister who was developmentally much younger. Try explaining that to the chronologically younger kid…So my son did suffer some injustice and I will own that. Parenting is hard. Sometimes we do fail and sometimes we do mess up, over react and come down harder on those siblings that we probably feel can handle it better. But one thing that I have always done in those moments that I recognize my over reactions, stressed out “Go to your room! And your grounded for a month!”, is I would regroup and acknowledge with him my ridiculous sentence. And though he would not be off the hook, I could shift to a more realistic consequence. Modeling responsibility for myself and my actions was and remains a core parenting value that I hold. Being honest and real with our kids and owning when we mess up helps them to learn to do the same.
And guess what? In spite of the injustices and how he experienced his world and the many faults in my parenting, he turned out to be a really great kid and is becoming an amazing young man and I tell him that often. However, even though he is gaining greater understanding for what Jessica’s challenges are, no matter how much I try to explain what it was like to parent he and Jessica, he won’t truly understand parenting until he becomes a parent himself (hopefully after the age of 30!). I love you son! Best boy/man in the whole wide world!
Being Jessica's Mom: Growing up on the Autistic Spectrum 