Division Of Love
Author: utbt26 Jul 2013
The little one pulls me to her bedroom and closes the door, asks me to bend down and whispers in my ears, ‘I want you to spend your day, from 9.30AM- 3.30PM with me. In this time you must do what I say. You can’t look at any one, can’t talk to any one. You must make eye contact with only me.’ I ask her what is the deal with the ending time and she replies, ‘After that I have to go to the park and play with my best friend-no? So you can be done by 3.30 amma.’ I ask her why she chose to pull me aside and tell me this in my ear and she says, ‘I don’t want Chula to hear. Otherwise she will come and demand to be included. This is me and you time.’
It was clear that she wants a chunk of MY time, but does not want to give me HER time. After all I am just a mother and what chances do I stand against her best friend?! But I was bothered by the fact that she wanted to keep the deal a secret from her sister. So I insisted on transparency. With great reluctance, she thundered her way to her sister, called her sister, then poked her, then finally pulled her hair. Chula who was reading a book was oblivious of all the calls, pulls and pokes, finally snapped to attention when the book was snatched from her hand and barked an angry , ‘WHAT?’. When the little one explained the deal, Chula cut her short by saying that, ‘Its okay. Whatever. Do what you want with amma. Just give me my book. I don’t care. BOOK. NOW.’ Then a very interesting conversation, that left me dumbfounded, started.
Meija: Don’t care? You don’t care? Hah! It is easy for you to say don’t care. You had 2 whole years with amma before I was born. So I care.
Chula: 18 months to be precise. But the quality of love she gives you is way more than what she gives me. So even if you got love for lesser time, the amount you get is waaaaaay more than what I will ever get. (note the usage of precise and placement of ‘will ever’)
Meija: That is not true.
Chula: Yes it is. Every one knows mothers love their second borns and fathers their first borns. So just give me that book and go away.
They are 8 and 7 yrs respectively. I am an only child. This constant bickering, division of love and firm belief that I favor one child over the other baffles me. So people with siblings enlighten me:
-Does the bickering ever stop?
-When do they start caring for each other? Or is this care and it is so heavily disguised that I am not able to identify it?
-Should I give up hope?
-Should I stop grinding my teeth, holding them by the nape of their neck, forcing their faces inches apart and growl, ‘I need to see some love. N.O.W.’
-Do they love me so much that they fight over me, if so how do I handle this naansense?
-Or they just don’t want the other to not have me?
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17 Responses for "Division Of Love"
Interesting q’s you have there. I will share my experience as the 4th child…no the bickering doesn’t ever stop. There you go. I think in my case the caring part happened with my sis, after I got married. You have a few years to go for this one. Don’t give up on hope for your own sanity. You could absolutely try the forcing method (and do tell if that works). And for the last 2 questions…just enjoy the naansense and leave them be. Hopefully, they will grow out of it some day 🙂 And they will…trust me.
UTBT SAYS: Ok, one more vote for marriage 🙂
Ask my mother. She is still asking the same qn that u are asking!!
UTBT SAYS: I think I must learn and practice the art of letting go from your mother 🙂
1. No it NEVER stops. Ask my mom, and ask me too now.
2. Just get a third party involved – someone who will be mean to one of them *in you absence*. They will do the most unexpected things to protect their sib. Again, ask my mom – she’ll give you a dozen anecdotes starting from when we were really little. Then ask me – I will give you another dozen about my kids.
3. Don’t give up hope. Just get used to it. This is how it is.
4. Try it. Just don’t expect it to work.
5. Just say what I do, and this I really mean – There is no ‘more’ or ‘less’ when it comes to how I love you. Sometimes it seems like one is being favoured over the other. But only from my point of view you can see who needs what at that particular point. You can say anything about me, but you can’t say I’m unfair. (Or change the words). It does work. At least they won’t think you are favouring one over the other.
By the way, this is something I feel about my folks do – they really have no favourites among the three of us. Does not mean they behave exactly similarly with all three of us.
6. Err.. refer to 1 and 2.
7. Yes I’m adding this one. Sounds cheesy but really – having a sib is one of the best things in the world 🙂
UTBT SAYS: Never-a? That is one light at the end of the tunnel. Now I am all geared up for full blown love and dysfunctional-ism. Am I ain the right track for #3 Chox?
I came to your blog after a long time and couldn’t help laughing at their arguments.
I have a brother who is 6 years younger to me and we fought like crazy. We are both married and he still says that my mom prefers me over him 🙂
This is very common and I don’t think it will ever go away 🙂
UTBT SAYS: Thanks-ma! At this point of time I am really looking fwd to them getting married and transfer the worry to the respective husbands. BOO’s and YAADAAYAADAA’s husbands would agree 🙂
I honestly wonder!!! My brother was much older than us sisters, and the two of us fought /bullied our way through our childhood. I think I was loved more, but who really knows? I do recall my late father, in his eighties, expressing what sounded like jealousy about his younger sibling. And this was a sibling who was always there for him, through every major illness.
I guess your girls will work it out. But do tell them that you get distressed when they show hostility to each other.
UTBT SAYS: Tell-a?! Diplai I SHOW distress and plain stress 🙂
But looks like there will always be a healthy jealousy(if there is such a thing?!) between siblings.
Am the second child, so dunno if I’m the favoured one. The bickering ( me and my sis used to be at each other’s throats at times) continues till one of them goes away. In my case, it was when my sis got married. After that I used to looooooooong for her irritating presence. 😀 Haffun! And we used to get scolded plenty for the fights, but it was of no use, you might as well spare your breath and just let them be. 😀 But about the favouritism, I dunno. I never thought that my Mom favored her or me over the other. Why do they think so? There must be a reason for it in their heads. Find that out. . . ?
UTBT SAYS: So which one do you thing I must send away JLT? 8 is early to get married no?!
Aiyyo no reason amma, I think I am being fair to both. The older one is mostly ok. She likes to play mother hen and go all ‘baby-baby’ with the younger one who is nether that little nor a baby. But she also gets annoyed at times. The younger one has high expectations 🙁
Sigh and then double Sigh! Must have been a year or so ago when one of my daughters accused me of favoring the other. It riled me up a lot and I very firmly (man was I raging inside – so not with shouting but with force more than I intended to display) I said to her that the 2 of you are in my life no matter what and if I hear this once again from either one of you – I am going to be very unhappy.
After that when calm I do say it that the 2 of them are 2 of my eyes and I would never ever favor one over the other if I sense that feeling, Also I try to make the extra effort to let the other updated about the first – I think the msg has been conveyed but oh boy am I going to have fun in their teenage years or what.
UTBT SAYS: Thanks for sharing A. I do that too, I firmly put my foot down and say, that that child gets that that things at the right time. I will not be bullied in to doing two-two of the same thing just because…. Hopefully we are doing the right thing 🙂
You spent three more years with her than with me – have heard this many times. When I responded with “I am sure you will live longer then her.. ” and pat came the response “but when she is not there and I am really old, you will not be there either appa!”
right now we are going through the “ennakku rendu kannum pOnAlum paravaa illei, avalukku oru kannavadhu poganum” logic. but this is all a show. Secret videos of them when we are not around clearly show two kids who are best of friends!
There is hope!
🙂
UTBT SAYS: LOL Sundar! But ‘we’ are the problem, from what you say abt the secret videos 🙂
UTBT, My sis is 9 years younger to me and yet, we used to fight and still do too 🙂 There are many ocassions when we refer to our parents like “unga amma, unga appa” when we talk to each other:) 🙂 Untill now, whenever amma used to be reminded of me say some anecdote related to me, sis always respons with “unaku oru kannula sunnambu , innoru kannu vennai” ..having said that , I feel younger ones are the ones to have such feelings..In my case, I’m ok if the scale is 49.5(self) and 50.5 (sis) 🙂 any deviation from this , i wouldnt agree 🙂 🙂
UTBT SAYS: Oh God, Ramya, unga amma, unga appa?! In our house the man remains out of this some how.
I watch more than a fair share of movies/serials and I can say with that authority that it all boils down to what they draw at school.
UTBT SAYS: Vijay, Pls refer to MIM’s comments. I was looking for that kind of help. Thank you muchly.
i also have the same baggage of only childness
but. this is what has helped with my boys…
i bring in a top philosopher, spiritual master to fill in the bedtime story slot …
i read out a small (but relevant) passage from one of the following…
swami vivekananda, john ruskin, ramakrishna paramhansa, kabir, wayne dyer, a stanza from my favourite hymn — Lead Kindly Light. or our standard choice — a few words from my beloved writer and thinker paramahansa yogananda
i hope to graduate to marcus aurelius, seneca, and plato — but for now paramahansa yogananda is great too…
ahem. so my boys HAVE to listen even if they dont understand —
and they do understand.
and my hope is that the message of the core values of living couched into the best of literature percolates into their subconscious when they zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
i got inspired by indra nooyi’s sister — chandrika tandon who said her grandfather read shakespeare during bedtime.
plus, when they are back from school i never ask them what they did — which means litany of complaints and longlist of gripes…
instead, i say tell me five things that you are grateful for today — so they HAVE to begin a sentence with “i am thankful for…”
and because they run out of things they often turn to each other for inspiration…
“i am thankful for my brother because he makes jokes.”
“i am thankful for my brother who helps me finish my snack in the car because mom will go bazooka if i waste it.”
exactly.
also i have dinned it into them that anyone who makes a sentence with the word “mattum” (only for him) = means they are choosing unhappiness when they could have chosen to be happy.
no one is allowed to use that m-word.
things are work-in-progress …
and life is a lot more peaceful and calm, or is it because i am typing this out when the boys are at school…??
—
PS the mmmim would never stand for all this reading, mumbo jumbo. “dont pressure/pester the kids,” he thunders.
he, the more “MATURE PARENT”, would try to connect a cricket match on the laptop, and rope in the boys to watch 20 20 or whatever series is happening.
the reading happens when he is working late or travelling
UTBT SAYS: MIM, where are thy feet? You read them Vivekananda. I gave up on Vivekananda a long time back and this was the time before children and my mind was fairly absorbent and less cluttered. I am stuck in Maharishi’s “Who am I?” I still don’t know who I am 🙂
There is role reversal at our house. To induce sleep the husband reads them Hawking and Feynman. I just bark a goodnight and move.
I did try the gratitude journal with them. I ask them what made them happy, they start NOTHING made them happy, I start gnashing my teeth and hiss, ‘You ppl have no idea what is out there. You have sooooo much and you are not happy? You better start feeling happy in the next three minutes’. Didn’t make me one bit happy, so I stopped asking them and I list out few things that they did and made me happy. To be frank, there are some days I am just digging around in an empty pot for things 🙂
Mim is our guru utbt. Touch her feet for me too when you meet her.
Hi UTBT
I enjoyed reading this post…very cute conversation. And nicely recorded for posterity. You can show it to her when she has two kids! And I have the same sort of questions – how long will they fight like this? But I do feel they really really love each other. And like Chox says it shows esp when they come across a common enemy character! 🙂
Enjoy these moments!
Here is an article I read just this morning before I read your post. Had to share…
Noon
———————–
I Don’t Love My Second Child the Way I Love My First
By FRANCESCA KAPLAN GROSSMAN
I got pregnant when my son was a baby.
I sat in a mini-gym class at the temple nearby with a baby in my lap and another one under it. I hadn’t told anyone. It was as if I had swallowed my secret, and my secret was growing.
The mornings were led by a woman named Bee. She helped us through our game-changing, life-changing, body-changing time.
One mother came in that day crying. “Try to explain why you are upset, Margot,” Bee urged.
“I’m not upset, not really, I just don’t know what to do with it.”
“With what? Keep going.”
“It’s like I am in love with her,” Margot pointed to her baby, spitting bubbles from a tiny pink mouth. She put a hand on her chest. “It’s like she’s my soul mate.”
I looked at my baby boy. He was full of cherub loveliness, barely talking, almost walking, a perfect echo of my husband’s soul. He reminded me of me, but not a lot. He was soft, with a peach belly that folded over his diaper like the top of an overstuffed envelope. He was the outwardness of my insides. He was it.
“So what do I do with that?” Margot pleaded, more to the group than to Bee. We all looked at Bee. She looked back at us, but did not answer.
And all I could think was: How could I possibly love another one as overwhelmingly as I do this one? How could I tolerate the inevitable comparisons between them, between my emotions? Put simply: How could I do this again?
When I saw the test’s two blue stripes that second time, even though we planned it, it threw me. I stepped back. I doubted everything, and I told no one. With that secret inside of me as well, I began the nine-month wait to meet my daughter. I was terrified I would fail her, that I wouldn’t be enough. I wouldn’t love enough.
When she flew into life, I knew her instantly, and loved her instantly, of course, just as much as I loved my first. She was pink and wrinkled, bigger than any baby I had ever seen. Eyes squinted, head pointy, body covered in soft white scales; she was the loveliest thing I’d ever seen. Her hands grabbed my hands, and her face fit into the curve of my shoulder, resting there.
And though I was relieved to know that I loved her with the exact same level of bone-crushing fervor I loved my son, lately it has occurred to me that the love is still different.
I love my first with the love of firsts. The breathtaking vastness of Cape Cod beach in the very early morning. The first day of camp, friendless and waiting. The overwhelming relief when the girl with the long blond braid sitting cross-legged said hello. The gulping breaths of the first time the swim instructor let go. Driving alone right after the test. My first beer. The wonder of a preteen boyfriend, his cold hand running across my cheek, softer and subtler but still like a slap.
I love my second from a whole different angle — from the soft place of experience. The golden beach at 4 p.m. A lifetime of friendship with the girl with the long blond braid. The fluid strokes in the pool, finishing a lap. Driving cross-country. Drinking a martini. Marriage, years in, a comfortable kiss in a messy kitchen.
Firsts are different from seconds because they are new. Seconds are different because they are practiced. These aren’t revolutionary thoughts, of course, but they are for me when it comes to my children.
When I first thought of this, I mentioned it to a friend. She was outraged.
“You can never talk like that,” she said. “You certainly can’t write that down. One day your kids will be able to read, you know.”
“But do you, can you, love them both the exact same way?” I asked her.
“Without a doubt.” I was ashamed. How could I even explore this kind of thinking? Of course I love my children equally, the exact same amount. Of course I do. But I do not love them the same.
Clearly they are different, my son’s and my daughter’s experiences, and development, and life. And maybe that’s why it’s O.K. for me to love them differently, as long as the amount matches. I can’t change their order, just as I can’t change their souls. I wouldn’t want to.
Francesca Kaplan Grossman writes on motherhood and education at cescalouise.com and Good to Know.
I hope Boo read this one. As a card-carrying member of the Second-borns Club I insist we are a less loved lot. We came in later, got photographed less, people don’t remember our baby stories as well, and we should get as much attention as possible to make up for all this. *shoulders placard*
about time i broke up the up the choxian-utbt touch MiM feet fest.
ahem.
latest post up.
do read.
I am getting inspired by Mim. Will try one of her advise today, the result might not be as expected but one can always try.
And Utbt, don’t worry, the kids love each other alright.
I have only one child, but my qualifications for answering this comes from the fact that we are 3 siblings – me the oldest, followed by a double whammy – twin brothers 4 years younger than me.
-Does the bickering ever stop?
Ans: No, it never does.
-When do they start caring for each other? Or is this care and it is so heavily disguised that I am not able to identify it?
Ans: When they grow up and start living in different cities and realize how much they miss the bickering. And even then, woe betide anyone who comes between them at these times.
-Should I give up hope?
Ans: No. Just pray that peace prevails while you are still alive. My mother does.
-Should I stop grinding my teeth, holding them by the nape of their neck, forcing their faces inches apart and growl, ‘I need to see some love. N.O.W.’
Ans: Yes. All you’ll gain are some dental troubles and high BP.
-Do they love me so much that they fight over me, if so how do I handle this naansense?
Ans: Hmmm…just pray, OK, that they see some sense sometime?!
-Or they just don’t want the other to not have me?
Ans: What? The ‘mere paas ma hain’ dialogue? Clarification – if you can, watch a hindi movie called Deewar. This is probably the most quoted dialogue from all of bollywood movies. Amitabh Bacchhan and Shashi Kapoor, with their mother played by the ever crying Niroopa Roy. Don’t get it? Check out the movie.
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