Author’s practical guidance
The second child gets a different parent than the first
Source named in the book: coparenting research (Feinberg) · self-compassion research (Neff)
The first child got a parent who read the books, sterilized everything and photographed the fourth month.
Say this now
(to yourself) "The first one got my anxiety. The second one gets my experience."
Both are true, and the second is the better inheritance.
(to the older one) "You had me on my own for two years. That was yours."
Names what the first child actually got, which is usually what they are asking about.
Do this
- Give each child one thing that is only theirs, however small.
- Photograph the second one deliberately, because you will not do it by accident.
- Stop comparing milestones between your own children.
- Let the older one keep rituals that the younger does not get.
- Notice what the second child has that the first did not: a sibling, a calmer parent, a house that has done this before.
Avoid this
- Trying to reproduce the first child's babyhood at half the energy.
- Apologizing to the second child in your head for arriving second.
- Measuring the photographs.
If it repeats
Guilt about the second child is close to universal and almost never matches what the child experiences. Ask the older one what they remember when they are ten. It is never the photographs.
Why the book suggests this
The first child got a parent who read the books, sterilized everything and photographed the fourth month. The second gets somebody who is tired, faster, and considerably better at this. Both children are fine. Only one of them makes you feel guilty.
What you are comparing is not two childhoods. It is your own anxiety levels, four years apart — and the competence you have now is worth more than the attention you had then.
From this collection
Same Words: Every Grown-Up
45 prepared situations in this family area.