Birth Order

People talk about the differences between first children and middle children and last children. I always thought it was kind of lame because I do not treat my children any differently depending on when they were born. Yesterday I had some experiences that made me think differently. Every time I tried to nurse Chase some major event happened that I had to put him on hold. Someone was throwing up or having other gross bathroom disasters (that I don’t need to describe), or just crying so it disturbed poor Chase. Yes it was also poor Tanner- but that is not the point of THIS blog. So Chase kept having every meal interrupted. It was like the kids waited around until I started feeding the baby until they had an emergency.

So I was thinking about when Jaxon was a newborn. The world revolved around him. His feedings and or sleeping were the most important thing. Our lives revolved around them. Now we have to be at T-ball or Soccer or some school event. Every morning is a bunch of car pooling to 2 different schools. He gets to be woken up and put in a car seat when Jaxon got to sleep in and do what ever he wanted. The younger kids have to be more flexible in their schedules and life. The older kids have had to have their lives changed in different ways. I don’t take them very many places when we have babies or even toddlers. The more kids we have the less I want to go anywhere with all of them. It will get easier as they grow up. But the younger kids will not be held back in that way.

Also Jaxon tends to correct Tanner on all of Tanner’s “errors”. Tanner uses the wrong verb tense or word- Jaxon tells him that he is wrong. Jaxon tells Tanner that he does not know the right words to a song etc… Jaxon is totally right and I am glad that he knows the right words, but the way Jaxon says it makes Tanner feel bad. Jaxon only had his parents to correct him. We understand that kids take a little while to learn certain things and it is ok to sing the words wrong once in a while. When we do correct things like that, it is done in a kinder way.

So every kid has different experiences depending on their birth order. I can’t change that fact. It just happens. I loved being home alone when I was growing up because it rarely happened. My youngest sister hated being home alone because it was often the norm. We were raised the same but with different experiences. One of my kids might be more independent because I don’t have time to do everything for him. One might get more help with homework because they are the only one doing homework right then. I might be able to spend more time with the younger ones when the older ones are at school. It is just the way it is. I guess I do treat my children differently depending on when they were born.

We were listening to scripture stories in the car. There was a story about birth-right and how that affected Jacob and Esau. Jaxon totally wants to get the birthright in our family. I told him that the birthright in todays world means that he responsible to be a good example and help his brothers. In return he will "get" a happy family. He was not too impressed.

The kids also interact with each other. A large part of who I am comes from the fact that I idolized my older brother. I wanted to do everything with him (and he let me most of the time). I see Tanner doing the same thing with Jaxon. If I was the oldest, I would not have had someone to look up to. Don’t get me wrong, we also fought and I got him in trouble lots of times- which shaped us in different ways. My kids fight with each other too. But they are learning how to love each other and get along in all situations. They get great qualities from dealing with each other in good and bad times.

So birth order does affect your life- but it does not pre-determine how you are going to act. You are the product of your experiences and how you decide to act on them. So how is Chase going to act because he keeps being interrupted? I don’t know.