I work four days a week at my salaried job and a whole lot more than that in my job as parent to three children. My two youngest are three year old twins, George and Alice, their older brother Thomas is six.
The first six months of the twins’ life were a blur of either an exhausted, desperate stumble or parenting flow, dependent on how I decide to remember it. Since that time, their needs have changed, personalities developed and their care has been shared between their parents and other caregivers (including three different nannies at different times and now teachers at nursery school). My understanding of my children and my role as a parent has been challenged and changed many times and I hope these five lessons will be of interest to others.
1) Accidental gender role modelling happens.
Alice announced around a year ago aged two “When I bigger I will have boobs and a top and a computer and work on important games”. (I was working up ideas for an educational children’s game at the time.) During the summer holidays the three children enjoyed a morning of role playing “work”, with their older brother, Thomas “in charge, like Daddy, making certificates for best work” (my husband will be hosting his hospital’s staff achievement awards in December, but don’t think he’s planning on hand drawing certificates or including Ninjago stickers just yet).
2) But then again, personality can be shaped by random circumstance.
George is a physically affectionate boy. He always needed to be held a lot more than Alice from birth. He was hugged a lot and he now hugs others a lot in comparison to his sister (and older brother). I have often wondered whether that was because he was on the bottom of my womb and so was squeezed a lot by my organs and his sister to his nearly 38 weeks gestation and so simply got used to that feeling on the inside – and demanded it on the outside.
And I will never forget how I once left Alice to cry herself to sleep at about two months old. I didn’t mean to, but her older brother, Thomas (then three) was very distressed at the time himself, and I knew she was safe in a cot and fed and I was on my own. I returned to find her sound asleep and, well, after that she got herself to sleep more easily. Crying it out is not my style, I believe it to be inappropriate for babies so young. But it happened. And she is fine, but maybe it affected her demands for hugs (or lack thereof).
3) Self identity – both belonging and differentiation – is important
With two older brothers (one by a matter of minutes), Alice is a daring climber, jumper, shows bold skills on a balance bike and scooter and can hold her own in a fight and hates to lose in a race. She is also a big fan of pink and purple and princesses and fairies which I was surprised and irritated to discover after having a son, Thomas, who understood all colours were for all children, and who enjoyed reading fairy stories for a long time (and still loves Tinkerbell). But whilst Alice is inspired by her brothers and wants to keep up (particularly with her big brother), she is working out who she is as distinct from them and these visual clues seem to make sense to her in her world of being a girl and as one of boy/girl twins, awareness of gender happens a lot earlier than for other children. (Yes, we have bought Rosie Revere Engineer, I also highly recommend The Most Magnificent Thing and The Paperbag Princess.)
4) When you think you’re not parenting, you’re still parenting.
At the beginning of the summer, I decided to do the couch to 5k programme. This meant I was leaving the house before the kids got up and returning to find them waving at the window. It felt like a personal indulgence, however worthwhile, and I would feel a pang of guilt as I left the house knowing they would wake up and I wouldn’t be there. Then towards the end of the programme we were on holiday in Dorset and nearly every day the kids would have running races and triumphantly announce how good at running they each were.
5) There are aspects to your child that are totally out of your control from day one.
When it came to weaning I’d done everything I could – eating a wide variety of foods during pregnancy and breast feeding, introducing bitter flavours relatively early into the process but, you know what? George doesn’t like mint and Alice does. George gets sick if he has chilli in anything and neither Alice nor Thomas do. George loves fruit and hates custard, Alice likes potatoes. They both like sweets and chocolate but that’s not the point here (just didn’t want you to think I was being holier than thou). They are not fussy eaters so maybe some of the stuff I did helped – but the point is they are still just different.
For that matter who’s to say that any of my observations of why my kids are certain ways have anything to do with what I pin them down to when I can see there are clear fundamental differences?
And all this accidental and intentional parenting when you’re there and not there can make you totally fraught. The thought of getting a step wrong horrifying.
So really my main lesson is – do whatever your best is, your children will become people that surprise, delight, and madden you but, perhaps most infuriatingly, you may never know why they turn out the way that they do.
Busy and Lively 