“That’s not fair” and “You would never let me do that” are comments that older children often make to their parents in regard to their younger siblings. Especially in situations like mine, where there is such a large age gap between the youngest and oldest siblings. Twelve and a half years. That’s the gap between Cadence and Sadie-Rae. I’ve been fairly lucky, though – I can only recall hearing that expression once and that was recently. It wasn’t even directed toward my youngest. Instead, it was Cadence commenting about her brother, who is six and a half years younger than she is.
I guess it is a common theme for parenting styles to change as parents grow older and have more children. I often have other parents say to me, “I just realized some things weren’t as important as I thought they were,” or “You learn to pick your battles,” or “I’m just tired now.” I’ve also heard adult children make comments like, “By the time so and so came along, Mom and Dad didn’t really do any discipline,” or “We had to work for everything we had and so and so was just handed everything.”
I have worked incredibly hard to parent each of my children equally. In many ways, that means parenting “the same” way, but because each child is different and has different needs that is not always the case. I believe there is a middle ground in parenting between learning through experience, adapting for each individual child, and getting too relaxed in parenting as you have more children.
My experience so far boils down to this: I’ve learned that some things really don’t hold the same importance as I thought they did with my first child. I’ve also learned that some things are even more important than I thought the first time around. I have come to the conclusion that I ammore tired now. After all, I have more children to parent, plus aging parents to care for, not to mention work. Oh! And let’s not forget that I am almost twenty years older than I was the first time around. (Huge frown face on that thought.)
I work really hard to be the best mom I can and to raise my kids to grow into adults I can be proud of and want to be around. I have no idea if I will be successful, but I pray about it regularly. I thought it might be fun (or scary) to get my kids’ viewpoint on this matter. Here is what they have to say…
Cadence: I think both my parents have tried really hard to keep their parenting strategies fair between us kids. The main difference in how it was when I was younger and now is how my parents will let Savannah and Reed go out with their friends to do things way more easily than with me. When I was thirteen, it was very rare that I went out with friends and Savannah goes a lot. I’m just now, in the last year and a half, starting to go out by myself and hang out with friends. Discipline wise, I feel like we’ve transitioned more into losing privileges and receiving consequences than physical punishment. To me, it seems like Sadie-Rae has gotten spanked a whole lot less than I did at her age. But I think losing privileges is a better and more effective form of punishment for us big kids.
Savannah: I think that my parents have done a really good job raising us through our early years and as we have got older. They have given so much to us, making sure we know what’s right and wrong. We have all had a slightly different pattern as to how they raised us, but so far things are equal. I know Reed and Sadie-Rae will get to do things I probably wouldn’t have had the chance to do when I was younger. But both of my parents have trained me well enough to know that life is unfair, and sometimes we have to deal with what we get.
Well, that was eye opening, but I’m glad to know the big girls’ opinions. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in parenting over the years and I’m sure there will be plenty more, but I hope my kids know that I really do give them my best all the time. I want the best for them and will continue to parent them to the best of my ability – even when they are grown and simply want advice. I’ll never get tired of being their mommy.
-by Kari Carr
About the Author: Kari doesn’t claim to be a parenting expert, just a mom to her four wonderful children and wife to the love of her life, Mike. Together they move through the ups and downs of raising kids in this crazy world. She struggles through the trials and joys of raising children from the ages of two to 15 years old. Kari received her degree at WKU and taught public middle school music and choir for seven years before opening her own business, Sound Beginnings Musikgarten & Vocal Studio. She lives and works in Bowling Green.
