There is something I have noticed about parents, myself included. It seems that with each child you have, you tend to become more relaxed. Now that can be a good thing but it can also be a negative.
I think the day I realized I had become more relaxed by my third child was several years ago at church. I was in a church service, taking advantage of the childcare we have available. Our children get a number and if you saw your child’s number on the screen, it meant you were needed.
My number went up. It was for my youngest son, who was about a year old at the time (he is now inching close to 13). I went to the room to find out he had fallen and had a little cut on his lip. Yes, it was bleeding a little but it wasn’t anything serious.
In fact, I looked at the lovely young couple who were taking care of my son and said, “Just wash it off, he’s fine.” And to their horror, I went back to enjoy the service.
It wasn’t that I didn’t care. It was just that gone were the days when I would freak out over everything that happened (my poor firstborn). I learned after having two other children that they can survive most anything.
Recently my oldest was reminding me of how I let our youngest “get away” with things he never could. I tried to explain that I was a newbie, still learning. Well, I’m still learning, believe me. But the point is that you tend to relax with each child. It’s just not worth the stress.
But some of my relaxing is kind of funny, now that I look back. One of the things my oldest mentioned was how I never let him watch “Scooby Doo” because I thought it was too “scary.” My youngest got to enjoy all the shows he “missed out on.”
If you ever find a man in a therapist’s office, crying over the fact that he was deprived of “Scooby Man,” I take full responsibility.
Like it or not, it just seems to happen naturally that as we have more children, we become more relaxed in parenting. It’s great for the youngest but not so much for the oldest.
Do you find this to be true in your family?
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