On my kids’ accidental spacing
I took Madison to her gym class yesterday and was able to shuck her off my lap and onto the mat because Noah gamely agreed to sit with the 4-year olds and participate in the activities. I guess this is more than she did last week with Brett. (He has a tougher time figuring out the gentle manipulation it takes to get a small, nervous child to do stuff.) Anyway. This time she sat out there and fiddled with Noah’s collar the way she fiddles with us (”I like the lumps,” she explains, meaning the places where seams meet). But she tried all the games and perked up to talk to the teacher about her birthday and to tell everyone that Noah is her brother, just in case they were getting any big ideas about co-opting him. (She was very pointed with one little girl who kept sidling up to sit on the other side of him.)
So they somersaulted and rolled and marched around with instruments and walked on the balance beam with beanbags on their heads. Noah gamely went along with it all, shooting me the evil eye — but with a grin — every now and then. The teacher, who is a very gentle and patient woman, thanked him for coming along and encouraged him to hang in there with his sister if he could handle it. (There are two more classes and Noah has agreed to go to ‘em both. Between you and me? I think he’s liking all the applause he’s getting from the grown-ups.)
I love my own brother and sister now but back when I was a kid I just resented them for getting in the way of my true destiny as an only child. Noah and Madison fight, bicker and drive each other crazy but there’s a great deal of tenderness between them, too. The night before last, Madison came by to give everyone hugs and kisses before heading off to brush her teeth and Noah turned to me and said, “Madison is so pretty, isn’t she?” Now I don’t remember ever gazing admiringly at my little brother. At least not at eleven. When I was eleven he was nine and it seems to me that if I gazed at him at all, it was with smoldering resentment.
Noah goes out of his way to help Madison (most of the time) and is willing to slow down and pay attention to her (most of the time) and worries about her well-bring (pretty much all of the time). He shares with her way more than my sister ever shared with me (are you listening, Erica, you mean old big sister?) right down to buying her candy at gym class instead of eating it all himself.
For her part, Madison revels in having an older brother. As evidenced by the gym class, she leans on him a lot. She is very proud to claim him and brags on him often to grown-ups who haven’t had the good fortune to meet him. “I have a brother named Noah,” she says. “He has a paper route!”
I was so sad about not having kids as close together as I wanted because I was afraid they would NOT be close and I think they are closer than they would be if Madison had arrived when Noah was four going on five like I planned. I know you can’t predict these things and that Noah’s natural tendency to be nurturing helps things along a whole lot so I’m not quite ready to tell everyone that every 7-years apart sibling pair is going to be perfect. Plus Noah hasn’t actually entered the teen years yet and I’m sure that changes things but so far, so good.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, that boy is sweet.
I think you’re right about the spacing. It’s totally different and I do not buy the idea that siblings won’t be close if they’re not 2 years apart (that’s the general consensus in my inlaws’ minds). Every family is different, but I think it’s a lot harder for them to be close when they’re close in age.
That’s so lovely to read.
Thank you for writing this, Dawn! I am in the middle of a huge pity-party for myself because our kids will likely be pretty far apart. I was the third of siblings four and seven years older than me, and I was lonely a lot–they were too old to play with me most of the time and after they left for college I was alone with my parents (ugh). But I forgot that there were good things about it, too, like getting to do more grown-up things with my sibs than kids my age and not having to wonder what things would be like later. And I did LOVE having an older brother. It’s really a mixed bag, isn’t it?
W/ a brother like Noah I’d be worried about someone co-opting him! Heck “I” want him!LOL
“He has a tougher time figuring out the gentle manipulation it takes to get a small, nervous child to do stuff” You know…I did too which is why I found myself up on the play structure (I was the only adult up there and I think I embarrased my husband) when K was little because she was too nervous to be by herself. My husband was much better at gently encouraging her to be braver or try something out.
I feel exactly the same way, as you probably know.
He is a wonderful young man! I think about spacing sometimes and I think it all works out- for everyone bc it is what it is. Yr blessed to have that gem of a son though…At his age now he could be so not like he is! Yr great parents and they both are gorgeous souls!
My son and daughter ae 2,5 years apart but their interaction is qutie the same. he protects and shares and learns and she brags and looks up.. Someone once told me that having a boy first and a girl later would give the least argueing no idea if that is true but they don’t argue that much…
I’m sure it varies by personality and by personality pairings, but it seems like there’s a line somewhere when the older one is more likely to look upon the younger one as an object of care rather than competition. My brother and I are 5.5 years apart and I hadn’t made it to that line yet!
But I also think all sibling relationships depend quite a lot on how the siblings (as a “community”–even of two) are parented, you know? I think my parents’ knee-jerk style of parenting when sibling rivalry came along was All Wrong, complicating things further between my brother and me.
I am hoping that my girls will get along because they are so different (so far). I am hoping that gives them plenty of space for themselves and lessens the need to compete.
But I am also studying up on everything I can get my hands on about siblings and parenting them to best facilitate a good relationship. I know you can’t make them be BFFs or anything, but I do think parenting matters.
We will see what we will see.
“I just resented them for getting in the way of my true destiny as an only child”
Oh, yes. This was me. I still maintain that I would have made a happy only child, or even a youngest child. I didn’t at all care for having a younger brother and sister, but part of me always longed for an older brother. I think I imagined he’d be just like Noah.
p.s.
Which means, you must be doing something right!
I always love hearing this, as you know, and I’m pretty sure I told you when I first met Noah that I think he’s awesome.
What a sweet post. And reassuring to me as I am pregnant with my third and my oldest will be 7 years older than the new baby. My second will be 4.5 years older. I am so curious how the dynamic will work. Right now the unborn one is fascinating and all potentially good to both kids. We’ll see how reality plays out.
And I totally would have been a great only child. I still remember thinking it was awesome when my brother went away with some friends for 6 weeks when he was 11 and I was 15.
This is beautiful. They have a wonderful relationship and that is awesome. I have been worried about my own children getting along and being close, who will possibly be 4-6 years age difference depending on when we complete our adoption. My sister and I were 8 years apart and didn’t get along at all until I was in my early 20s.
The best things aren’t usually planned. But I think you got lucky with that Boy of yours! My son only loves other kids siblings!
My dear, I only WISH I had that kind of spacing between my kids. My eldest son will be 23 next month; the middle son will be 13 in June, and the last brother will be 5 in August. I didn’t plan for that to happen, but all I can say is that God must have a sense of humor. The two older boys are FINALLY getting along and most of that is due to their love of music. The middle and youngest are at each other’s throats constantly, but love the other anyway. The eldest didn’t want anything to do with the youngest as he is from a second marriage, but they are close now.
My own oldest brother is ten years older and I adore him. My youngest brother is 9 years younger and I love him to death.
I love it when my kids surprise me - in a good way. And when they are sweet to each other like that, it just melts my heart and more than makes up for the days when they beat the crap out of each other.