There is occasionally a bit of chat on the parenting subject about favourite children. Is there a favourite in your family? Were you the favourite? How do you behave if you find that one of your children becomes your favourite?
I am always baffled by this. Of course you have a favourite child: the favourite child is whichever one is not being a total fucking pain in your arse at that moment.
This is a way of saying that my son is going through some kind of change at the moment. I am hoping that he will change into a kitten or a puppy or a Yves Saint Laurent handbag. But the chances are that he is just going to change into a 3 year-old. He’s having tantrums, he’s a nightmare at bedtime and a total jerk about pretty much everything.
Underneath it all – for me – is a sense of outrage and injustice: hang on, I thought he was easy now? He’s two and a half, isn’t it supposed to be sort of plain-sailing?
Life was hard when Sam wasn’t walking or talking and when he started doing those things and cheered up a bit I went “Thank God”, forgetting that children aren’t linear like that – it’s not just really, really, really hard and then suddenly easy for ever. It’s rocky and unpredictable. My children are like a cosine wave – up and down, up and down; parenting them is like going for a walk on a sunny day and then suddenly it clouds over, then it rains, then it hails, then it fucking snows and you’re shivering on the side of a hillside in only a t-shirt thinking “Oh my god, we’re all going to die,” and then the sun comes out again.
It doesn’t make it easier to deal with, knowing that. It’s shit, we’re all miserable. Sometimes my husband and I eye each other wordlessly, like we’re standing in the middle of Mogadishu without passports. Or guns.
Kitty, on the other hand, apart from having a neuroses about me suddenly disappearing (“Stay where I can see you!!”) is in an upswing of her cosine wave, mostly spreading a bit of sunshine wherever she goes. So in a fit of gratitude and insanity I bought her a 2 foot Bashful Bunny for Christmas because she mentioned she wanted a “big bunny toy”.
What? I never said I was perfect.
Giant Bashful Bunny. About a thousand pounds. Worth it.
I don’t like two year olds. The terrible twos thing is utterly true. I’m sure it’s all some very essential developmental phase that they have to go through to come the other side as vaguely normal human beings, but it is no fun. On the plus side they are highly amusing when you’ve had a drink and they belong to someone else.
We have a much smaller bunny like that called Neil. I can’t remember why…..
I think having a favourite is natural. Something that you can’t help, but it up to you how you act on it, compensate, over compensate, or just be aware of it. I’ve got three brothers. Everyone always thought/said, must be nice being the only girl. Truth is I was completely invisible. Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles completely obsessed with my brothers. Boys… I remember them grabbing my friends saying “Come- you must meet Victoria’s brothers….” But, I had a conversation with my mother about it and she said – “it is possible just to love people in different ways”. I absolutely accept this – different sorts of feelings. It has made me stronger, independent, self sufficient, reliant on no one! And I am more than happy to leave them to it and just get on with my life. Strange thing is exactly the same was done to my mother, so also this can continue for generations….:0)
Vicki thank you for this very touching comment
I want that bunny….
don’t we all babez
Esther, Esther, Esther, thank you for making me feel normal and not a total fucking monster. My 5 year old is just such a TOTAL ARSE and has been since he turned 2. He is what is termed in this day and age as ‘spirited’ (read ‘a fucking nightmare’) and it is endless.
“He’ll get better and then you’ll miss this time” people say. I want to poke these people in the eye and kick them in the shin.
My favourite is my 3 year old, who has always been a bloody delight from the word go. How can you NOT favour the easy ones?! But I haven’t dared express this to ANYBODY, especially not the judgemental mothers at school who look at my 5 year old like he has a disease that he will pass on to their darling offspring – IT’S NAUGHTINESS, NOT FUCKIN’ EBOLA!!! Raaaaaaah!!!!!!
Thank you, you are a total gem. X
Natalie thank you for this hilarious and refreshingly honest comment xxxx
No, no, no! My non-walking non-talking toddler is a total pain in the arse, and some days the only thing which keeps me clinging to sanity is that blog post you wrote last year about how Sam was a changed boy after he could walk & talk. Then you go & write this! Take it back!
Lindsay don’t worry – Sam will snap out of it eventually and then I will write about it specially for you. If it’s any consolation Sam was absolutely lovely lovely lovely from when he could walk and talk (17 months) until just now (2yr 5 months)… xx
Gus was bliss from 15mths to 2.5. Then we just had to learn to deal with “new” Gus. It took some battles but we are a bit more prepared with Joni. And then she’s all different and angry about much more bizarre things. Anyway, just wanted to say hi and let you know I’m lurking and reading quietly.
You know that the hell is meant to be from 2.5 to 3.5, right? Then it’s all cool.
thanks xxx
I so hope that’s true. My eldest is 3 in January, and, as much as I love him, he is a total arse. And incredibly mean to his baby sister. I’ve actually had to take a break from replying to your comment to get him off her back because “NO you can’t ride her like a horse! How many times?!”
Our 2 year old is cranky and offended by everything we do and he is making general home happiness IMPOSSIBLE. And our 9 month old is SPROUTING A MOUTHFUL OF TEETH. And we just MOVED HOUSE. And my mother in law is WICKED. My husband and I have a catch cry “someone in our house is always crying”. When will all children just be pleasant???? I know it’s first world problems but it is dementing nonetheless. So happy to read this post and its comments.
I never had the “terrible twos” so I spent 12 months congratulating myself on what an excellent mother I was to my twin girls. Obviously my superior parenting meant that we’d swerved this strange mess of biting and tantrums and general arseholery. Not so. We had it all from 3 to 4 (ish) which meant tantrums and general arseholery with the added cognitive sophistication of children who were a year older. And who took it in turns. When I wasn’t locking myself in the bathroom from them I was losing my mind and ringing my husband at work and hissing spleen at him for not suffering it. Dark times.
They all go through it at some point, whether it’s at two or three or four, and I just used to remind myself that the mandate of parenthood, along with keeping them alive, is to turn them somehow into nice people. This notion somehow helped keep me on the ledge when I was reasoning with two screeching 4 year olds at a bus stop.
What gets my goat is the people (well, women. It’s always women. Blokes never pull this spiteful shit) who fall over themselves to say “you wait until they’re five/seven/teenagers”. There’s always some all-seeing-eye in mum jeans who wants to burst your bubble once you’ve come out of the other side. I’ve made it my role in life to say to other mothers “it gets better” because I’ve found it to be true. Nothing is as bad as the first two weeks with premature twins. And nine year olds are a delight.
Thank you for this excellent and reassuring comment, Kit. Kitty also gave us absolute hell when she turned 4, having skipped out the terrible twos completely.