Okay, so here’s another tricky one. The group versus the individual.
When the kids were all small, say, 7, 5, 3, and 1, we did almost everything as a group. Most of the things we did were driven by the interests of kid #1. Number 2 was usually pretty happy to go along with whatever number 1 wanted to do, at least, happier than number 1 would have been to do the reverse, and the little ones did their thing wherever. Poor number 4 was virtually raised at gyms and swimming pools, and she spent the bulk of her naptime in her carseat. I felt a fair bit of guilt about it, but at least we were all together.
Now things are different. The big kids, ages 11 and 13, can stay home alone, and can also watch whichever of the little kids doesn’t want to go with mom. Which is great. Totally liberating, and much, much easier than it was when I had to organize around naps, diapers, finger foods and toddler attention spans. These days, I just hop into the car and announce my departure, taking whomever needs to go.
Trouble is, I now have to balance the needs of the group over the needs of each individual. I no longer make group decisions with impunity. I can’t just announce what we’re doing, or where we’re going. I now have four children in the house who each have very active social lives, and who make their own plans. Darn them. Where once I had one, and then two children to discuss things with, I now have four.
And in my efforts to raise independent, competent, listened-to, and respected individuals, I have created quite the ongoing issue. I try to listen to the needs of each of them, while at the same time thinking of what would work best for us all. Most of the time, they’re pretty good with being flexible, but the times that they aren’t are hard.
An example of this friction is when one of the older kids has a friend over. Invariably, a younger sibling wants to be included in their activities. The older kid has long since passed the stage of suffering the little one gladly, and just wants a bit of alone time with the friend. What’s a mom to do? I feel for both of the parties involved. So I waver. Some days I insist that everyone be included, other days I let bedroom doors stay shut. Same with the “tagging along” issue. Some times I make them take the sib, other times I don’t. Depending on who I’m most identifying with, or who is more needy at that time.
I know families that are all about togetherness. I err on the side of allowing for individual differences. Maybe even at the cost of family life. I don’t insist that the kids attend sibling sporting events, or even sibling birthday parties (except for family ones). I don’t expect the 13-year old to want to go on outings, or for a family bike ride, I know that painting pottery is fun for the girls and one of the boys, but not the other, and that a trip to Fort Whyte is only fun for me.
So we don’t often do things as a complete unit anymore.
In an effort to allow for, and encourage, individuality, I’ve created a noisy, sometimes cumbersome psuedo-democracy peopled with still-growing, still-learning not-always-able-to-see-the-other-person’s-point-of-view individuals, all crowing to have their voices heard. It would be a lot easier right about now to be a little lot more authoritarian in my approach. It would save me time, energy, frustration, and on the surface, I bet things would look smoother.
My gut feeling though, is that these loud-voiced young people are learning valuable lessons from all of this. I have to hear a lot of opinions about many of my decisions, and I spend a fair bit of time explaining my choices instead of just dictating the rules, but all of the kids know that their thoughts count. That’s more important to me than having us all in one place at one time, or on having my word be law. I guess, if I was forced to choose, it would even be more important to me than family harmony. As long as each of the kids feels understood as the person that they are, I’m okay with having to listen to five different points of view on every single topic under the sun.
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It’s taken me 42 accumulated years of parenting to realize something very important. It’s been a slowly dawning realization helped along with the reading of countless psychology books, but I believe it holds true for interactions with everyone, not just children.
team effort 