“Our four year
old daughter was already well established at her nursery school when our baby
son was born. We hoped this would help her deal with her new brother. However,
she seems to manage no better than a 2 year old. Whenever I am feeding the baby
she demands attention or manages to fall over or break something. My sister had
her second child when the first was only just two and we hoped that by waiting
the extra two years it would be easier. We are both worn out trying to do the
best”.
Mr
and Mrs J.K.
As parents or
would-be parents we may have many good reasons for wanting two or more
children. Rather surprisingly, we may expect our children to agree with them.
“Only children get spoiled” or “only children are lonely” is a refrain we often
repeat when in the process of turning our one-and-only child into a sibling. In
fact, only children are under-represented in child guidance clinics. Perhaps as
grown-up siblings we cannot help repeating through childbearing an ordeal we
were forced to undergo as children . Of course siblings can end up enjoying
important relationships and benefiting from each other. This does not happen in
every case though.
For many
children there is no logic in adding to the family. At best it is a meaningless
duplication, an aberrant act of procreative delinquency by otherwise reasonable
parents. At worst it is a devastating act of betrayal. If you are really
loveable and loving why should your parents need another child? Family albums
and anecdotes are full of older children either deteriorating into pale shadows
of their former selves, becoming aggressive or regressed, or turning into
miniature parents under a principle of “If you can’t beat them, join them”.
The attempt to
deal with feelings of being displaced by becoming the little parent can
sometimes be misconstrued. “Oh Mary doesn’t mind about the baby at all, she
just loves her. She can’t do enough for her” smiles one mother, whilst Mary desperately
tries to pretend she is the real parent, fetching and carrying everything the
baby needs. However, Mary gets rewarded by her family for dealing with her
despair in that way whilst Andrew, who pushes his brother over and says “Can we
put him out for the dustman to take away” might not gain such sympathy.
However, both children are trying in their different way to deal with a major
transformation of their universe.
One child,
looking intently at his new rival, decides it must be baby behaviour that is
wanted. He too can be a baby if that will make his parents get rid of the
newcomer. He can wet his nappies, only drink from a bottle, and give up
speaking proper sentences. He cannot believe his new growing independence is
what is desired in the face of this pampered newcomer. Another child, perhaps,
like the J.K.’s 4 year old, fights for her previous position and for attention.
The sight of the new baby being fed is particularly painful. It stirs up the
memory of the older child’s babyhood experience, a unique closeness to the
mother. In the animal kingdom this is also a painful sight. Being deprived of
the feeding mother could mean starvation.
Perhaps before
Mrs J.K. feeds the baby she can have planned something for the older child to
do. Perhaps her husband can be of special help here in spending time with the
older one. There is no way that distress could or should be done away with
though. If we think of the processes that follow a bereavement it can help us
feel in touch with the displaced firstborn. The firstborn has lost his
position, his particular relationship. Anger and despair follow this loss.
Sometimes this is turned against the unfortunate baby making parents punitive;
sometimes this is turned against the self leading to a deterioration in
development. With good enough handling it will settle but never disappear.
If we look into
an infant school, a junior school or a secondary school playground, we will see
sibling rivalries re-enacted with classmates. The original pain of “Who is
loved most?” is transformed into a host of other measurements, who is biggest,
strongest, prettiest, cleverest. Where a child has a learning disabled sibling
it can turn into “who is illest?” Within the class, the competing claims made
for the teacher’s attention made Anna Freud note the way home rivalries were
re-enacted at school.
Let us look at
an older setting, a staffroom in a higher education establishment. Two senior
staff members in their forties and fifties are having a heated discussion.
Fragments of their conversation can be heard at the other end of the room. “If
he thinks he can just appear and have things go his way after all the years I
have put in”… “Hasn’t he heard of reinventing the wheel?” “As if we haven’t got
enough on our plate without having to settle him in.” The discussion was about
a new staff member who had recently been appointed. Feelings about the new baby
reappear at every age. Sometimes they are clearly linked, as with the example
above, sometimes they are hidden in such issues as the new idea, the new job,
the new home, the new school.
How can parents
make this process less painful? Understanding that the new arrival will be a
source of pain as well as pleasure for their existing children is the first
step. Some children’s books that show the new baby in a mixed light can be
helpful here. Pictures of the new baby knocking over the toddler’s tower of
blocks can be easier to bear than a never-ending diet of “Isn’t it wonderful,
we’re all going to have a baby”. The toddler is not going to have a baby. He is
not biologically capable. It is the parents who are. Separate time for the
older one while the youngest is sleeping can also help together with the
sympathy of both parents for what the oldest is feeling.
What can make it
harder? If the parents did not experience a feeling that their sibling rivalry
was manageable when they were children they can find it harder having two or
more dependent beings asking for something at the same time. These parents
manage best at one-to-one relationships with their children. So long as they
understand that they are angry and exhausted because of their own difficulty
something more hopeful will be transmitted to their children. If a parent is
particularly identified with their own experience of having been a second born
they might feel less sympathetic to the hurt oldest one and vice versa.
Sibling rivalry
reappears at each developmental stage. Just as the oldest child gets used to a
sleeping baby, the baby starts sitting up. Then the baby talks and walks. Each
new change from the youngest restirs up the original feelings of displacement
and this can continue through all the stages of life, though with pleasure and
love added when the process is more understood.
Where negative
feelings between siblings show no signs of lessening it may be that help is
needed.