quadruple standard

Remember when you were a kid and your parents seemed like they were a lot nicer to one of your brothers and sisters than they were to you?

Remember how they gave all of their attention to the baby and treated you like a servant, making you throw away the baby's poopy diapers?

Remember how you swore you'd never be like that when you grew up and were a parent?

Well, if you're like me, you're eating your words right about now. Because in our house, at least, a quadruple standard exists. The severity of mom's reaction to a child's annoyingness is inversely proportional to that child's age. When Bryce screams and freaks out because he can't beat a level on Lego Star Wars, Mom turns off the playstation and hides the disc. When Annie screams and freaks out because Isaac wants to play dolls with her, Mom threatens her with a time-out if she doesn't play nicely with her little brother. When Isaac screams and freaks out when he can't get Darth Maul to hold his lightsaber in exactly the right way, Mom positions it in his hand over and over again and only steers him towards a different toy after about the 20th attempt. When Maren screams and freaks out, Mom drops everything she's doing and cuddles her until she feels better.

Is it fair? Of course not. It's also not fair that I feel resentful toward Bryce and Annie whenever they argue or complain or demand my attention incessantly, but rarely feel that way toward Isaac, and never feel anything but tenderness toward Maren. I've been feeling guilty over the last few days about this situation. Having Maren has been total bliss for me, but I think it's been sort of hard on the other kids. There's just a lot less of me to go around than there was before, and the me they get is a lot more likely to be a cranky me.

I wish I had a way to rectify the quadruple standard, or at least to help myself feel less guilty about it. I mean, I think it's normal to treat a 4yo and a 6yo differently than a newborn, but I wish that I were as nice to the big kids as I am to the baby. When, over the last few years, did my patience wear so thin with the big kids? What has happened that makes me short-tempered with them, but allows me to still be so sweet to my baby, who places the most annoying demands (like wanting to be held all the time and waking me up multiple times at night) on me?

Am I the only one who feels this way?

--originally published 1/13/07