By Beck
The Baby now has a one hour nursery school session each week, which she’s really enjoying. Parents are allowed to stay and sit on the tiny, child-sized stools in the background – or they can go, have ONE HOUR to themselves while the little goobers sing The More We Get Together and do VERY specific crafts.
On her first week, I thought that I’d stay and see how she handled the new routine, sitting just out of her eyeshot. When they marched the three year olds over to the craft table, it all looked a bit short-handed, so I walked over to see if they needed another pair of hands. The Baby looked at me, oddly.
Oh dear, I thought inwardly. Has she been missing me all this time? Did she think she was alone? I walked over to her and placed my hand reassuringly on her shoulder – and she hissed at me “MAMA! WHY ARE YOU HERE? GO HOME RIGHT NOW!”
Well, FINE then.
Once upon a time – back when The Girl was three – this would have hurt my feelings dreadfully. I would have brooded for days over it and now I just think that it was funny, my funny, brave baby and her independence. But being the first means that The Girl has an unique and unenviable ability to cut my heart out that neither of her siblings will ever have – the Boy doesn’t try, with his little boy’s sweetness, and The Baby doesn’t have the ability, because my heart is too weathered as far as the stings and arrows of three year old girls go. But The Girl can hurt me with a glance or a sigh or with one word that was not really even meant for me.
The Girl is a sweet child, kindly-intentioned, hard-working and persnickety, but she also has a sharp, sharp tongue – inherited from ME, I might add – and being my firstborn means that I judge her differently without ever meaning to. If she had hissed at me to leave right now at playgroup, I would probably still be sitting on the steps crying now, six years later. And in the meanwhile we crab and snap at each other and I am weary of it, sore and tired and sad.
For one hour a week, I get to pretend that I am free and unencumbered, running errands or sitting at home reading a magazine and keeping an eye on the clock, my heart constantly whispering to me that soon, soon I will go and get The Baby, that she will be back home chattering and showing me her new songs and her construction paper art. And soon, soon, my oldest child, my dark-haired baby that I held in fear and wonder, will step out the door for good and my heart will not let me forget that, warning me to fix this while I can.
Beck also writes at Frog And Toad Are Still Friends.
You TOO? I thought I was the only one whose oldest child has such a pull. When my first was born I fell head over heels madly in love, almost more so that with my husband. I have loved him with a deep vulnerable kind of love reserved for the first boyfriend, the first baby. And over the years he has had that ability to cut me to the heart. It’s only been in the last year or two that I have become calloused– and he’s 26! (Oh– that doesn’t help you much, does it? Sorry.)
WOW. Actually this made me feel better; that my feelings won’t get hurt so much with the next one. My two year old (25 months!) son shooed me out of his room the other day with a “Mommy go in other room” and then shut the door!!!
Ouch.
At least sometimes he still wants to snuggle.
I have been thinking about this very thing the past few weeks. Thank you for writing about it.
I have higher expectations for my first-born…unfortunately for her. She often told me to get lost as a toddler but it didn’t hurt my feelings. I knew she said it because she knew I’d be back for her.
That last line struck something in me though. I need to look at those expectations and see if I’m hurting my relationship with my daughter.
Allie’s voice teacher asked me (presumably because I sing?) why I wasn’t helping Allie with her rehearsing. And I told her simply, “I can’t. I just can’t. We end up barking at each other and tears are inevitable and it’s just not worth it.”
Allie and I have always had a unique ability to cut each other to the quick with words that seemed innocuous enough when we said them. That might in fact be harmless, spoken by someone else. I thought it was a mother/daughter phenomenon. But she IS my first born and that makes me wonder. Another beautiful post, dear.
The Pie is the QUEEN of rejection. She’s an equal-opportunity rejector, spreading her rejection-favours to daddy, mama, her peers, and even her grandmothers, wherever the rejection-impulse of the moment takes her. For instance, last night she asked in what SEEMED like a hopeful tone of voice, if she would be staying home with me today. “No,” I answered, “you have preschool tomorrow.”
“Hooray!” she replied. “I love preschool!”
Okay, then.
I’m the firstborn in my family, so I have an interesting perspective on my oldest. I struggle to not overlook her, as I struggle to deal with the urgent needs of her younger siblings. And when I look back at my growing up years, I can see that my parents struggled with that as well.
Both of my kids have always been like, “Well, bye, Mom!” when I took them to school. It never hurt my feelings, because I was glad they were happy to stay there rather than weeping for me, but I kind of did wish Miss Pink had wanted me to stay a LITTLE while on the first day of kindergarten. I obediently left, though.
She can hurt my feelings other ways, though. Now I know I probably did the same to my mom; we’re also a lot alike.
Being a parent really has made me re-examine my childhood from a(many) new perspective(s). I wonder now what I did to wound my mother, all the while brooding on what SHE had done to ME.
I have two boys, and my oldest did exactly the kinds of things your Baby is doing to you now, so I had to toughen up in a hurry. It’s a good thing too, because my second son is WAY better at wrapping Mom around his little finger. If he’d been my first, I would have been in trouble!
Regardless of personality, though, there is definitely something about the firstborn, isn’t there? They are always marking out new territory in our hearts with every new “first.” How can that not have a powerful effect on a Mom?
Great post! Wise and thought-provoking, as always.
And before she gets to be a teenager and then all hell really breaks loose.
But remember that even if you break apart for a short while she will be back. Sometimes we butt heads the most with the person we are most alike. But I’m sure you already gathered that.
I try not to be too tough on my firstborn though I know I sometimes expect too much from him. It isn’t fair. And I must continue to remind myself of that.
When I went into the preschool to pick up my oldest on his first day he saw me and ran in the opposite direction yelling, “I don’t want to go home! Go away! I’m staying here!” I was a little sad (okay, a lot), but tried not to let it get to me though every other child in the room was running lovingly into their mom or dad’s arms.
*sniff, sniff*
A friend of mine, with kids similar ages to yours, was describing the same thing to me just the other day.
And fix it we must, with construction paper and baking projects. It’s getting better. I kinda like kids again.
I remember the first time my oldest turned around and said, “you can leave now Mommy”… I did not cry or become sad, I thought ‘Oh thank goodness’ :-p
wow so it is a first born ability to ripe a mother’s heart old … it has happened so many times.
My sister (our parents’ first born) jokes that they got all of the parenting kinks out with her and my brother and then got it right with me. Ha.
Sometimes I’m pretty sure she’s not kidding. Then my mom will say something like, “I wish I’d known how HARD going from two to three kids would be.” And I say HELLO! third child, sitting right here! Good times. All of the dysfunction that makes a family so fun.
You put this beautifully, of course, and I feel so comforted that I’m not the only one who gets emotionally entangled with my firstborn, more so than the others! Man, I bet his preschool teacher thought I was a MESS. 🙂
Well now I’m all depressed. There’s this constant feeling in the air these days that everything is coming to an end. Do you feel it too?
It is hard being a parent. I am one of three and it is alot of work. When my daughter left me to get on the bus the first day of school it brought tears to my eyes it was like she was just ready. I guess it is better than her cry in and not wanting to go at all. Now she just gives me a kiss and a hug and says love you mom and runs to the bus it is so cute. Thank you for sharing your story.
The bites of freedom are so great, but like you, it does make me look forward to the time when I will have lots more, possibly unwanted, freedom and miss all the encumbrances.
My first born turned 30 this week. I am so grateful that he is tenderhearted because even though I have finally learned to act like I’m not still waiting for his recognition and acceptance every time we meet- I wait for it. And he always gives it- sometimes with less alacrity than others. I don’t think this EVER goes away, ladies.
Guard your hearts.
I don’t know why…but my heart was heavy as I read along…somehow it dawns onto me that mine (being boys) will step out of the door, out of my arms, out of my reach sooner than I could imagine….
Oh, my goodness, BECK! You just described my relationship with MY oldest perfectly. She’s almost 14 and I think EXACTLY the same things, still.
Some days I want to shrug and say, “I’m too tired to think about it, oh, well -” but I simply cannot do it –
I am determined every day to MAKE THIS WORK. I have cried in bed, I’ve leaned my weary head upon the steering wheel until I had the will to go back in and “deal with it,” I’ve filled pages of journals and prayed endlessly.
And this is a lovely, sweet-natured, gracious little slip of a girl, the one I get compliments on constantly. Is it me? Is it her? Is it us? Or is it just the curse of the firstborn, the doom of mother-daughter relationships throughout the teen years?
I’m hopeful that love and sheer determination will result in friendship one day. She’s a sweet child, and honestly I think she probably feels exactly the same way I do, neither of us sure of what to say or how or what in the world the other must be thinking…
but still longing to be loved, liked, and understood.
And maybe therein lies the connection…
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