Family Ties
Published 12:00 am Saturday, February 5, 2000
MARY ANN FITZMORRIS / L’Observateur / February 5, 2000
One of my friends has just complicated her life in the most dramatic and irrevocable way. After spending nine years feeling guilty about having only one child, fate has moved her into the more complex league of balancing two children.
Soon she will discover the guilt associated with denying companionship to a child pales in comparison to the psychological self-flagellation a parent can work up over issues like equal time, equal justice and equal opportunity. (Not to be confused with the boring government concept.)No, equal opportunity means making sure each child has exactly the same amount of play time with the barking bottle opener. (You read correctly.) Yes, folks, for reasons too complex to explain, my husband recently came into possession of a bottle opener that barks, sent to him by a company that makes alcoholic lemonade. How fitting.Imagine the hours of fun that can be had with a barking bottle opener! On a recent trip in the car, my husband had the pleasure of keeping track of the whereabouts of the bottle opener to make certain neither child had it for one bark longer than the other. After he called, “Pass it!” a few times, a game within a game ensued, as the kids began trying to figure out how he divided the time.
My daughter queried, “Daddy, are you counting the barks?” “I’m not telling,” he replied mysteriously. I started to chuckle as I thought of my friend and how there would now be many such trivialities associated with her new addition, although it’s safe to conclude none will involve a barking bottle opener.
Equal opportunity turns Christmas into one big math problem for parents, as they are careful not to appear to favor either child: counting number of gifts, evenly dividing expense and comparing actual package size.
Equal opportunity for children had to be the original meaning of portion control. My mother, employing wisdom to make Solomon proud, settled that one deftly by ruling that one kid divides the pie and the other picks first. Talk about your perfect half fractions!And lastly, equal opportunity means allocating time spent in the coveted front seat. This requires mom to assign the operation of the vehicle second priority – behind the task of dividing time and mileage into equal parts for each child.
Such problems are minor compared with the psychological dynamite buried in the issues of equal justice. My daughter is the self-appointed bailiff here. She carefully measures punishment time served to be sure big brother hasn’t gotten away with anything.
When she is not timing penance, she calculates love. I have actually been asked the question, “Which one of us do you love the best?” My reply shocks her. “That would be the one I hate the least. This changes constantly. Sometimes you, sometimes him. If I’m mad at him, I love you more. Then I’m mad at you, and I love him more. See?”She walks off deep in thought, comforted by the knowledge that he is definitely more irritating. . . at least right now.But none of these issues wears me out more than equal time. This one is definitely more manageable at home, but at school there is no way to keep up. Holiday parties offer mom some real exercise.There is a shortcut trench worn in the schoolyard grass from moms dividing themselves equally between classes. On holidays it’s a busy, fast-moving highway, the same moms going back and forth like me, always arriving just after the kid did something they needed to see.
At Christmas I overheard a familiar conversation between a boy and his exhausted mother. “What? You have to go back to her party? You just got here! You spend more time over there than you do here!” It’s times like these I think having a houseful of kids is actually easier. They expect so much less. They eat things that are green because that’s what’s for dinner, and they’re happy to have it. They’re happy to have a bed to sleep in. It doesn’t even matter that there are three other people in it.
Right?
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