Comments on: Brotherly, Sisterly Love & Games

By: Lee

Lee — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 18:04:56 +0000

I was so interested in reading this, and I was recently reassured reading Betsy Braun Brown’s parenting book, “Just Tell Me What to Say.” She was talking about how in some cases we just “get” one kid more. They are more like us, we are for some explicable reason just more in sync with them. That is the case with my kids. My son and I are more alike. I get him. Although my daughter and I are very close, I often understand her less – the way she processes things. I feel terrible about it, but it is true. Then the other day we were in the car, and she said out of the blue, “Hayden is more like you. I’m more like Daddy.” I asked her what she meant, why she thought that, she said, “I don’t know.” She’s right. Amazing how smart our kids are. Not that that solves anything. But I do think that we will love our children differently. My parents always said, “We love you both the same, in different ways,” when pressed to declare their favorite. The same, but different, I think that works for me, too.

By: paige

paige — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 14:18:15 +0000

I’ve never seen nor read “Sophie’s Choice” though I know the basic idea–and I do think about that sometimes,and then run away from the thought as fast as I can. I don’t really prefer one to the other (well, sometimes in the moment I do, but not in a meta sense) and I do think they both get the same love, attention and affection from me–but what role does empathy play? I think that’s the question I’m trying to ask.

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 14:02:06 +0000

I still have a hard time understanding what a preference means, really, now that I’m a mom. I got it CLEARLY as a kid; my mom “got” my brother and I was an enigma to her. But I find now that I have to pay attention to my little enigma and I think about her a lot and does that constitute a preference?

Sometimes I like to torment myself by playing Sophie’s Choice. Does anyone else do that, or am I a total crackpot?

By: paige

paige — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 13:53:00 +0000

The thing that I, the classic school girl good-girl overachiever, find mystifying, is that he’s actually GOOD at math. He’s got an intuitive grasp of it…but oh, subtraction. It is NOT his friend. Even though he can do it just fine, fear and panic take over My speech about FDR and nothing to fear, etc., fell on deaf ears (something of a surprise, given his obsession with World War II-era history.) But what I really worry: What’s going to happen when multiplication arrives? I’m going to need to run to the spa, pronto. Ha–as if!

By: millie rossman kidd

millie rossman kidd — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 13:50:54 +0000

I need to count to five and think before I speak too. And I hear you on the dreaded math homework. I’ve spend the last 45 minutes emailing bk and forth with my 7 yo’s teacher trying to come up with a solution for the homework that my darling daughter says “falls out of her backpack”.