Friday, July 18, 2008

Mommy Guilt

Is it just the natural order of things to constantly worry about being "fair" and "equal" with your children when you have more than one? Part of it may be that I had (have) huge issues with how fairly I was treated by my parents. That is a story for another day, but it has left me feeling guilty about how I treat my boys. I know that I am much more physically affectionate with Ben: he sits on my lap, I still carry him sometimes, we exchange lots of kisses... Joey won't sit still when he's on my lap, is obviously too big to carry, and we do kisses but not as frequently. But Joey I think gets more positive verbal affection than Ben. Joe is my laid-back, smart, relatively calm, funny guy. Ben is my high-strung, sometimes angry, really cute funny guy. Sometimes I feel like all I do is complain about Ben's problems and praise Joey when that is not really how life is. Joey can tend to be whiny. Ben cracks me up with how he pronounces things still. They are just so different and have such different needs that I don't think I'll ever be able to treat them "equally." Is that ok? Are they going to grow up and hate each other? Or me? Do they even notice or care?

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