The Family That Has It Harder Than Us
1997 was an exciting year. “Titanic” taught us all to drop the “the” from the boat’s name. People spouting catchphrases from “Seinfeld” were still hip and cool. The birth of Michael Jackson’s son gave us all hope that he was back on the road to normalcy and good music.* And on November 19th, a central Iowa family with the last name McCaughey gave birth to seven babies, a number high enough to warrant the invention of the term “septuplets.”
In 1997, I really didn’t care about the septuplets. I have vague memories of seeing rows of satellite television news trucks lined up outside the hospital anxiously awaiting their arrival, but that’s about it. I was in college at the time, and had bigger things to worry about like remembering when I had to arrive to marching band on Saturday, and determining which pizza places were cheap, delivered to the dorms late at night, and weren’t Home Team Pizza. My sole opinion on the matter was disdain for the family for accepting so much media attention at the time of this life-altering event. I think it’s awful that someone would parade his child across the media for the world to see in a blatantly desperate attempt to draw attention to himself.
The national interest in the septuplets has died substantially, but since they still live just outside of Des Moines, we receive regular local media updates, usually around their birthdays. I ignored these updates until Abbie came. Suddenly hearing stories about other people’s children, their development, their struggles, and their secrets for removing died spit up from the carpet became a lot more interesting.
Now that we have twins coming, any story about multiple births catches my attention. When I saw their birthday report in the local newspaper yesterday (link) I read it from front to back. I thought I might find some useful lessons or at least interesting information nuggets buried inside, especially since they have a daughter who’s two years older than their multiples. Never mind that the parents of septuplets would rightly laugh at our toils and refer to us as “slackers.”
Instead I found some nuggets that violated my parenting sense, things that I would never do as a parent of twins, lessons I learned from several hours, at least two or three, spent reading one book about parenting multiples. First, one of the boys is named after the father, Kenny Jr. That seems like a horrible way to ensure that the other children will always see that one child as the favorite. I would think that every time that boy gets some privilege, maybe the biggest piece of cake or the first chance to wreck the family car, favoritism would arise. I have a hard enough time carrying our family tradition of giving one of the twins my first name as a middle name. Hopefully our plot to give the other twin the middle name “Allyn,” which is a combination of Ellie’s middle name and her father and grandfather’s names, will blunt that fury.
Second, the newspaper insists on labeling the children. There’s the “athletic” one, the “tomboy,” the “academic” one, the “stinky” one. That book I read was very clear on this; do not label your twins. Labels tend to pigeonhole the children into roles. What if the athletic one wants to try an art class, or the academic one wants to try basketball, or the stinky one wants to bathe? Plus labels tend to influence your parenting. If you label one baby as the “fussy” one, that child may get unwarranted extra attention to preempt the fussiness, cheating the other of attention. The book did not explain what to do if one child is genuinely fussier than the other. Perhaps we’ll call him the non-fussy one to avoid labels. Hopefully the parents don’t use the same labels as the media elites.
Third, there’s the fact that the kids are all in separate classrooms. The book I read was very clear, multiples should always be in the same classroom in school unless there’s a good reason to separate them. Multiples tend to be calmer and more focused near each other, especially when starting a life-changing event like school. Of course, the mother goes on to explain, "When they're all in the same place, it's kind of like the group mentality kicks in. "They're conniving together and get into more mischief. If it's just one, they're the best-behaved kids on the planet.”
So maybe the mother knows what she’s doing and I should just shut up with my one book of experience. Good luck to their family. And good luck keeping seven children in separate classrooms when they start middle school in a small town.
* He wasn’t.
In 1997, I really didn’t care about the septuplets. I have vague memories of seeing rows of satellite television news trucks lined up outside the hospital anxiously awaiting their arrival, but that’s about it. I was in college at the time, and had bigger things to worry about like remembering when I had to arrive to marching band on Saturday, and determining which pizza places were cheap, delivered to the dorms late at night, and weren’t Home Team Pizza. My sole opinion on the matter was disdain for the family for accepting so much media attention at the time of this life-altering event. I think it’s awful that someone would parade his child across the media for the world to see in a blatantly desperate attempt to draw attention to himself.
The national interest in the septuplets has died substantially, but since they still live just outside of Des Moines, we receive regular local media updates, usually around their birthdays. I ignored these updates until Abbie came. Suddenly hearing stories about other people’s children, their development, their struggles, and their secrets for removing died spit up from the carpet became a lot more interesting.
Now that we have twins coming, any story about multiple births catches my attention. When I saw their birthday report in the local newspaper yesterday (link) I read it from front to back. I thought I might find some useful lessons or at least interesting information nuggets buried inside, especially since they have a daughter who’s two years older than their multiples. Never mind that the parents of septuplets would rightly laugh at our toils and refer to us as “slackers.”
Instead I found some nuggets that violated my parenting sense, things that I would never do as a parent of twins, lessons I learned from several hours, at least two or three, spent reading one book about parenting multiples. First, one of the boys is named after the father, Kenny Jr. That seems like a horrible way to ensure that the other children will always see that one child as the favorite. I would think that every time that boy gets some privilege, maybe the biggest piece of cake or the first chance to wreck the family car, favoritism would arise. I have a hard enough time carrying our family tradition of giving one of the twins my first name as a middle name. Hopefully our plot to give the other twin the middle name “Allyn,” which is a combination of Ellie’s middle name and her father and grandfather’s names, will blunt that fury.
Second, the newspaper insists on labeling the children. There’s the “athletic” one, the “tomboy,” the “academic” one, the “stinky” one. That book I read was very clear on this; do not label your twins. Labels tend to pigeonhole the children into roles. What if the athletic one wants to try an art class, or the academic one wants to try basketball, or the stinky one wants to bathe? Plus labels tend to influence your parenting. If you label one baby as the “fussy” one, that child may get unwarranted extra attention to preempt the fussiness, cheating the other of attention. The book did not explain what to do if one child is genuinely fussier than the other. Perhaps we’ll call him the non-fussy one to avoid labels. Hopefully the parents don’t use the same labels as the media elites.
Third, there’s the fact that the kids are all in separate classrooms. The book I read was very clear, multiples should always be in the same classroom in school unless there’s a good reason to separate them. Multiples tend to be calmer and more focused near each other, especially when starting a life-changing event like school. Of course, the mother goes on to explain, "When they're all in the same place, it's kind of like the group mentality kicks in. "They're conniving together and get into more mischief. If it's just one, they're the best-behaved kids on the planet.”
So maybe the mother knows what she’s doing and I should just shut up with my one book of experience. Good luck to their family. And good luck keeping seven children in separate classrooms when they start middle school in a small town.
* He wasn’t.
posted by Matt at
9:59 PM
1 Comments:
Hmmm...interesting on the classroom thing. I am the assistant principal at an elementary school, and we always allow the parents to choose whether they want the children together or separate. We have one 5th grade set of boy triplets & one K set of boy twins in the same class, and one set of 5th grade girl twins, K boy twins, and 2nd grade b/g twins in separate classes. It's always been up to the parents. When I found out I was expecting twins, I wondered what I would do with them when they start school, but I have never read any literature on it. I guess parents probably know their own children best. One of our parents wanted theirs in different classes because they get caught up in being competitive (friends, grades, etc.). Another parent wanted hers in the same because one of her little boys has developmental delays and the other little boy is sort of his protector, his voice. I have no idea where I stand on this. I guess time will tell.
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Amy, at 11:08 AM
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