How Much Does the First Child Teach About Parenting the Second Child?

When sharing his thoughts about becoming a second-time parent, my son said several times, “I’ve been to the mountaintop.” In other words, he’s scaled the heights of parenting a newborn, and he’s confident in his ability to do it all again. The journey was very instructive. Or was it?

This statement forced me to reflect on my own leap from being a first-time parent who literally knew nothing – I had never changed a diaper, fed a baby a bottle or been sleep deprived for at least 6 months – to supposedly becoming the more informed mom of a second little boy.

Well. You don’t know what you don’t know. What I did know was the basics. The diaper changing, check, the feeding schedule, check, and the sleep deprivation, it’s survivable, but expectations of oneself must be greatly diminished.

I suppose we all imagine the identical trajectory both developmentally and physically for kid #2, and why not think this way? What else can one project and conceive? My son and daughter-in-law, however, are taking a more reasoned approach from the outset, recognizing that they need to wait to see approach in terms of temperament and health. Smart. They are making space for that individuality.

I always considered parenting a massive science experiment. My mental framework was: If I do this, then the result will be that. If I’m a great mom, I’ll have a great kid. Very quid pro quo. But I also understood what I called the bottom-up approach. I defined that as taking cues from my sons, noting their interests, strengths and weaknesses, then working with that raw material.

What became abundantly clear is that kids are not clones of each other, nor of their parents. While both boys demonstrated very high intelligence, the needs of each were still vastly different. Son #1 was extremely independent and self-sufficient while son #2 had many issues relating to mental health and a challenging social life at times. I was pulled in divergent directions.

The through-line was that I paid attention to each son as an individual and my parental experimenting had very different outcomes. Son #1 continued to move smoothly from high school to college to law school to employment to husbandry to fatherhood.

Son #2 required me to duck, dive, navigate hurdles, do the long jump, run fast, run slow, maneuver under the constantly lowering limbo stick, and generally reconfigure the game plan on a nearly daily basis throughout adolescence and early adulthood.

When I think about this new role as Nana, I’d say it feels very different. I’m not trying to shape behavior for intended outcomes. And there’s no yardstick for my success, other than having a close relationship with my GrandGirls.

This feels very liberating and invigorating. Right now, it feels like the balance is tipped more toward fun and adventure. I’m removed from the quotidian schedules, homework, laundry, feeding and shopping. I see myself as more of an oasis for unknown possibilities.

But back to my boys…what I can say is that they each took me to the mountaintop, but those were two enormously contrasting summits.