The burden of responsibility

My husband told me recently that it’s easy to see the difference in people that grew up relying on themselves verses those that relied on their parents for everything.

I never looked at it that way until he said that. I’ve long known that there’s a big difference in kids that are given everything and those that aren’t. I used to babysit for a woman that had one child- a daughter. This little girl was catered to, given everything she wanted and then some. At the age of three or four the little girl was very rude and disrespectful of her mother, demanding…and getting…everything she wanted.

When I kept her she was a different child. It didn’t take her long to learn that if I took her to the store I wasn’t going to buy her everything she wanted, she also learned quickly that she wasn’t going to give me orders. While in my care this little girl learned to enjoy a trip to the toy store for the simple joy of looking at what was there, she learned to enjoy playing with other children without making demands on me constantly and throwing fits when I didn’t give in.

And I did nothing to this child but tell her we couldn’t afford to buy that or that I wasn’t going to do what she said because I was the one in charge not her. Seeing this little girl with her mother was like seeing a completely different child than the one I had.

When I was a child one of my favorite stories was about a girl that was very sweet and helpful for her teacher but very rude and disobedient to her mother. That lasted until the teacher saw the child with her mother and told her how disappointed in her she was. This little girl lived to make her teacher happy, having the teacher see her with her mother, being told she had disappointed the one person she wanted to please changed the little girls behavior…and her heart.

It was much that way with the little girl I babysat. I saw the girl she was for me, the one she was with her mother in front of me, and the one she was with her mother when she didn’t know I was there.

I read somewhere…’if you want your child to be responsible, put some weight on their shoulders.’ I can’t remember where I read it or who wrote it but it was something that has stuck with me. I can see how that works in my own children but I can also see it in what they say the attitudes and behaviors are of children born in a certain order.

By birth order it’s generally understood that the oldest child is responsible, the youngest expects to be taken care of. I know there are exceptions to that as there are to everything. But have you ever stopped to wonder why it is that they generally have those personalities?

When my oldest daughter was little I had one main goal for raising her…sadly at that point it wasn’t her soul I was thinking of. I wanted her to be responsible. I can remember telling my mom, when my daughter was about two, ‘if I can teach her to stand on her own then I will consider it a success.’

I no longer see that as the success of parenting. But in some ways it is. They do need to learn to stand on their own, as individuals, as a married couple. There’s no hope of them really growing up, no matter their age, until they learn independence. They may want to be an adult, they may want to be grown, their age may say they’re legally exactly what they think they are, but if they’re still depending on their parents then they’re still children. There’s no place for Momma and Daddy in their marriage, there’s no place for Momma and Daddy when they’re parenting their own children.

As parents we have our place in our grown children’s lives, even after they’re married with children of their own, but it shouldn’t be the same role we had when they were little.

The daughter I wanted to raise to stand on her own…pretty much does. She’s still a minor, still dependent for all her needs, but she’s self-sufficient too. She has a good head on her shoulders, as my grandparents used to say. I can entrust her with anything. She can run the house as well as I can. If I needed to be away for an extended period of time I know I could trust her to handle everything in my absence.

So while my daughter is struggling to find her place in the adult world, I know that she has what it takes to make it. She, by the way, has had more responsibility put on her shoulders than any of the others. She was looking after herself when she was young, looking after her youngest siblings when Momma was busy from a young age, entertaining the babies, helping with the laundry while I cared for babies, cooking, cleaning and everything else.

The other children, while gradually learning those tasks, never learned them as fast or at quite the young age she did. Because it was always easier for me to call the oldest, the one that already knew how to do what I needed done. The one I could trust to get it done.

I am the oldest of three. I love my younger sisters dearly. They both have strengths and weaknesses I don’t have. But I, and others, can see in us how the differences in parenting styles affects the personality of the child. As the oldest child I had responsibilities on me that my younger sisters didn’t. I was babysitting when I was little more than a baby, had my first job when I was 12. When I was 14 I wanted to take ballet lessons but we couldn’t afford them. I worked to pay for the lessons I wanted.

My sister that is the middle child learned responsibility young, but not as young as I did. She started working about the time she was 14, a lot of that work was done without pay. As the sister closest in age to our youngest sister she was responsible for looking out for and keeping the baby safe, long after the baby wasn’t a baby anymore. She learned in her teen years that most of what she wanted, she had to find a way to get for herself.

My youngest sister…was always the baby. My mothers, mine, and just about everyone else in our family too. She was looked after, followed around and kept out of trouble and a good part of the time did no wrong. When she was in her teen years she was given everything she wanted. She didn’t have to work for the many, many dance and gymnastics lessons she had. She didn’t work for the clothes she was always wanting. What she wanted, she got. And it showed in her personality.

She expected to be given to, she paid little to no attention to how her behavior affected others. But worse than that…she suffered. Of the three of us she had the hardest time learning to be an adult. She had a hard time finding her footing. The real world wasn’t like the life she’d grown up with. When she got away from family there was no one there to look out for her, no one there to keep her out of trouble, no one there to give her everything she wanted.

She was on her own, in a world she didn’t know how to fit into. She struggled, she stumbled, and she fell. And for her…it was a long way to the ground. When she hit, she broke body parts, she shattered, she fell apart. Life was a cruel teacher. Those responsibilities my other sister and I learned as we grew up, gradually, slowly, maybe not gently but not violently either, my youngest sister learned painfully.

The catering she received in childhood did her no favors when she reached adulthood.

As I raise my own children…as I look at the older ones…see the ones that are more mature, have shouldered more responsibilities, the one’s I think will be able to take care of themselves when the time comes, the ones I know are or will struggle to take on adult responsibilities…as I look at them… I can see the difference’s my husband spoke of. I can see it in our youngest, the one I’ve babied. I can see it in the one that was watched out for by her sisters.

I can see it.

But when it comes to raising them sometimes it’s hard to remember to pick up the load of responsibility and place it on their shoulders when those shoulders seem too narrow to carry that burden.