59 - Sibling Inequality
Is there a right way and a wrong way to deal with your kids? Is there a way to avoid sibling resentment and keep the family unit cohesive (instead of competitive)?
Did you agree or disagree with our points? Send us your opinions via email at raisingupcopts@gmail.com or via IG @raisingupcopts, @copticlaura or @madona_writes.
Transcript
Laura (00:00):
Welcome to Raising Up Copts, the podcast about raising Coptic kids in western culture. I'm Laura. I'm here with my co-host Madona, and Madona has a really cool topic for us today.
Madona (00:10):
Yeah. So this would apply to anyone that has more than one child or deals with more than one child, perhaps in a classroom, Sunday school or teaching or otherwise. Perhaps you have nieces and nephews, whatever the case may be, this would apply. And the idea Laura came up because maybe you've experienced this in your household, but have you ever had a situation where between your two children, they've looked at each other and said, how come you do this for that person but you don't do it for me? Or I feel like you're always more lenient on this kid and not this one. Have you ever had that experience?
Laura (00:49):
For sure. A lot of times the younger will say, how come the older has these privileges? Older will say, how come he's so free to do whatever he wants? And I always laugh because for me there are five years between them, so it's really easy for me to be like, you're joking, right?
Madona (01:08):
Yeah. I think it must
Laura (01:09):
Be harder for you. So close. They feel like they're equals, they feel like equals.
Madona (01:14):
Yes. And they're always around each other and they kind of have the same of everything anyways. So there is a lot of definite comparison. And so for a while, the way that we approached this topic, Laura, was what made sense to us was everybody gets the same thing. So for us, there was an equality in parenting, which is, Hey, I take you out. That means I take you out. I'm going to buy you shoes. So that means it's time to get you the new shoes. And that was just the way that we did things because to us it was, we don't want anyone to feel lesser than or more than the other one. And the reason that we even started doing this, Lara goes all the way back to Danny's parents. They told us that between their two sons, they would make sure that they always got each one the exact same thing. So even if it was the older brother's birthday, the younger brother got a gift too. Or if the younger brother is something, then the older brother got to, and the idea was a noble one, you're like, I don't want either kid to feel like they're getting more or less than. So I decided to look deeper into this idea of sibling equality and parents having to treat kids the same and things like that. And would you believe that I found exactly conflicting evidence of both?
Madona (02:36):
In one scenario they talked about if you are always aiming to give each child exactly the same of everything, then it breeds more need for equality or more comparisons. So what happens is if there's a situation that comes up that one kid doesn't get what the other one got, then there's a deep feeling of resentment and how come I didn't, didn't get? And they're constantly comparing and saying, Hey, that person got two, how come I only got one? Or something like that. So it actually made those situation worse to try to constantly give each kid the exact same thing. On the flip side of that, the exact opposite was if you don't treat kids the exact same, then there ends up being a loss of family cohesion. There ends up being greater sibling rivalry. There's a little bit of a breakdown of the family structure there, and I couldn't believe that there is evidence to support each side. What is your initial thought about that?
Laura (03:38):
So I think that's really intriguing and one of the things I wonder about is if these outcomes are exasperated depending on the number of kids, is it even more critical when there's just two of them to be really careful? Or is it more critical when there are so many of them because they all already feel like a little bit of a loss, a little bit of a less than because shared among multiple. I think that that's so intriguing. It's really interesting how it's the exact same things like the opposites are true, that being treated equally can cause problems and being treated unequally, unequal,
Madona (04:25):
I dunno, unequally. Yeah,
Laura (04:28):
Well, whatever the word is also breeds a kind of resentment. And I think that the outcome of that second study about it breaking down the family cohesion, that is terrifying.
Madona (04:44):
Yes, yes. But I have good news, Laura, I have good news. I dug deeper into both of these concepts because for me I was like, it's impossible that both are true. They exactly contradict one another. There's no way that both are true. So what I discovered was the pattern between the equality and how it breeds more comparing and things like that was they were speaking specifically about materialistic things. So buy one for one for the other, that kind of thing. Okay.
Laura (05:19):
That's the one that breeds comparison
Madona (05:22):
Or it breeds comparison. So if you are constantly having to, at a birthday party, you get a gift for one, then you must get one for the other. You buy new shoes for one, then you must buy new shoes for the other. Things like that. Or everyone has to go out for ice cream, everyone, whatever. That breeds more feelings of inequality if they don't get the same. So it ends up being a worse situation constantly trying to make sure each person gets the exact same thing or to said in another way, equal is not always fair. So just the concept of having to give everybody the same thing creates more tension. But that was talking about materialistic things, things you can buy with money, things that you are spending on when they spoke about needing to treat children the same or needing to give children the same thing.
Madona (06:15):
And if you don't, then the breakdown of the family cohesion happens. They were talking about immaterial things, love, support, care, comfort, those kinds of things. So at the crux of it, you cannot buy all the same things for each person because that would be in the long run, a negative effect. And at the same time, you should always offer the same amount of love and care and support and obviously, so for all the siblings, in order for them to feel loved and supported and cared for, which makes sense, and then that would not be a breakdown in the family.
Laura (06:57):
I feel like that's so biblical. God is not giving us all the same stuff and we can't even look around and be like, oh, you have that talent. Why don't I have that talent? But we all have this undivided love and attention from God. That's so incredible.
Madona (07:12):
Exactly. Laura. That's exactly where I was going to go with it. We have the perfect example of heavenly parenting that is so painfully obvious that we don't all get the same things. We don't get all the same treatments, we don't all get the same situations and circumstances, and that's just a fact of life. But at the same time, at the core of it, under any circumstance, I know that my heavenly father is always looking out for me, always loving me, always forgiving me, always there for me, period. And so that is the core of a healthy relationship, whereas the material things are not, it's what we've always known, but when it comes down to practice, so I don't know why it gets lost. I don't know if it gets complicated in our definitions or what, but in practice somehow it always ends up falling apart. But it's always been that way for eternity.
Laura (08:08):
And I think the thing is that we don't recognize the outcome until it's spelled out and then it looks obvious. For example, the idea that you should get each kid the same thing. I remember, I am still resentful over this. We were given, when we were very young, me and my sister Marina, we were given two bears. And because Marina was the younger, she got to pick what color of the two bears were not the same color. She got to pick which color bears she wanted first. An I as the older
Madona (08:44):
At the leftover,
Laura (08:45):
Yeah, a reasonable child. I needed to be accepting of the blue bear. And so if I hadn't been given a bear at all, if I'd been given something else, I wouldn't have been so obsessed with the idea of why is my bear not blue or why is my bear blue and not red? Because there was already an equality or a twin factor to it. It made any differences more stark and more frustrating.
Madona (09:14):
But
Laura (09:14):
At the same time, did I even want or need a bear? It's put it back in perspective. And I think that we don't often think about it. We are trying to reduce the drama, but that idea that no, what about what somebody actually wants or needs instead of just vending machine love. Here you go. Here you go, here you go.
Madona (09:39):
Yeah. And there's this graphic, Laura, that I am going to try my best to explain the picture without anybody being able to see it. But imagine there's a wall and there's four different age kids and they all need to be able to see over the wall. So you've got a toddler, you've got an eight year old, and you've got a 15 year old, and they all need to be able to see over the wall. So you give them all an equal size stool. Now the toddler on that stool still will not be able to see over the wall, and the two other kids might be able to see over the wall. Technically that was equal. I gave everybody the same exact thing, but it was not fair. So equal does not equal fair. I should give each kid what they need. So I should have given the tallest school school to the youngest child and the smallest stool to the oldest child, and then they would've all been able to see I had to give each one according to his needs.
Madona (10:34):
And I think that this is a concept that I think is crucial to teach our children because it's crucial for us to know it as well. And especially in those really difficult moments when we tend to do the thing where we compare God's grace to other people. We're like, that person makes all the wrong choices in life, and yet they are getting blessing upon blessing upon blessing. And I'm over here striving and working hard, and I'm getting challenged after challenge after challenge. How is that fair? Well, it's not because that's not the goal. The goal or sorry, the goal, it's not equal. It's not the goal. The goal is to be you have needs and there are certain things I require of you, and there's certain things I require of them. So they got according to their requirements and you got according to yours. But in the end, you are all loved.
Madona (11:28):
And I think that they always say comparison is the thief of joy. And we see it all the time. We see it all the time. I am going to be very careful to tow the line of controversy here because I'm not trying to say that this is not deserved, but this idea of men and women should be able to do the exact same things and have the same exact things. I think as much as I believe you shouldn't assume someone can or can't do something based on their gender, based on whatever. At the same time we have to know you have a strength. I have a strength, you have a weakness, I have a weakness. And we were built that way. And that's not a bad thing.
Laura (12:12):
Yes. It's by design. By design, yeah.
Madona (12:15):
Yes,
Laura (12:16):
For sure. And I think that goes back to the idea of what is fair treatment because that's the kid's favorite phrase. That's not fair.
Madona (12:24):
And so
Laura (12:26):
Helping them understand what fair treatment actually means and fair treatment is not, as you said, identical treatment. It's the treatment that you need, right? Some kids need more hugs, some kids need more words of encouragement. Some kids need new shoes, some kids need a laptop. It really depends on what the gap is. And I think it comes down to conversation. It has to be a conversation with your kids. I'm not talking about a lecture, but I mean when you're approaching your child, you're saying, hi honey, what do you need now? How are your shoes doing? Are they okay? Oh no, look, the sole is flapping off. Okay, I guess we need to go shoe shopping. And then you'd say to the other kid, do you need new shoes right now? Or you're still good for a little bit? And I think that then they can think and say, no, I'm okay for shoes. But they know they will get shoes when the time's
Madona (13:20):
Not.
Laura (13:20):
It's like, I'm not ignoring your shoes.
Madona (13:24):
I love that.
Laura (13:25):
But
Madona (13:26):
Ongoing communication of that
Laura (13:28):
You're
Madona (13:28):
Explaining this
Laura (13:30):
Right? This one clearly needs shoes. Look at this shoe. And then if you want a new shoe, you tell me when and you will get it when you need it. And I think that kids need to have those conversations because they need to learn what fair really means. And that's really one of those lessons. It's the life lesson that comes through normal interactions.
Madona (13:50):
So Laura, I'm going to throw one more wrench into this. Are you ready? Do you think that there's a difference between if a mother treats equally or a father treats equally the children? Would you say that it mattered equally if mother and father treated, or do you think one weighs more heavily on the family dynamic than the other?
Laura (14:13):
Definitely both. Equally, I think dads need to be as fair as moms. Am I understanding the question correctly?
Madona (14:19):
Yes. Yes. I would say yes. Okay. So according to the study, no, actually what they said was the fathers in particular, if they treated or provided love or connectedness or warmth or now I, I'm confused what the word is supposed to be. We really don,
Laura (14:42):
Guys, we're going to look up this word later. Unequally promise were educated unequally, unequally, that's
Madona (14:50):
The word. Okay. If fathers specifically provided care unequally to the siblings or to the kids, there was a bigger breakdown than if moms did it. The implications of a dad doing it were much greater than a mom, which I thought was so interesting. And I don't know if that's a result of just our society in general. The dads having a less obvious role than in a lot of other times in our lives or what, I'm not sure. But all I know is according to this, the study urged fathers specifically to be aware of this potential and to avoid it by making sure they treat siblings equally whenever possible.
Laura (15:38):
This reminds me of how the studies have shown that a father's spiritual life and devotion to church has an outsized effect on children's outcomes. And this, I think, again, is so biblical. God already said, without a study, the Father is the head of the household or the leader of the household for a reason, not some kind of backwards reason, but for some reason biologically what he does and doesn't do has an outsized outcome on this house as an outsized outcome on the children's life.
Madona (16:16):
Yes. Now for sure it mattered. I don't want to say that it was negligent for the moms for sure. It mattered with the moms and the dads. But for some reason they harped on dads specifically, and they harped on the differential affection. So like the amounts of love, the warmth of care, but also the differential control. So that being the punishment, the blame, the controlling of discipline and behavior and things like that. And I think that historically men were the disciplinarians and they were the ones that were the strict ones and things like that. So I could see why it would reflect that the dads needed to be more careful because they tend to lean towards the disciplinarian more. Not always, but that's usually. So I think that's probably why they harped on it for men specifically. But it's just interesting to me how much these things, you said it, Laura, we keep going back again, that a lot of the new age trends in the world right now really are set back in ancient faith in ancient times. The idea of mindfulness, the idea of going meatless sometimes and periods of fasting. Yes, intermittent fasting, all of that. Everything is like, yeah, we've been saying this forever.
Laura (17:38):
Yeah, for sure. I think that's so interesting to watch the world spiral back a little bit. Hopefully a better trend than it's been going. But I feel like, so how does it play out with you, Madona, with the kids? How does that affect what you guys are going to do now?
Madona (18:00):
Well, to be honest, Laura, this has always been something that's been very obvious to us because our children are outspoken. So they will immediately call us out and be like, how come you did this for her and not for me? Or how come you did that for him, but not for me? And so it's an ongoing conversation and I think it's a hard pill to swallow at the beginning when you're still learning about life when you're young. So I understand. Obviously the easiest thing to notice are the observable differences. So the things that they can see and put their mind on is like, okay, you bought a shoe. Why am I not getting a shoe? Right? That's the easiest thing for them to notice. But the conversation starts there. So I would say we're going to just keep doing more of the same. And we talked before how we used to do the whole, making sure that each kid got the same of everything. But recently when we started paying attention, we saw these differences ourselves, where it started breeding more feelings of inequality. You got them something you didn't get me. And we'd be like, okay, that's not how this works. Okay, we're not going to do tit for tat. It's just not going to work.
Madona (19:11):
And definitely our ultimate goal, Laura, is family cohesion. So anything that threatens that or breaks that down out the window.
Laura (19:20):
Yes, yes, a hundred percent, a hundred percent. I think for me, one of the struggles is my kids are so different and their needs are so different. So the week that we're recording this episode, both of my kids have a birthday, which we won't talk about that. But the thing is, I have one extrovert, very social,
Laura (19:44):
Wants his school friends over, wants to go out and play, wants to all kinds of stuff, and the other one wants nothing, won't agree to anything. It's like pulling teeth. And for me, every time this month comes around, all I can think is she's going to grow up and resent me that her brother always had a birthday party and she didn't. But I'm begging her, please, let's have somebody over. Let's go out to eat with your friends. Let's do whatever it is that you want to do. Just tell me what it is now. I'll make it happen. But for her, she's like, no, I'm good. I'm happy to be in my room reading a book. I'm happy to be, but I'm just worried. The Egyptian mentality,
Madona (20:26):
Oh yeah
Laura (20:27):
I don't think there's an English word for this, but I'm worried that, I don't even know how to say it, that she's being resistant to the idea just to be coy or something. That's always my fear. Does she really, really want it? But she's just not speaking out. But I hope that I've trained them to know that I really need you just to say what you want. You want I don't do it. Just say
Madona (20:49):
It. Say it. No, I understand. I understand what you're saying. But Laura, I think the encouraging thing about all of this is that it's okay to show differentiation. I think there are some people that I've met that have actual anxiety, is this one going to feel left out if I do something? Is this one going to feel like they're being treated unfairly? I've seen so many parents go through that. I went through that in some ways, especially when you switch from having one kid to two kids or two kids to three kids, you're constantly like, if I don't do the same things for this one that I didn't do for this one that does. The matter is from kid one to kid two, you're a different parent to different time. You have different finances, different beliefs. It's just a growth. It's a growth. It's not a breakdown, it's a growth.
Madona (21:33):
And so things are different, and that's okay. But the encouraging thing that it's okay to show differentiation. And the thing I said about dads in particular, one thing that the article said that I thought was really, really important is said, it's just that maybe fathers need to provide more information about why they're engaging differently. So if you're going to engage differently, say why. So what you said Laura about look at the shoe and say, how is the Oh, soul is breaking apart. That is perfect. The communication about why you're doing things differently, that will reduce the kind of negative effects. And then the biggest other thing, Laura, that I would like us to get out of this is this idea of family cohesion. And again, I love the way the article defined this. It's a families that have lots of routines that promote togetherness, families that have lots of routines that promote togetherness.
Madona (22:25):
So if you're looking at your schedule, if we are looking at our schedule and we see that every day, the kids are out of the house, they're constantly in something, they're constantly out, you are out. You're constantly having something that in and of itself, which has nothing to do with treatment, will disrupt your family cohesion. There needs to be a routine of togetherness. And I do think that that is one of the biggest things that's plaguing families today is the busyness, the idea of busyness, the idea that everyone's away from each other for eight hours at least a day. And then when you're together, it's to perform a task, to do the homework, to go to the game, to attend the meeting, to attend the whatever. I would say that there's a lot of really key factors here, but
Laura (23:16):
Yeah, I mean that hearkens back to the concept of a family dinner and how they've been saying for years, make sure you have a meal together at least a few times a week as they get older. Maybe it's harder, but make sure that there's a family meal. And I think that that's one of those touch points for family cohesion, praying together in the morning or having a bedtime routine that involves the whole family. Like I said, meal times, maybe an outing, maybe a once a week thing that you guys do regularly. I feel like that we could have done a podcast episode on that too, but I feel like we've touched on the most important parts. The idea is if you're trying to build cohesion, create multiple touchpoint of, like you said, togetherness and then, and then make sure your emotional treatment of both children is the same, that you are giving them the love and attention and care and comfort and support that they need.
Madona (24:09):
And lest we forget, take it back to the faith. Literally the example's always, always been there and we just forget, is that even a word? I don't know. It's that one's a word, why not? Yes, clearly we need to go back and do it, go over our vocabulary. But yes, I think
Laura (24:34):
For those of you listening, we've changed the day that we record. We used to record on Wednesdays, but now it's Monday morning and Monday morning is a completely different vibe. Yeah,
Madona (24:44):
That's what it's waking up. We're in recovery mode. Anyway, with that being said to all of our listeners at Raising Up Copts, we thank you so much for joining us and we hope that you took something helpful out of this. And in the meantime, if you have anything that you would like to add or like to ask, please email us at raisingupcopts@gmail.com and we will talk to you next time.
Laura (25:07):
Raising Up Copts is a production of Coptic Dad and Mom. This podcast is hosted by Laura Michael and Madona Lawindy. None of the views expressed during this recording are the official stance of the Coptic Orthodox Church or its hierarchy. These are our personal opinions, collected experiences, and organic discussions on selected topics. If you'd like to reach out with any questions or comments, you can reach us at raisingupcopts@gmail.com.