Last week my third born daughter turned thirteen, now I have three teenagers and a whole new level of activity in my parenting. Seems like our gas budget is always on “blown.” But, sometimes lost in the wake of all our teen parenting, remain two very young daughters, what I call, “Parenting: Round Two.”
I’ve known about this phenomenon for some time. My wife, the last born of six, has barely a baby picture to remember her childhood. By the time she hit the toddler years, mom and dad were inundated with teens. Lois charged me in the early years of our parenting, “I want lots of pictures of ALL of our children.” She forgot to mention video. Our video log ended after our first two children.
Anyway, what I realized recently is that I had all but given up reading to my youngest two daughters. I did all kinds of reading with the older bunch but had not read much to the younger ones. So, recently I started the first Little House book, “Little House in the Big Woods”, and just in the nick of time. Anna and Amelia are still young enough to enjoy the same stories her siblings came to love.
Looking around the church, I see I’m not the only one in Parenting – Round Two. Some couples like us have larger families, others have adopted a second round and a few, well, round two came as a surprise. Often what happens is the work of investing in our younger kids gets spread between parents and older siblings. This can be a great building block for a family, but it can unintentionally rob us of the small joys of parenting our younger children with the same personal investment we gave to our first children.
So, I’m writing this to pass on to all of us a reminder. Get the camera out, read a story, make a snowman this winter or dust off that special tradition you did with your firstborn children in round one. Round Two can have all the special moments of Round One, plus in-house babysitters as a bonus!
1 comment:
Thanks for writing this Marty! We are a family with a group of "round two" kids and have experienced the same realization that we need to hang in there and parent them with the same zeal and fervency that the "round one" kids had. As we age, the temptation to relax and sit back is always looming...but we want to give these kids excellent care and finish well in our parenting. We want our "round two" kids to feel our love and follow Christ with the same passion as their older siblings. We have often been inspired by the example you and Lois have shown and by others in the church such as Tim and Cindy Campbell and Jeff and Martha Clark. We thank God that He has given us these children and the opportunity to raise them in the fear and admonition of the Lord.
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