My sister younger to me always felt she was the unwanted middle child, the black sheep of the family and much as I always tried to explain to her that it is not true and that she is the 3rd of 4 kids and technically can’t be a middle child, she never accepted it. I have always been mindful about my son having the middle child syndrome and ensured that the rules were same for all three of my kids. But he knew just how to push it.
Every Saturday when we went to the pasar Malam ( night market), I bought nail polish for the girls and some toys for my son. But he never worried about his sisters not having toys, he complained bitterly that I was being unfair when I didn’t buy nail polish for him. When I said boys don’t usually use nail polish, he said “then buy it for my wife” ( he was about 4 yrs old then !) He also wept bitter tears for having only one piece of swimming outfit ( shorts)when his sisters had two ( bikini!)
The three traits that I find the most annoying in my son are ..complaints, comparisons and being a tattle tale.
I think the one sentence that still gives me the heebie jeebies would be my sisters saying ” innu kittikollum” ( you will ‘get it’ today), often after I did something I wasn’t meant to and they are aware of it and are waiting for Amma to return to tell on me and get me in to big trouble. Only those who has received the punishment after waiting for it for hours know how the wait felt..the impending doom.. Tattling causes the biggest disharmony among siblings and I was determined not to encourage it. When my kids were little, I didn’t react when they tattled on each other..and eventually they understood snitching on each other was a total waste of time..But lately my son seems to be only interested in tattling.
Because my iphone has been used/misused to play various games, when I bought my Ipad, I told the kids “it is mine and don’t even touch it”..Obviously my dictates have very short life span and soon my youngest really wanted to borrow my ipad because she could download the books free from epubbud instead of buying it on kindle. I let her on a condition that she will not download any games on my ipad. 30 minutes later my son calls me to tell me that “mom, ‘met’ is playing games on your ipad” Surely, he felt the need to be the in-house policeman..and make his sisters hate him. I am not saying that my daughter was right to download games when I told her already not to. I was so mad at both of them, but since I wasn’t home, I told him I will deal with it when I get back home. I wasn’t surprised at all to find him playing games on my ipad when I returned. He didn’t think that if he thought his sister shouldn’t be playing the game on my ipad, then it is the same rule for him too. He finds faults in his sisters..but not his own.. Every day he finds something new to tattle..and I wish he would stop..