We recently had a family (my friend, his wife and their two boys aged 6 and 2) over for dinner.
This family is known to us for many years now, but we were meeting after sometime as they
had moved out of Chennai two years ago.
When they were in Chennai last, the family was only 3-strong as the younger kid was not yet born.
Since they lived in the same apartment complex, we used to see them a lot and would spend quite
some time with the elder kid Amit. He was like any other 4-year old kid then, a little naughty but
overall a good chap. He was pretty much an extrovert, with no hesitation in talking to even people
he was meeting the first time.
I shared quite some common interests with him - affinity for anything sweet, hi-speed biking/driving
and racing Remote Control (R/C) cars. We used to spend quite some time racing R/C cars on the apartment terrace.
But seeing him after a gap of just 2 years, he seemed an entirely different person. Though he did recognize me, there was not much enthusiasm. Not even when I brought out the latest R/C car that
I had got from abroad. He sort of kept to himself, sitting along with his parents, instead of joining me and his kid bro (Sumit) as we raced the car. I was surprised by this huge change in his behaviour and initially attributed it to the natural growing-up process. However, the actual reason was to be clear soon.
A few moments after Sumit took a fancy to one of the cars and moved to one end of the living room, Amit slowly came to my side and took the remote of the car that I had with me. I was happy that he was slowly coming back to his normal self and tried to make some small talk with him.
He had just about raced the car for a few minutes when Sumit rushed over to us and grabbed
the car from Amit. He tried to resist, very briefly, but gave up when his parents in unison said, "Amit, let your bro have it. He is a small kid, na". With a pained expression on his face, Amit
gave up and returned to his perch on the sofa. I was unsure as to what to do - console Amit
or get Sumit to part with one of the cars.
Similar instances happened during the evening, with Sumit staking claim to anything that big brother had and parents always supporting the younger one. I could see the pain in Amit's eyes,
the embarassment of having to always give up and the dismay at his parent's partiality towards
his brother. If left unchecked, I felt that this would lead to a serious lack of self-confidence in Amit and probably even hatred towards his bro.
Finally after dinner, when Sumit snatched the ice-cream cup from Amit, I had had enough and intervened to restore the cup back to Amit and gently but firmly chided Sumit. I then called my
friend out, as if for a smoke and impressed upon him the negative fallouts due to their always supporting and encouraging their younger kid at the cost of the elder one.
The fallouts could range from something as minor as anger towards his brother, to more serious issues like lack of self-confidence, becoming introverted and a generally gloomy outlook to life.
I think I have made my friend understand the seriousness of the situation. Meanwhile my wife
was busy talking to his wife on the same lines.
I sincerely hope and wish that the parents understand their folly and change their partisan behaviour, atleast from now on. I fail to understand how parents can treat their offspring differently. There is no rationale to doing so and I feel such parents are better off with only one kid.
Why take the trouble of having more than one kid when you cannot treat them on par ?
It's not just this couple. I know a lot more like them. In some cases it is partiality towards the younger / youngest one and in some cases it is partiality towards the son, while ignoring the
daughter. Either way, it is not healthy behaviour expected from parents. Such behaviour
will also result in problems for the favoured child. They get used to having their way always at
home and assume that it would be the same outside too, which most often would not be the
case, leading to disappointment and frustration.
All aspiring parents, if you think that you cannot treat your kids the same, stick to just one.
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