As a parent you have this weighing responsibility (some might say burden) to raise well-adjusted kids in this crazy, unpredictable world. Those that have more than one child know that kids are all different, like night and day in a lot of cases. That's certainly the case with my two.
One kid laughs at everything, the other one is more serious. One kid loves people, the other prefers playing by himself. One kid goes straight to sleep most nights, the other has so much anxiety about bedtime that it takes hours of singing, talking, trips to the potty, and laying with him to get him to go to sleep just to have him wind up in bed with us at 2 a.m. kicking like a ninja.
In addition to their different personalities (which for the record I completely embrace), I had different experiences with them in the start to their lives. One birth was natural (not by choice, it just happened so fast), the other I had an epidural. One took to breastfeeding fairly easily, the other cried and woke every 45 minutes to eat, had reflux and gas issues, and colic. I felt in control and well-adjusted with one, and suffered from postpartum depression with the other.
“Did I make him this way?”
In fact, I distinctly remember walking next door with my colicky child when he was 3 weeks old, and leaving him with my mother in law. I was fighting back tears trying not to let her see that I was struggling (I'm sure it didn't work) and asking her to just take him for 2 hours while I slept. I remember thinking on more than one occasion that, "I could throw this kid against the wall right now and not think twice about it," though I quickly dismissed these intruding thoughts I would never act on, and certainly couldn't tell anyone. I remember yelling, "WHAT DO YOU WANT?!?!?!?!" at my child as he writhed in pain on the couch from the gas I hadn't gotten out. I was a wreck.
My tough sleeping, colicky baby that sent me into some postpartum depression was my first child, my son. I adore him with all my heart and try to continue to nurture him every day, teach him about the world, and let him explore on his own (which he is incredibly fond of doing). When it comes to bedtime and having to coax him to his bed, lay with him, and listen to him sing for hours before he passes out (or more times that not, I pass out listening) I can't help but think, "Did I make him this way?"
Frankly, in addition to my depression, I was neurotic. I read way too many parenting advice boards about what you should and shouldn't do with your child that was having issues with re-flux, and sleeping, but I refused to think it was colic. I called my local breastfeeding support nurse to find out if it was my milk that was doing this and got tips on how to help him along. Nothing seemed to work, but if a parenting blog mentioned it, I was trying it, and trying to do everything perfectly... by the book. They say parenting doesn't come with a handbook, but lucky for me it comes with a plethora of mommy blogs!
There will forever be a nature versus nurture debate about how we shape our kids. The first kid truly rocks your world, or at least that was my experience. My daughter, our second child, has reaped all the benefits of my experience with my son. I knew what to expect when it came to childbirth, breastfeeding, and sleeping. Even then, I was thrown for a loop when she slept for 6 hours the first night out of the hospital, and kept doing it night after night. I thought I had brought home an alien child. I had braced myself for waking and tending to a child every 45 minutes to 2 hours in the first few weeks and she didn't give me that experience. Did she sense my confidence and calmness about knowing how to care for her? Or was she just born this way? I will never know the answer to this.
I know, like so many other parents, that I did the best I could in those early days, and I'm raising my kids with the best of intentions. There will continue to be a learning curve when it comes to raising them. After all, you have to wait twenty years to find out if you did a good job or not. It's probably the longest goal I've ever set. I wonder daily if I'm making the right decisions. And also wondering, did I make them this way or were they born this way? I'm guessing a bit of both, and I'm lucky for that.