When I was younger, my mother used to compare me to other children my own age. She would compare me to the well behaved boy next door who would never wonder around the streets like I did with my girlfriends. She would compare me to my cousins who could already speak 2 more languages than me because they were born in the USA and raised in Italy. She would tell me things like: "your cousins are smart and they already speak two foreign languages. So you better step up and have good results at school". Or she would say "why can't you be more like the neighbor's son. He is so well behaved". I hated the fact that she had to compare me to others to make me see that I could do better or be better. I understood that she wanted the best for me. However, it is not fair to compare people who have different background and going on different paths. I swear that I would never do that to my children.
Unfortunately, I see myself comparing my children, to one another at first, and to other children as well.
When my first son was born, I did not immediately started to compare him. But as he grew I had to. At first, he was being compared to other babies his age at every doctor's visit. His pediatrician would tell us that he was on the 90% percentile concerning his weight, meaning he was doing fairly well compared to kids his age. At home, I remembered being worried that he did not smile at 6 weeks like babies were supposed to do. I overstressed about it to finally give up. Baby Boy smiled on his own time. Actually he did everything on his own time: he sat at 6 months, crawled at 9 months and starting walking at 12 months and 5 days.
With the birth of my second son, I realized that I spend most of my time comparing him to his big brother. I would often say to my husband phrases like these: " Baby Boy did not smile as much as Lion Prince" or " Lion Prince is quieter than Baby Boy". It is becoming a constant thing. Actually I went so far as to use it as a technique to discipline my first son. For example, when he screams, I would tell him: "You are being a bad boy. Did you hear your younger brother screams? He is a baby and he behaves better than you do". It usually has the desired effect: my first son would stop his inappropriate behavior. Yet, there is a ping of guiltiness that settles in my heart for uttering those words.
As much as I hate becoming my mother and comparing my children, I would have to make peace with it because it is just human to compare. It can be also a bit fun to just notice the differences in behavior between my two sons. For example, lately I have noticed that Little Prince is feistier than Baby Boy although he is younger. As long as it stays fun and does not turn into "baby bashing", I am cool with that. I will have to be careful in the future not to openly compare them. I would not want any of my sons to develop self esteem issues just because I said something. That would be the real tragedy.
