After having two children, I have realised that parents don’t raise the first child and the second child in the same way.
If you ask the parents, they will claim they do, but that’s not true.
Maybe they love them equally, but the effort they put into them is definitely not equal.
When the first child is born, the whole family behaves as if the British King has personally picked up the Kohinoor diamond, which was on display at the Tower of London, and handed it over to the family.
In our case, when Rhea was born, I became a father for the first time. At least officially.
Remember, I am a Rajan…and that means there are bound to be past engagements of mine which resulted in a kid but because I did not hang around long enough for them to deliver, Rhea remains my first confirmed child.
Before she was born, I had many theories and even more plans.
With the first child, parents are extremely careful. We sterilised the feeding bottle, the spoon, the bowl, and even the towel. We washed her clothes separately, so that they didn’t get dirty inside the washing machine when they came in contact with our clothes. Some logic, I know!
Rekha would even mentally sterilise people entering Rhea’s room to see her. I could almost hear her whisper, “Germs…go away…it is my daughter lying there.”
First-time parents don’t take chances. I remember we protected Rhea as FBI agents protect Donald Trump.
Into her second week, one evening, Rhea sneezed. One small sneeze…I mean, how hard can a 15-day-old baby sneeze, right? It was just a baby sneeze, but we looked at each other like two people in Grey’s Anatomy.
“Did you hear that?” she asked.
“Yes, I did…”
“Should we call the doctor?” Rekha was quick on the draw. She had her Android mobile in her hand, and the doctor’s contact card open.
“Maybe we should wait,” I said. Between the two of us, I have always been the patient one.
“How long?” Rekha enquired, taking her finger closer to the call button.
“How about two minutes?” I suggested.
It was decided that after two minutes, if she sneezed again, we would call the doctor. That was perhaps the first and last time Rekha agreed with me on anything. Thankfully, Rhea didn’t sneeze, and we all went to bed peacefully.
With our first child, every cough was suspected to be pneumonia, every rash an outbreak, and every fever an epidemic.
Besides being panicky around Rhea, I also remember being the parent who would record everything – her first smile, roll, tooth, step, and word.
We have a photo of the first time she held a spoon, the first time she dropped it from her baby chair, the first time she ate a piece of banana, the first time she tried a lemon, and the list goes on.
We have so many albums about Rhea’s childhood, and even a YouTube channel. As if that was not enough, we even created a website called rhearajan(.)com, which is still live.
There is so much information about Rhea Rajan online that if at all she becomes a celebrity chef, people can easily write unauthorised biographies with what is available.
When Ritwik, our second child, was born, we had become experienced parents, and by experienced, I mean “tired.”
Rekha and I don’t remember when his first smile happened. I am guessing his first step also happened, because now he walks. But we don’t know when and where.
With the first child, we know…Rhea started walking on 14 December at 5:42 p.m. With Ritwik, we guess it was sometime around summer vacation.
As the first child, Rhea got the best clothes and the best toys.
Her every dress was chosen carefully – soft cotton, correct size, matching socks, and we would even cut the tags.
By the time Ritwik came, we had figured that babies can wear anything.
I would pick up one of Rhea’s old dresses from the cupboard and ask Rekha, “This one?”
“Yes, pass it on,” she would say, holding him down.
“But it has flowers,” I would ask.
But by now, Rekha would be super tired, and she would shout back, “He is a baby, Rajan. It doesn’t matter. Just don’t take any photos.”
With Rhea, we spent so much time selecting the correct toys. We bought a shape sorter, building blocks, soft books, stacking rings, a baby piano, etc., hoping to improve her “motor skills” and “hand-eye coordination.”
When Ritwik was born six years later, all of Rhea’s toys were gone. So Rekha and I got into a quick huddle and decided that anything that didn’t kill him qualified as a toy.
So till he was ten years old, he would play with steel tumblers, bowls, pressure cookers, combs, empty shampoo bottles, mugs, clothes hangers, toilet paper rolls, etc. It was only when his friends started coming home and he started introducing his toys to them that he found out that his early childhood had been a lie.
But who cares…it is his fault…he came in second!
Rhea was also a time hogger. She got our full attention always.
When Rhea cried, both Rekha and I would run.
What happened? Is she hungry? Is she sleepy? Is she feeling cold?
And when Ritwik cried, our response was different.
Rekha would turn towards me and ask, “Do you want to go?”
I would say, “Let him cry for two minutes…and if he does, I will go and check if he is bleeding.”
—-X—-X—-
I think I know why we show this partiality towards the first child – because then we are trying to prove ourselves as parents.
Definitely not because we love them more than the second child.
And since the first child is trained, watched, corrected, photographed, etc., they often become responsible.
Even when Rhea was only seven years old, we had told her, “You are the elder sister…take care of your baby brother.”
By the time Ritwik came, we had learnt that kids are more durable than they look…and gave him a free hand. While a tired version of us didn’t care much about Ritwik, it helped him become an expert in loopholes.
He knows his parents are tired, he knows his sister is already in college and not here to boss him around, he knows which rule can be bent, he knows there is no CCTV in the house, and best of all, he knows whom to approach for which approval.
Even though both were our kids, they impacted our lives differently.
When Rhea came into our life, I discovered parenthood. Every small thing felt magical.
The first time she called me Appa, I must have melted for sure.
And I am sure when she ran towards me for the first time, I felt like a Bollywood hero waiting on the beach for his heroine to hug him.
When Ritwik came, there was magic as well, but it was different.
When he came into our lives, he taught us that love does not divide. We weren’t dividing all the love we had between Rhea and Ritwik – in fact, between the four of us, there was now many times more love.
I have always been poor in maths, but this is one calculation I didn’t need help to understand.