Who rides shotgun?

amother

↑ Mistyrose ↓

Sun, Dec 08 2024, 3:44 pm

DVOM wrote:

I see no reason why the oldest should always get the front seat, but I also never gave my oldest more responsibilities than my other kids. I have 4 teen/tween boys. All were and are expected to cook, clean, run errands, pick up after themselves and each other. Jobs are divided for the most part by preference (one kid likes doing the dishes, one likes setting the table, one likes running errands). We have a loose rotation for the front seat of the car, but no one's too set on it. If one kid isn't feeling well, or has a big project they're taking to school, or wants to talk to me about something while we drive, the switch around pretty easily. If there's fighting, which there occasionally is, no one sits in front. That's a pretty good incentive for the kids to work things out respectfully amongst themselves. Certainly I would expect a 22, 20, and 19 year old to be able to give up the seat for the 14 year old who doesn't yet have the same maturity to understand that seats in the car don't really matter too much.

I'm sorry, DVOM, but according to other wiser mothers here, this is impossible, since you were exhausted and burnt out by the time your kids were teens/tweens, you absolutely must have been loading your eldest with more responsibilities and so it's really not fair that you didn't always give him most of the extra privileges. He's gonna come back to you in 10 years incredibly resentful that he didn't always get first choice of what he wanted first choice of, since he was oldest and you must have been dumping most of the responsibility on him. Look back over your actions and you'll see that I'm really right about this. According to the wiser mothers here, I mean.

amother

↑ Firethorn ↓

Sun, Dec 08 2024, 3:47 pm

DVOM wrote:

A few boys close in age is very different to an oldest daughter of a bunch of kids. The responsibilities will intrinsically end up being divided more equally, that's just how it is.

amother

↑ Mistyrose ↓

Sun, Dec 08 2024, 3:49 pm

amother Lightgray wrote:

So I was curious to hear my oldests option on having a rotation for the front seat. She said that it would be fun for her to always get it, but she didn’t understand the logic that she should get the front seat 100% of the time. I told her that people are saying that oldests have a lot of responsibilities so it would make sense she deserves the privilege and she asked how it could possibly be fair that her younger siblings one of whom is not even 2 years younger who also have responsibilities would get zero.
As the oldest sibling myself I 100% agree with this.

See, I agree with this. My kids are all super close in age. They're all gonna be in pretty similar stages, I see absolutely no reason why I would load all the responsibility on one kid just cuz they're the oldest when the next three are each just a year and a half younger than each of the ones before.

amother

Quince ↓

Sun, Dec 08 2024, 3:57 pm

amother Mistyrose wrote:

What does the bolded mean, by the way? I don't currently expect my child to act anything besides 5, and when my following children grow to be 5, I'll have the same expectations of them. What are these expectations people have especially for their oldest?

(And growing up as a middle-to-younger child of a large family, I never liked how I was never made to feel special by always having to wait my turn for everything, even down to getting challah and kiddush. So in my house now, no, we don't do age order when we give out challah and kiddush, it just varies based on where they're sitting that week, who's closer to my husband. I really don't see a need to keep emphasizing the oldest's role over everyone else. The oldest just naturally can do more and better first by dint of their age, I see no reason to keep shoving it even more into their siblings' faces. Unless there's something halachically mandated, I don't see a reason to do it.)

The reason you don't understand what it means is because your oldest is 5. When he/she is older, you will see how he/she has more responsibilities (appropriately), and therefore, more privileges.
Also because you clearly felt unspecial when you were growing up as a middle to younger child.

I don't see that the oldest gets anything first besides kiddush and challah. When I serve supper, I serve youngest to oldest because the younger ones can't wait as long. When I give out cake at a birthday, I give the birthday child, then the youngest and up. When two kids are fighting, often we call upon the older one to "act more mature and not get the last word in".

Interesting to see how your perceived inferiority as a child is impacting the way you do things in your family. Which is fine, but important to be aware of and important that you don't go too far in the opposite direction.

amother

↑ Mistyrose ↓

Sun, Dec 08 2024, 4:08 pm

amother Strawberry wrote:

This thread got completely derailed. Sorry, op
I just want to say that if you're oldest is only 5 you really aren't qualified to answer or have this conversation just yet.
Yes, oldests do have more responsibilities. When you say you watched your nieces and nephews, it's different than watching your siblings. The expectation of an oldest being home and available to watch the siblings when parents need to go out is different. I was a middle child that watched nieces and nephews and I have an oldest almost 20 year old. I see the differences!
And giving kids privileges equally is just not realistic. You may be unable to take the oldest on vacation because you need childcare for the younger ones. But the youngest you will be able to take because all the older ones will be self-sufficient.
I think you need to give yourself a few years before you can see this argument from the other side

Of course life is never completely fair. Right now I have plenty of time to sit and play with the kids on the floor cuz I have no older ones that need my time and attention with hmwk. Right now I can spend every Sunday taking them somewhere fun cuz I have the energy for it, and maybe when I have a house of teens I will be busy with elderly parents and can't be going out on Sundays. Nowhere did I say life will always be equal. But I will not automatically dump substantially more responsibility on one kid over the other, and I will not give huge privileges to one kid over the others- like for example, I would not spend thousands to send one kid to camp and then tell the next 3 sorry, I used it all up on the oldest, can't send you. I am already setting aside savings for all of them to be used for what's important, so that I don't run into the problem of unexpectedly not having money for the younger ones. If I somehow run into a lot more money once the younger ones are older, then the older ones will benefit from that too at whatever stage they currently are- perhaps they'll get to take an expensive course they want, or a summer roadtrip with friends, or money toward a house, etc. I just don't believe in this concept of allowing the randomness of one's birth order to affect their life to an inordinate degree, in ways I can totally prevent or perpetuate based on my parenting decisions.

amother

↑ Firethorn ↓

Sun, Dec 08 2024, 4:16 pm

amother Mistyrose wrote:

Wow ok. Who's talking about sending the oldest to camp and no one else? We're literally discussing passing them a slice of challah and a cup of grape juice first on Shabbos.

If anything, I find that the younger ones go to camp earlier and get fancier things more, since usually standards get raised within families over the years. Or the younger sister goes to Israel for seminary when her older sisters weren't allowed to.

amother

↑ Mistyrose ↓

Sun, Dec 08 2024, 5:16 pm

amother Firethorn wrote:

I mean, there was just a thread a little while ago on imamother where someone sent her oldest to camp and now the next two want to go and she doesn't have the funds for it, she hoped she would by the time they wanted to go but she doesn't, so she was asking how to tell them she can't.

But I'm saying, it was related to the general point of "I will do my best to make sure I'm not making one child's life substantially different than the others' in ways that are up to me" whether that's as minor as always giving them things first, or bigger like giving them a camp experience knowing I likely can't give it to the others. I agreed that different kids will get different things due to the stage of life they come across those things in (ie, older kids I can spend all Sunday doing fun stuff with, by the time the younger kids are that age I might not have my Sunday as available) but I would never intentionally put in place something like "From now until oldest leaves the house, they will always get front seat and first challah and first choice of snack" cuz I feel that's a great way to instill resentment in the younger ones who feel like "I'm doing all the chores you give me, I behave well, I'm working just as hard in school and home, and yet because I happened to get born 3rd I'll never have that special spot."

amother

↑ Quince ↓

Sun, Dec 08 2024, 6:58 pm

amother Mistyrose wrote:

See, this post is clear that you're not getting it.

I don't dump substantially more responsibility on one kid over the other, nor do I spend any more money on the oldest or give them huge privileges. We're talking much smaller scale. Sitting in the front seat is not in the same league as spending thousands to send only the oldest to sleepaway camp.

amother

↑ Mistyrose ↓

Sun, Dec 08 2024, 7:21 pm

amother Quince wrote:

There's nothing not to get. I'm saying it's a spectrum. On the one end there's giving a small privilege consistently to one kid for whatever reason (whether it's giving challah first to the eldest always, giving the best piece of chicken to the ben yachid (I remember reading s.t like that in All for the Boss), giving the most sought after piece of kugel to the same kid who (always) learned the best that week (relative of mine resented that in his family growing up), to the other end of the spectrum where one kid gets some huge privilege that the parents cannot give to the others.

I'm saying that I understand that sometimes life hands some people huge advantages over others. (If I have a bar mitzvah boy who receives a very expensive present from a friend that no other kid in the family gets, such is life.) But I won't on my own set up such a system where one kid always or consistently get a privilege that no one else can get, either cuz they weren't born in the right order to do so, or are incapable of earning it thru the same means yet. Different kids will all be able to earn the same privileges in different ways. That's all.

amother

↑ Quince ↓

Sun, Dec 08 2024, 7:31 pm

amother Mistyrose wrote:

It's really not about earning privileges. You're saying there's nothing not to get, but maybe you don't get what you're not getting.

It's more subtle and it's not always in your control.

You can't deny that your family placement affects you, even if parents do whatever they can to make things equitable. It's just not possible to create uniformity for everything. For example, a third boy in a row might automatically feel less than their older brothers even if you do everything right. An oldest girl might be asked to babysit when parents have a close wedding, while a youngest would not. What about the mother I know who had twins when the child above them was less than 18 months. Did he have the same toddlerhood than his older siblings did at that age? What about the child who is sandwiched by special needs siblings.

As your children get older, you will see different dynamics develop, even if you don't give kiddush and challah to the oldest first.

And I also want to add that every child's family placement is decided for them by Hkbh and is destined for them. It's our job as parents to try to give each child the best possible situation for them, but at the end of the day there are many ways they are affected by their family placement over which we have very little control.

amother

Tanzanite ↓

Sun, Dec 08 2024, 7:52 pm

amother Quince wrote:

My first son had his bar mitzvah at the end of corona. It was much smaller than we really wanted, none of our relatives came in (they all live OOT) and he got very few gifts.
My next son 2 years later had a much larger bar mitzvah and OOT relatives came in.
It's not something I can control.
The reality is that one son had a much larger bar mitzvah than the other.

amother

↑ Mistyrose ↓

Sun, Dec 08 2024, 8:12 pm

I feel like part of what I'm saying is either going right over people's heads or people are actively choosing to ignore it.

Yes. I understand life just runs differently for different people. Ie, a covid bar mitzvah vs a regular bar mitzvah, no one could have controlled for that.

I am talking about the things we CAN control, such as b'shittah making a huge bar mitzvah for the eldest cuz he's the eldest, but not making such an event for the next few boys because they're not the eldest. Or always giving the front seat to the oldest because they're the oldest- that's a choice the parent is making that they did not need to make. I don't intend to specifically make choices that reward one child over another based on nothing but family position, gender, etc. Same way I won't only give extra dessert every shabbos to the boys and not the girls, I wouldn't give extra dessert every Shabbos to the oldest simply cuz they're the oldest.

If my oldest had to babysit for me while I go to a simcha, I'd likely bring back some yummy treats from the simcha and the person who babysat will get first choice of those yummy treats or something. But if my eldest wasn't interested in babysitting and the next sibling who's 18 months younger was the one to babysit, then THEY'LL be the one to get the special treat. And if I had to hire a babysitter cuz both my oldest kids told me they had to study and aren't available to babysit, then maybe neither will get that special treat over the rest of their siblings. Seems pretty straightforward to me and not that hard to implement.

amother

DarkGray

Sun, Dec 08 2024, 8:21 pm

amother Mistyrose wrote:

You sound so sure of yourself but at the end of the day you have no control over what may happen. I'm sure my mom didn't plan on getting sick and me having to run the house. I'm sure she didn't plan on using up her money on illness so I didn't have the same privileges my older sister had. And then my younger siblings had them because times were better. You can plan and judge all you want...but you never know for sure what will be.

amother

↑ Tanzanite

Sun, Dec 08 2024, 8:31 pm

amother Mistyrose wrote:

It's not so simple because it's not so black and white.
For example babysitting. It's a bit of a grey area (say between 11 and 13) exactly when and under which circumstances one feels comfortable leaving a child to watch some younger siblings.

Many people when they're oldest turns 11 start leaving that child alone with 1 or 2 siblings for 20 minutes while Mom runs to the grocery or to pick up carpool. Not an official babysitting commitment,more like Yossi, you're in charge of Esti and Leah I'm running to buy milk and bread. It could be they're not 100% comfortable but comfortable enough.

But when oldest is 13 and second is 11, Mom may decide that the oldest is 13, she doesn't have to push herself to feel comfortable with the 11 year old watching younger siblings because after all, 13 year old is there. And 11 really is young.

But 13 year old is annoyed. After all when he was 11, he babysat for 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there.

It's not a formal thing.
So should Mom force herself to feel comfortable with the younger one when she doesn't? So many of us will compensate with small things. Sitting in the front more frequently. For example.

amother

↑ Mistyrose ↓

Sun, Dec 08 2024, 8:38 pm

amother Tanzanite wrote:

I hear all that. I hear that life is not black and white. Just because my kids are still little doesn't mean gray areas don't already come up all the time. I guess my point is, I don't see why rewarding one child has to mean that it's a consistent thing reserved for them that no one else can have. They'll get extra rewards for their extra responsibilities, it just won't be that this reward is reserved for them and no one else can have it. Maybe this time it means they got an extra scoop of ice cream and next time it means they get the front seat and the time after that it means they get to stay up a bit later than bedtime, etc. Why should other kids be made to feel "shotgun is eldest's seat always" if it's something they really want, especially if let's say this eldest doesn't even really care about shotgun, and their younger two siblings really do. I don't see the value in such a system.