That is, if love equates to "quality time." New study blah blah blah says that first-born kids get more of mom and dad's time than the rest of the brood. Um, like this is news? Any parent-of-one upgrading to parent-of-more-than-one knows it's an exponential leap in the time and energy required, not to mention, weirdly, the number of baby wipes consumed. But I was still kind of staggered by the numbers:
First-borns get, overall, 20-30 minutes of "quality" time (that's face time, as opposed to being in the same room but not actually interacting) with each parent from ages 4-13, coming out to 3000 more hours than the next-best next-born. Whoa! Kind of makes me want to go hug my kids #2 and #3 right about now.
But if you think about it, it's true. By kid #2, you've sort of moved on from all the activities that were new with kid #1 and you have less time anyway, so instead you send kid #2 to go play with kid #1. I just had no idea it was 3000 hours true.
Do you go out of your way to even up time spent with your non-first-borns? Or do you just let the chips fall where they may and figure it's all good?
Photo: www.estateplanningorganizer.com