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Parents Love First-Borns More?

Posted by Karen Murphy

dad readThat 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




Comments

 

Treespeed said:

Sounds a bit sketchy to me, as the study assumes that parental face time outweighs the benefits of having a sibling. In many larger families the older siblings basically raise the children.

February 22, 2008 1:09 PM
 

mcglory13 said:

Yeah, and as an older sibling who raised the younger ones... I'd say that was not ideal for me or my sisters.

February 22, 2008 1:43 PM
 

Autumn said:

Not true.  My parents only had my sisblings because they wanted better ones than me!  I was not cuddly or sweet.  So they tried again.

February 22, 2008 3:28 PM
 

cooper1178 said:

Like all things it life, it depends on the situation.  In my family, I'm the oldest.  My sister is 3 years younger and she easily got more attention than me when she showed up.  I was a quiet and self-sufficient kid, she the exact opposite, and as we grew up, 3 years was just enough I never really wanted to hang out with her much.  My brother came 2 years after my sister, but got little time because my mom went back to work.  So he and my sister were together all the time.

I'm pregnant with my second that now, but my first will start kindergarten shortly after the baby is born, so I'm really not worried at all about giving fair and equal time to them both.

But then again, as the oldest, I'm the most loved, so what do I know!!

February 22, 2008 5:06 PM

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