On Parental Relationships

Kind feels like it was a long weekend, even though it most certainly wasn't. It was for some people who took Good Friday off, though, so maybe that feeling is just rubbing off on those of us who don't get the day off.

With the exception of the weather, I had a superb weekend. Seriously, Saturday was 45, windy, and very rainy. Sunday was 35 and sunny, but still really windy. The calendar says April, but I am seriously questioning this. Today is supposed to warm up a little bit.

As I mentioned on Friday, The Boy's older sister was visiting us this weekend. Really nice visit...she is really easy company and a complete joy to have around. And definitely a treat to get a couple days with her and not have the distractions of other family members and kids around all the time.

I do, however, have an observation;-)

I am fascinated by the different relationships that parents have with their different children. Obviously, my mother had a really different relationship with me than she had with Munchkin, but that is kind of for obvious reasons. The more I see it, though, the more it is clear that it is really a pretty common dynamic.

Sometimes there are clear reasons...Papa Bear has totally different relationships with Smoking Hot Roommate and Big Sis, which I have always attributed to their age difference and the all-encompassing nature of their mother's illness when SHR was little but Big Sis was a teenager. And The Boy and Twin Sister have different relationships with their parents that are pretty obviously related to being a boy and a girl.

However, what is less obvious are the reasons for the hugely different relationship that The Boy's Older Sister has with their mother than his Twin Sister does. Both have very good relationships with their mother (I would call them "enviable", but I an envious of anyone who can speak with her mother for five minutes without getting into a fight;-)), but they are really completely different.

And Twin Sister and Older Sister are not really that different. They have similar personalities, the same sense of humor and the same basic manner about them. I also think that they have pretty similar relationships with their fathers. And they look like sisters;-). But each, in her own healthy way, interacts with their mother in a completely different way. And their mother interacts with each of them in the same way.

Like, if she saw a dress she loved and wanted a second opinion, I can tell you which one she would call. If she saw something interesting on TV, I can tell you who she would call...she would call one of them if it was a news story, and another if it were like a documentary. I think she might call me if it was American Idol;-). If she were scared or sick, I can tell you who she would call then, too.

I suppose there could be some reasons...there are age and geography differences. But I am not sure that explains it. The Boy and his Older Brother have the same age and geography differences but don't have the kind of divergent relationships that their sisters and mother do.

So, I guess I am just going to call it 'inexplicable'. Although, I am pretty sure that the same kind of dynamic exists in a lot of families with a lot of children.